Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1886 — THE POSTMAN ON WALKING. [ARTICLE]

THE POSTMAN ON WALKING.

Kntes for Getting Along In Slippery Weather Straddle and Beware of Your HeeU. 'From the New York Sun, | -All but doctors and meh who sell liniment will be glad to read the advice that follows about the proper way to walk in slippery times. The advice came from a very old postman, jogging homo from his daily rounds. “You’ve postmen climbing U P stoops, diving into basements and scoot-. ing across streets in the slipperiest kind ofl weather,” the old man said, “but I’m sure you never saw a postman fall down, unless he was very young and inexperienced. Walking, you see, is the most important part of a postman’s duty next to ringing door bells so as to bring the girl on the first ring. I can tell you in two minutes how to walk; and if you remember what I say you will never fall any more. “In the first place you must go along with your feet pretty far apart That is one important thing. Most people walk with their feet close together—• very close. That’s all right in summer, but in winter it’s all wrong. Your foot is likely to land on a round piece of ice or snow and slip "sidewise toward the other foot which is going along all right—ls your f eet are close together, nine times out of ten the one that slips will knock the other one from under you, and down you go. If it doesn’t it will get so thoroughly mixed up with it that your ankles will curl all together, just like grapevines, and before you can get them straightened out, down you go anyhow. If your feet are well apart, as they should be, you have time to think, reflect and get ready before the crash comes, and perhaps save a bone. Another impdrtint 'thing is to land well on the ball of the foot when you walk. If you can’t get the ball of your foot down first, bring it down just as soon as you do the heel, anyhow. Come down flatfooted. That isn’t fancy heel-and-toe walking, but it’s business, and it’s safer. And' this is why. You may slip and fall a million times, and every time, if you notice anything, you will notice that it was your heel that slipped and not the ball of your foot. It is always the heel that slips. I don’t know why, unless it is that the sole of the shoe, being broader, gets a firmer hold, “These two rules, if you follow them out ca efully, will save you the price of a good many bottles of arnica.’ There are some others, but they are; not so important. One is always to keep the body limber as you go along; keep the legs limber at the knees too/ It is always a stiff, dignified sort of a man that goes down, because he bolds himself so that he is not prepared to lean quickly one way or the other and save himself. I don’t want to see the nation get round-shouldered, but to hold the shoulders too far back in slippery weather is not very good either; it fixes one all ready to fall. The best way to hold one’sself is in imitation of thosejlndians that you see pictures of going along at a sort of jog trot with their bodies stooping a little forward. Keep your eves on the ground before you, as tiioqgh you was following a trail,- and look for very slippery spots, and, observe the other rules; and if you are a lady you can aispensT Wttir-the humiliation of holding your muff behind your back, trying to make folks believe you prefere to carry it that way. ”