Girl's Great Walk.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 7 July 1910, Page 4

Girl's Great Walk.

• £10 WAGER LOST AFTER CO Y ER.T XG SI XT YhSIX MI LKS

HYSTEIMCATJ COLLAPSE

A young American society girl, who started out to walk 108 miles lor a. wager of £10, collapsed in hysterics on Friday after covering just over sixty-six miles.

The heroine of this great feat is Miss Sleaiuvr Sears, one of tho bastknown sportswomen in tihe United ■States, an expert rider and driver, golfer, swimmer, and lawn teinwis player, and a warm personal Bostonian friend of Mrs Nicholas Longworth, Colonel Roosevelt's daughter. She was recently discussing tine feat of a doctor named MoEnetry, who had walked from llurlingaino to Delmoute, 108 miles, in thiirty-seven hours. She warmly resented the idea that men should ho given all the credit for everything, land she offered to bet a couple of California n friends that she could walk ■the distance in fifty-five hours. She added the caustic comment: "Most society men nowadays tare mollycoddles, anyhow."

a motor-car and driven bavk to Burgreat undertaking at six o'clock on Thursday morning. Clad in an Eton jacket, wihite duck skint, tourist cap, and solid sihoes, s'lio stai"t>o doff, « motor-car takiinig sotae elderly friends, food, and a change of olotibes. Several hundred ladies set out with her, but at Paloalto, fourteen miles distant, which was reached at 9.15, Miss Sears had only two gir'ls iheside her, and lan hour laiter was trudging all alone. By eleven ait night she had walked fifty-six miles. Although limping and languid, she walked another hour before her friends tried to coax her to shelter in a cottage till sunrise. Her voice was high-pitohod, and sllie looked 'as if She would fall. She ■asked for a glass of water, aind a young man fetched it and ihianded it" t'o her, but she refused to take it. She was quito hysterical, and til© ladies got down -from their motorcars a,nd ibesough't her to give up, 'but after everybody liiad offered her counsel sho romiaitked in ia shrill, nln-nat-ural voice: "I'm going on." And on alio struggled till Gelroy was reached. She 'had negotiated sixtysix miles in 201 ii". 15min. Her friends at this stage induced her to seek shelter in a roadside cottage. She insisted that dhe si ton Id be called at sunrise, but when sunrise came lier wiliole l>ody adliecl to such an extant that slie was unimble t" move. She had to be .lifted into & motor-car anddriven back to Burlinganve.