Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1874 — Running Footmen. [ARTICLE]

Running Footmen.

In former days, when coaches did not go above five miles an hour, and roads were not macadamized, footmen used to run before their masters. They were considered indispensable attendants upon the carriage of a great man, and doubtless their services were often in requisition. They cleared the way, paid the turnpikes, helped to pull the carnage out of the ruts, or to support it on one side to prevent it being overturned; and they bore torches, which, in London, they put out on their return home by means of the iron extinguishers attached to the lamp-railings, such as may yet be seen in front of the old houses in May Fair. The dress of the running footman was often gaudy,. and he carried in his hand a long pole, six or seven feet long, with a silver ball at the end, made hollow, which was te hold an egg or some wine. The pole was also used for leaping ditches or hard parts of the road; and great feats in this way are recorded of some footmen. The powers of endurance of these men were wonderful. It is asserted thaton a bad road they could easily keep ahead of a coach-and-six, but on level ground the pace of the horses would be slackened on their account. It was not unusual for them to go sixty miles in the day. A Duke of Marlborough drove a phaeton-and-four from London to Winchester against one of them, and only just beat him; but the man did not long survive this unnatural strain upon his strength. The Duke of Queensbury, who died in 1810, was the last to keep up the custom. A trace of it lingers among the English in the attendance of grooms who walk by state carriages, and that of the mutes at funerals who precede,, the hearse. The long pole was the origin of the silverheaded canes now borne by footmen standing behind a carriage. ■I I —The total rail shipments of ore and pig iron from the Lake Superior district last year amounted to 1,163,827 tons of ore, and 31,246 tons of pig iron. The figures given for pig iron do not, however, represent the total shipments of the district, some half a dozen important furnaces situated at lake ports within the district having loaded directly on boats, without the aid of railroads. The product of these ftirnaces swells the aggregate shipments of pig iron by several thousand tons. ■ ■ —lowa City has S.CTO scholars in attendance at its schools. . \