Re: I know this is last minute, but...

In article <memo.20080531162649.1888E@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
jgd@xxxxxxxxx (John Dallman) wrote:


The road surfaces were /substantially/ worse in Pepys' day, and
the crowding was pretty bad too. Walking did involve getting mud,
horse***, and other stuff on your boots too.

Indeed, I've been watching a dramatisation of Bleak House, and I
remember reading a discussion about what exactly it was that Jo the
crossing sweeper actually swept. Dickens would have been too polite to
point out that it was mostly horse***.

It's amazing how much walking they do in Dickens. Leaving aside
Nicholas Nickleby and Smike walking from the vicinity of Barnard Castle
to London, there always walking from places like Elephant and Castle to
Camden Town. After Bill murders Nancy in Oliver Twist, he walks from
Nancy's lodgings in Clerkenwell to Potter's Bar, over to St. Albans and
then back to London. I've walked from Barnet to Potter's Bar, and it
took me best part of a morning.

Apparently, when Dickens was working in the Strand he lived in Camden
and used to "commute" but on foot, and described the long line of
pedestrians all walking to work in London.
.

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