Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1879 — Ancient Expresses. [ARTICLE]

Ancient Expresses.

A well-known means of sending news rapidly, in a country with such bad roads as Greece, was by trained runners; thus we are told that Phidippides, a professional courier, ran from Athens to Sparta to beg for aid, just before Marathon, arriving at the latter city at the end of the second day; and this was a distance of 150 miles. The constant gymnastic training in which Greek, and especially Spartan, soldiers kept themselves, enabled whole armies to make very rapid forced marches. In the present instance the Spartan army, though slow to start, yet when it did march performed the distance in three days. So the old Chasseurs de Vincennes and picked light troops of the French army were trained to make swift marches by running one on either side of a cavalry soldier whose stirrup leathers they caught hold of. . This, we believe, or something like it, is still kept up among the zouaves. The episode of the “Fiery Gross,” in the “Lady of the Lake,” shows how quickly a district may be aroused by a well-organized system of running messengers. Indeed, the swiftness of rumor is as proverbial as its exaggeration. Lady Duff Gordon, in her voyage up the Nile, found that the news of her approach invariably outstripped her movements, rapid as they were.