Omaha daily bee., 1921-07-10
BY Bus Through Pickwick Land.

There is now no stout old gentleman in a
blue coat and bright buttons, corduroy breeches
and top boots" to welcome guests to Manor
farm, Dingley Dell, and if Joe, Mr. Wardle's
fat boy, who loved to make peoples flesh creep,
is now alive, he is well over 100 years of age.
Yet tourists and admirers of Dickens may now
retrace the journey made by the Pickwick club
through the towns and rural districts near Lon
don.
The same roads that were traversed by
Samuel Pickwick and his associates on their re-
search tour, Tracy Tupman, Augustus Snod-
grass and Nathaniel Winkle, in the horse-drawn
omnibus of 1884, are now the scene of motor
coach excursions which guides point out the
scenes of various literary adventures.
According to word in the London papers, a
route of about 30 miles has been laid out right
into the heart of the Pickwick country. Starting
from London the tour climbs up the main ridge
of the North Downs with halt at Rochester
where luncheon is served at the Bull hotel,
made famous by Charles Dickens as the base
of operations of Mr.. Pickwck. Such was the
first journey of the immortal Pckwick, who
strobe into this old inn accompanied by Alfred
Jingle the impudent and impecunious strolling
player, who had rescued him from a cabman.
1t is as if these characters really lived and the
landlord will show you room No. IL as the one
which was occupied by the amiable leader OF the
Pickwick club From this place, Tupman and
Jingle sailed forth to the ball. where the auda-
cious rascal, attred in Wrinkles clothes, gets
their owner challenged to duel, which is finally
averted.
NJ An,,hf he
pointed out the drill ground where the party
attended military review, and so narrowly
escaped being caught in the firing They
lived, however, to meet Mr.. Wardle, the squire
of Dingley Dell, to say nothing of his two daugh-
tiers, his sister, who afterward eloped with the
fortune hunting Jingle, and of the fat boy whose
ability to sleep even while knocking at doors
has been SO amusngly chronicled.
What memories will be evoked if Manor
farm can be identified, where the Pickwickians
displayed more enthusiasm than skill in their
devotion to sport, where Winke winged Tup-
man instead of shooting the birds, and the scene
Of the famous skating party. Over this road
sped the indignant Pickwick and Mr. Wardle to
apprehend and buy off Jingle from his determin-
alton to marry the squire's ancient sister, trip
on which Sam Weller was engaged, and there
after to remain ever faithful to his master.
The journey of the motor coach is not
through London, but memory will arise, never
theless, of the awkward effort of Mr.. Pickwick
to explain to his 1andlady that he has hired a
servant, conversation which led her to scent
proposal of marriage and to the famous breach
Of promise suit of Bardell versus Pickwick.
Even while rolling comfortably along the yew-
lined country lanes, lovers OF Dickens may think
of the honest refusal of their hero to pay dam
ages and of his incarceration in Fleet prison,
accompanied still by the faithful Sam. He found
Jingle there and later Mrs. Bardell herself i'm
prisoned for failure to pay her lawyers, debt
which was calamity settled by Pickwick. Thus
was freedom and happy ending assured
Almost as pleasant as the first reading of the
"Pickwick Papers" must be this all-day journey
through Kent, appropriately closing with sight
of Gad's Hill Place, where Dickens lived and
died. Ninety years have passed since Pickwick
went this way, but for all that he lives still in the
imagination of readers all over the world, and
the route covered by the Pickwick club, al
though fictitious, assumes all the reality of his
tory