one might be ornamental and the other
useful. But what think you, gentle reader, of walking with a Pedometer?
A Pedometer is an instrument cunningly devised to tell you how far and
how fast you walk, and is, quoth the Doctor, a "perambulator in
miniature." The box containing the wheels is made of the size of a
watch-case, and goes into the breeches pocket, and by means of a string
and hook, fastened at the waistband or at the knee, the number of steps
a man takes, in his regular paces, are registered from the action of the
spring upon the internal wheel-work at every step, to the amount of
30,000. It is necessary, to ascertain the distance walked, that the
average length of one pace be precisely known, and that multiplied by
the number of steps registered on the dial-plate.

All this is very ingenious; and we know one tolerable pedestrian who is
also a Pedometrist. But no Pedometrician will ever make a fortune in a
mountainous island, like Great Britain, where pedestrianism is
indigenous to the soil. A good walker is as regular in his going as
clock-work. He has his different paces--three, three and a half--four,
four and a half--five, five and a half--six miles an hour--toe and heel.
A common watch, therefore, is to him, in the absence of milestones, as
good as a Pedometer, with this great and indisputable advantage, that a
common watch continues to go even after you have yourself stopped,
whereas, the moment you sit down on your oil-skin patch, why, your
Pedometer (which, indeed, from its name and construction, is not
unreasonable) immediately stands still. Neither, we believe, can you
accurately note the pulse of a friend in a fever by a Pedometer.

What pleasure on this earth transcends a breakfast after a twelve-mile
walk? Or is there in this sublunary scene a delight superior to the
gradual, dying-away, dreamy drowsiness that, at the close of a long
summer day's journey up hill and down dale, seals up the glimmering eyes
with honey-dew, and stretches out, under the loving hands of nourrice
Nature, the whole elongated animal economy, steeped in rest divine from
the organ of veneration to the point of the great toe, be it on a bed
of down, chaff, straw, or heather, in palace, hall, hotel, or hut? If in
an inn, nobody interferes with you in meddling officiousness; neither
landlord, bagman, waiter, chambermaid, boots;--you are left to yourself
without being neglected. Your bell may not be emulously answered by all
th