34 THE EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD. 



dilated : while those cramped and distorted members 

 in the calf and kid are the unfortunate wretches 

 doomed to carriages and cushions. 



I am jiot going to advocate the disuse of boots and 

 shoes, or the abandoning of the improved modes of 

 travel ; but I am going to brag as lustily as I can on 

 behalf of the pedestrian, and show how all the shin- 

 ing angels second and accompany the man who goes 

 afoot, while all the dark spirits are ever looking out 

 for a chance to ride. 



When I see the discomforts that able-bodied Amer- 

 ican men will put up with rather than go a mile or 

 half a mile on foot, the abuses they will tolerate and 

 encourage, crowding the street carbon a little fall in 

 the temperature or the appearance of an inch or two 

 of snow, packing up to overflowing, dangling to the 

 straps, treading on each other's toes, breathing each 

 other's breaths, crushing the women and children, 

 hanging by tooth and nail to a square inch of the plat- 

 form, imperiling their limbs and killing the horses, 

 I think the commonest tramp in the street has 

 good reason to felicitate himself on his rare privilege 

 of going afoot. Indeed, a race that neglects or de- 

 spises this primitive gift, that fears the touch of the 

 soil, that has no foot-paths, no community of ownership 

 in the land which they imply, that warns off the 

 walker as a trespasser, that knows no way but the 

 highway, the carriage-way, that forgets the stile, the 

 foot-bridge, that even ignores the rights of the pedes- 

 trian in the public road, providing no escape for him 



