MAKING WALKING EASY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19216, 4 January 1926, Page 8

MAKING WALKING EASY.

HOP p LES FOR PEDESTRIANS. NAVAL OFFICER'S INVENTION* - /• _ LONDON, Deo. 19. • Tho novel sight of a stout businosfi man yetfifag -eliistic hopples, and- walking Bmartly in London streets . bewildered gpeci'ators. explanation is.-that the wearer was using a ypung. naynl officer's invention for the purpose " of facilitating pedestrian locomotion," .The inventor claims that the use of the hopples accelerates walking and running by 25 per cent, for the expenditure of the same amount of energy. It ■would similarly increaso tho range of the soldier's day's march, would enable aged people and invalids to take a useful constitutional, and would assist postmen, sandwichmen and messengers, but if used by malefactors) tha police would be forced ;to ftdoipt, it. If it were used in the Loudon-Brighton walking raco (47 miles), it would save half an hour. The inventor hopes to arrange for a test to be made in the next race. Various people, including women, are satisfactorily using tho invention. A middle-aged 16-stone man, who osually lagged, astonished hi.s neighbours by overtaking them when walking to the station. He' says that he saves four minutes in miles nphill," arid neither perspires, nor ibecomes breathless. An indifferent university athlete, using the elastic, entered in a race in which there wore 21 competitors arid ran second. He reached the post with such impetus that be required 15yds. in which to pull up.