Evening star., 1926-12-11

1.-THE first hundred years are the
hardest" some one has said about life.
Templeton Jones believes this to be
true, after his recent five-mile walk
through the snow, the longest tramp
| he has taken i'll many long year.
, Let no one sneer.
There are tens of thousands Of per-
sons In Washington who have not
done so much as walk two miles at a
stretch for nobody knows how many
years. No doubt there are thousands
| more who can scarOa;v reca. the la st
time they walked mile.
AS for those who regularly walk as
much as five miles Il day, their num-
ber probably could be counted on the
fingers Of a good-sized octopus, at
, least.
With real hikers. of course. five
| miles Is as nothing. something just to
be rolled off the feet, a pleasant diver.
sion, a little pickme-up before break
fast or gentle trot after dinner.
Why, Charles Dickens thought no
more of a 15-mile walk than most of
us today do of a 50-mile run in the
car on Sunday afternoon. If one
may believe what he reads Of Vie
| torian England, even the ladies' took
pleasant strolls of 10 miles all of q
sunny afternoon, or Just walked
over" eight or nine miles to call on a
| friend.
Tramping through the rain accord
ing to what one has read. is still the
! most genuine entertainment English
| men can find. They must have stout
! boots over there
AS for our friend Jones. he never
could see any fun whatever in walk
/ ing through the rain. The last time he
tried it he got his feet wet. and re-
| turned only to find that the thick red
| paint which the painter had put on
/ the roof that morning was dripping
| all over the back porch. After that
Jones was not surprised when rival
painter, viewing the roof. declared
! pointedly, That's nice red ink YOU
have on your roof Better let me
paint it for YOU
This cured Jones of walking in the
| ram. Thereafter the day had to be
| sunny, at least. if the world was to
be treated to the diverting sight of
Templeton Jones extending his legs
methodicaly one after the other over
! considerable stretches of ground.
! Now mile seems nothing at all or
| even less. when one reads about it in
| the paper. So and So went 200 miles
| an hour in his airpiane. Some ex.
ploring party has covered 5000 miles
and another one has been six times
around the world and back again. All
, this means nothing; it is only theory,
in which a mile is an unknown and
unregarded quantity.
But get out on your two legs and
start walking, Then a mile turns out
to be quantity of measurement. in
deed. 1t is the same way with a ton
OF coal. 4 ton. in the bin. seems little
enough. Heaven knows. Nor does it
particularly strike one ae immense
when the man is putting il in with his
shovel and wash boiler
Put in Il ton Of coal yourself i'm
mediately it becomes staggering
thing. d heap. indeed real quantity.
through which one digs and digs and
digs. and which one lugs and lugs and
lugS.
In the matter Of walking q mile is
made longer. as every one knows. in
ratio 10 the time one spends away
from personally counting them.
The longer one refuses to walk. the
; longer become the miles.
Ii You don't believe it try d i0-mile
walk tomorrow.
* II
Jones was getting too fat around
the mid.Section. He felt as if he had
a pillow tied around his waist, only
placed permanently in front. For the