MODERN PICKWICKS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 113, 16 May 1927, Page 7

MODERN PICKWICKS.

t From the Golden Cross Hotel to Rochester. ) CENTENARY CELEBRATION. LONDON, May 15. To-day, exactly a century after the journey of Pickwick, Snodgrass and Winkle and the remainder of their friends, a party boarded a coach at the Golden Cross Hotel in the Strand and drove off for Rochester, the passengers - attired exactly as the originals. The horn was blown, and the four 1 horses clattered and lunged. Crowds 7 cheered the progress of the coach from - Whitehall via Westminster Bridge and j thence to Southwark, the junction of the new and old Kent roads. r The Mayor in his robes and chains greeted the travellers, everybody laughed e cheered and waved. Then on through Eltharn, into the countrysides' sweetl smelling hedges. The horses were . changed in Biendon, where the party were jerked into the present day by an i announcement "After hours." Thereafter ; they pursued their merry rollicking way r to .Rochester, where the robed Mayor and corporations assembled. Thousands cheered, and ale in tankards i was served from the Bull Hotel, after f which luncheon was partaken of and then r Pickwickians were made members of the Dickens Fellowship. Finally they ' attended service in the Cathedral.