Bassett's Scrap Book, Vol 8, No 5
Articles in this issue
- Previews the Century Road Club of America's first annual Bermuda cycle tour, July 23-August 1, expected to include a 10-mile handicap race open to both Bermuda riders and the touring party; most tourists will lodge at leading Hamilton hotels while cyclists are quartered at the nearby Frascatti, and Secretary Fred E. Mommer warns that delayed bookings may leave latecomers without staterooms. Notes that the City of Boston, having no room for it under the new charter, has deposited at L.A.W. headquarters the Council Chamber portrait of Charles E. Pratt, first President of the L.A.W. and President of the Boston Common Council in 1882. John S. Briggs of Rochester, N.Y., sends his twenty-fifth consecutive dues dollar, recalling the young, 'slim, black-tighted' Hendee and 'Jack Prince, the husky white-clothed professional' racing at Springfield in 1885-86, and noting that both he and the now-stout Hendee have since taken to motor bicycles.
- A poem by James Gauld addressed to a wheel left dusty and rusted over winter, looking ahead to repairing it and riding the open road again in spring.
- A further run of twenty-fifth-renewal letters: Leonard D. Hunt of Exeter, N.H. renews his dues and tells a joke about a Hartford man, 'Pat,' counting the bricks in a saloon-keeper's new building, using it to argue that L.A.W. dues likewise pay quiet dividends in good roads and the promotion of cycling. J. D. Chism Jr. of Albany writes that the wheel cured him of over a dozen years of chronic dyspepsia and that at 59 he feels better than he did at 30. Albert S. Parsons, elected the L.A.W.'s Secretary at its 1880 Newport organization, sends his dollar from behind the wheel of his automobile, treasuring memories of the high-wheel era though lamenting that every issue brings news of another old friend's death.
- An account of the death of Judge Conway Whittle Sams, who fell ill on a fishing trip from Baltimore to Rehoboth in August 1909 and died of thrombosis at Atlantic City on Sept. 5; born in Chester, S.C., Jan. 22, 1862, he studied at Johns Hopkins and graduated in law from the University of Maryland in 1884.
- Records the deaths of Charles F. McKenney of Denver, a Colorado mining pioneer and L.A.W. member since 1884 (no. 167), who died May 26, and of Dr. Henry Granger Piffard, professor of dermatology at New York University and L.A.W. member since 1893, who died June 8, 1909. A correspondent signing 'H. M. S.' sends a twenty-fifth-annual-renewal letter urging the League to keep going and not get discouraged. Reports a U.S. Board of General Appraisers ruling (importer Wells, Fargo & Co.) upholding 45% duty on imported bicycle saddles rather than the lower 35% leather-goods rate, recounts two cyclists who beat the Franco-Italian frontier customs post below the pont St. Louis by eating their 'contraband' lunch on French soil rather than pay duty on it, and recalls old Pennsylvania wheelmen who dodged toll-gate vehicle charges by shouldering their bicycles and paying the foot-passenger fare.
- Explains the class-number system used to price magazine subscription clubs and lists best-selling periodicals—including McClure's, Cosmopolitan, Outing, and Review of Reviews—with their club class numbers and wholesale rates.