ELASTIC LEGS.

Northern Advocate, 9 January 1926, Page 6

ELASTIC LEGS.

SPEEDING-UP BY CATAPULT. FUNNY SCENE IN LONDON. LONDON, December 18. The novel sight of a stout business man, hobbled with an elastic catapult, walking smartly in London streets, tins afternoon caused both bewilderment and amusement. The explanation was that _ lie was iisin" a young naval officer’s invention for the purpose of “facilitating pedestrian locomotion.” The inventor claims that the use of the hobbles accelerates walking _ amfe running 25 per cent for an expenditure of the same amount of energy. He declares that it would similarly increase the range of a soldier’s day march, enable aged and invalid people to take useful constitutional outings, and assist post- ; men, sandwichmen and messengers. If used by malefactors, be says, the police would be forced to adopt them also, and if used in the London-Brighton walking race, they would save competitors half-an-hour. He hopes to arrange a test of this at the next race. Various people, including women, the officer claims, are using the invention with satisfaction. A middle-aged man, weighing 10 stone, who usually lagged behind, perspiring, astonished his neighbours by overtaking them while walking to the station. This man says that he saves four minutes in a mile and a half walk uphill, and that he neither perspires nor arrives breathless. An indifferent University athlete, using the elastic, entered a race with twenty-one competitors. He ran second, and reached the winning-post with such impetus that lie required 15 yards to pull up.