A wonderful increase of popularity has lately attended the art of walking. The steady improvement made in speed and endurance by professional and amateur walkers and the introduction of international contests have brought this about within a few years.

When the firm of Beadle and Adams published their first Dime book of Pedestrianism the only American walker of reputation was Edward Payson Weston. The record of professionals and amateurs had then developed nothing greater than the performances of Captain Barclay of England who first did a thousand miles in a thousand hours. Weston's famous walk from Portland to Chicago caused the only ripple of excitement in the sporting world on the subject of walking from the time of Barclay up to 1870.