PIKES AND MILESTONES. 8t 



a thoroughly rural cross road, where you meet but 

 very few persons, to ask each of them the distance to 

 the place of your destination, say four miles oft". 



Their answers will probably be after this style : 

 No. 1, 'A little better than three miles.' You walk 

 about half a mile, when you meet No. 2, who puts the 

 distance down at 'about four miles;' while No. 3, whom 

 you come upon about a hundred yards farther, will 

 make it ' nearer three than four.' After walking 

 another quarter of a mile it will probably be reduced 

 by No. 4 to ' about two ;' and as likely as not, the next 

 one. No. 5, will return to the original distance, and 

 put it down as ' handy upon four.' The result, I need 

 scarcely observe, leaves you in an utter state of 

 fog, removed only when you have actually walked the 

 distance, and formed, as best you could, your own 

 opinion upon it. 



The general appearance of the milestones, even 

 along the main-roads from London, is thoroughly 

 venerable and in many instances somewhat dilapidated, 

 especially those consisting wholly of stone, which 

 seem to indicate entire neglect for many years past, 

 and a necessity for having the letters and numbers 

 recut and painted in order to render them legible even 

 by close inspection. Many there are on which you 

 cannot make out anything beyond a letter or two, or a 

 figure here and there, the stone having become so 



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