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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 3 (July 1, 1929)

The Last Pedestrian

The Last Pedestrian.

One night I dreamed a dream. I saw, as in a glass damply, a vision of the last pedestrian on earth. I noticed that he was small and gaunt—as if he had run fast and far—but in his eye was the stubborn fatalistic expression of the Tuatara.

Travelling “First.”

Travelling “First.”

Although it was obvious that he was determined to sell his life dearly, with his back to the bitumen, he was doing his best to keep his obituary out of the papers. It was evident that he was a decadent specimen of an almost vanished race.

Although every occupant of the charging cars was doing his best to carry out the slogan of “get your man,” the lone pedestrian succeeded in beating the “balloons.” But he was hard pressed and it was obvious that he was up against the radiators. As each jangling juggernaut rushed him with gleaming headlights and snarling exhaust he leapt over it, under it, or betwixt it.

Finally the end came with merciful swiftness. He slipped on a patch of gear grease and bit the bitumen. With a hoot of gasolinian glee, fifty taxis, lorries and limousines leaped on his recumbent form, and when they had finished he was transmogrified.

The scene changed. Suddenly I noticed what appeared like a wisp of mist, which rose above the scene of his downfall and then settled to the ground. Slowly it assumed human form, turned and smiled at me, and I saw that it was the ghost of the last pedestrian—the unconquerable, unquenchable, valiant spirit of the typical pedestrian had survived, and was pedestrianating to its own send-off. Vive le pedestrian!

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“A wealth of fern trees filling every nook With glorious circles of voluptuous green.” —Mrs. Hubert Heron. A typical road scene in the famous Buller Gorge, South Island, New Zealand.

“A wealth of fern trees filling every nook
With glorious circles of voluptuous green.”
—Mrs. Hubert Heron.

A typical road scene in the famous Buller Gorge, South Island, New Zealand.