Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 February 1910 — UNCANNY GUIDES. [ARTICLE]

UNCANNY GUIDES.

When the Gallon* Was Used a Landmark In England. The old-time guidebooks in England were by no means fcheerful reading. A journey from London to East Grinstead, ajjistance of--flve or six and twenty .miles, would have taken the horseman past three gibbets, and it was just as likely as not or the other of them a body would be swinging in the wind. Up till the beginning of the nineteenth century the gallows was almost as frequent a landmark as finger posts or pubHc. houses have become now. The traveler, approaching York is directed by the guidebooks to “turn -round by the gallows and three windmills, and the road out of Durham 1 is “between the gallows and Crokehill,” Going out of Wells “cross the brook and pass by the gallows.” Any nuntber of such directions can be gleaned from the old books for the guidance of travelers a hundred years ago, and as these interesting objects were put up and the dead bodies of malefactors left upon them for the special edification of- footpads and highwaymen there wap a suggestiveness about them that must have given a spcciaj piquancy to cycle touring if it had ij>eep in vogue at that time. — London News.