LONDON TO YORK.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19009, 3 November 1923, Page 10

LONDON TO YORK.

HORSEMAN’S TIME BEATEN BY PEDESTRIAN.

George Cummings, 50 years old, who started from London on August 27 to walk to York, 198 miles, with the object of covering the distance in less time than that occupied by Mr Tyrwhitfc Drake on his Arab horse, The Sheik, accomplished his task on August 31. Ho started on the last stage of his journey from Doncaster to York, a distance of 34 miles, at 7.25 a.m. the same day, and reached the Mansion House at York at 1.47, the distance from London being covered in 1 hour 20 minutes less than that taken by The Sheik. The route from the city boundary at Fulford to the Mansion House was crowded on both sides of the roadway, and the walker was received with great enthusiasm. He accelerated his speed as he entered York. Walking at the rate of sever; miles an hour ho kept the horses of two mounted policemen at a jog-trot and the people on foot at a smart run. , At the Mansion House the crowd had grown to large proportions, and cheers greeted Cummings on the achievement of his remarkable task. Ho appeared quit© fresh, and in an address to the crowd he said a man was never past his prime until he thought ho was. Then he was taken shoulder high by members cf the Rugby Union Club Committee to the Turkish baths and was subsequently entertained at luncheon by Sir W. Forster Todd. Cummings passed over the River Ouse into the East Riding at Selby at 11.5 a.m., having covered the 20 miles or his nnal stage from Doncaster in 3 hours 25 minutes. Ho covered the last 14 miles m 2 hours minutes. For the last 34 miles his time was 5 hours 52 minutes. Cummings formerly liven in Selby, ana when walking through the town was recognised by a colli© dosr which follow ed him for a long way, and had to be taken into the care of the police. Americans dote on Fountain Court in the Temple, not because of Charles Lamb or Oliver Goldsmith, who were ohen there in person, but because of Ruth Pinch and her lover, John Westlock, whom Dickens causes to meet there, but who are, or course, only fictitious characters. Dickens ••spoofed” them! It is the same with the Doone Valley, in Devonshire. Exmoor is a fine district and has many real attractions, but its greatest is sheer “spoof’ invented by that great story-teller Richard Doddridge Blackmore, who told the tale of Lorna Doone and “Girt Jan Ridd. Americans flock to see the very spot where John and Lorna first met on the banks of the stream It is not half as picturesque as they had imagined, but they people the place with Blackmore’s fictitious characters and go away happy. Visitors, to the famous Trossachs, which have a odputy of their own, are more interested in Helen s isle and Rob Roy’s cave than in the rest of the scenery, and similarly Robert Burns s fiction of “Tam o’ Shanter” has made the Kirk of Alloway far more interesting than any cathedral. Sir Walter Scott “takes the cake” for real “spoof” when he' gives Amy Robsart 15 years of life which history denies her. The visit cf Queen Elizabeth to Kenilworth took place in 1575, when Amy had been, dead 15 year's, yet Scott makes the whole plot of his novel “Kenilworth turn on the meeting there of these two wotifiii. All along the North rosd from London to York there are legends of Turpin and Black Bess. Char-a-bancs parties are shown the site of one of the toll-gates leaped by his famous mare. Turpin galloped on Black Bess not along the North road but through the brain of the Victorian novelist, Harrison Ainsworth, who, having begun the famous ride, sat up all night to finish it! ■ ** This is one of the worst cases of manslaughter of this land that I have been called upon to deal with. If you had been suffered to escape after killing this man without severe punishment there would be but little hope for the safety of foot passengers in London after that.” In these words Mr Justice Salter, at the Old Bailey, sentenced John William Driscoll, 38, taxi dricer, to 12 months’ imprisonment for the manslaughter, of Charles Jackson on May 5 by knocking him down in the Old Kent road with his taxi cab. It was stated that after knocking down deceased prisoner drove on, but was eventually stopped. He denied that it was his cab. Insect which live on vegetable foods are slow and inoffensive, while those which feed on -animal substances are very active, pitiless, and quarrelsome.