In April 1808, Mr. Podgers walked four hundred miles in eight successive days, for a wager of two hundred guineas. He started at Basingstoke, and from Hampshire went into the counties of Wilts, Gloucester, Somerset, Sussex, and Kent, finishing at Maidstone. He walked twelve hours each day, and slept eight. His weight was fourteen stones, and he did not appear the least fatigued at any period of the journey.
Mr. Dowler, a publican at Towcester, Northamptonshire, walked five hundred miles in seven successive days, for a bet of one hundred guineas. He started on the 3d of November 1808, and finished on the 9th, at three o’clock in the afternoon.
Captain Howe is a celebrated pedestrian, and walked three hundred and forty-six miles in six days, for a wager of two hundred guineas. He started on the 8th of March 1808, at four in the morning, to go from London to Exeter, and made out sixty-four miles by nine at night, having stopped at Basingstoke for an hour. On the following day he walked seventy miles; and on the third day, arrived at Exeter to dinner, where he stopt three hours, but returned to Honiton to sleep. On the fourth day, he reached within nine miles of Salisbury; and on the fifth night, slept at a public house near Basingstoke. He had now forty-nine miles to perform on the sixth day, which accomplished by six o’clock in the evening. Captain Howe, on the 28th of the same month, gained a match of two hundred guineas against Captain Hewetson, having walked eighty miles in less than twenty-four hours.--He also beat Mr. Smith in a twenty mile race on the Uxbridge road, about the end of October 1809. Mr. Smith was the favourite before starting; but Captain Howe performed the distance in two hours and twenty minutes, beating his adversary by half a mile.
On the 9th of June 1812, Captain Howe undertook to go sixty miles in twelve hours for a wager of two hundred guineas. He started at four o’clock in the morning, and did half the distance in twelve minutes less than six hours. He continued at the rate of five miles in the hour, and won the match within ten minutes of the time allowed.
Mr. Canning, a gentleman in Hampshire, walked three hundred miles in less than five days. He started at the turnpike road four miles from Basingstoke, at four in the morning, and went sixty miles in fourteen hours. He finished his task two miles from Yeovil in Somersetshire, by eleven at night, on the fifth day. He was apparently so little fatigued, that probably he could have continued for several days; but in the course of the journey, he lost twenty-six pounds in weight.