Vol 3, No 31
Articles in this issue
- With Boyce declining re-election, the leading article sets out in full what the Honorary Secretary actually does, summoning committee and general meetings and writing their reports, sitting ex officio on every sub-committee, and above all the Race Committee work of printing tickets and programmes, advertising, and engaging ground, band, policemen and clerks of the course, then the dinner arrangements and speech, the first draft of the Annual Report, the book of rules and the rota of members, so that nobody takes office under a false impression.
- Theo. Godlee passes on the Lombard B.C.'s special invitation to the L.B.C. to their social at "Jack Straw's Castle" on 8th December at 7.30, the company confined to the two clubs with the Belsize and the Druids, and to the subsequent fortnightly meetings.
- Hon. Sec. Herbert R. Boyce asks District Captains to send in their reports for the year, members to forward accounts of tours and notes of any day's ride of 100 miles or over, and racing members to supply lists of the prizes they have won.
- The full report of the annual dinner at St. James's Restaurant on 24th November, Captain Theo. Godlee in the chair. Speeches are given at length: Godlee's review of the year (the Cambridge meet at Hitchin, a beaten race series with the C.U.Bi.C., talk of an Oxford match, the Bath Trials in which only Butler met him at the far end, and a plea to all his officers but himself to stay), Mr. Cornell and Mr. Mayor of the C.U.Bi.C., T. E. Scrutton on officers and committees, Boyce on the Club's "alarming tendency towards matrimony" in the South-East, H. E. Millar and Editor Ashley Barrett on the Gazette, W. A. Smith and H. V. Cleaver on the racing members, and Dr. Langmore on the ladies; the musical programme performed under W. A. Smith with C. E. Law at the piano closes the account.
- The seating plan of the annual dinner, naming every diner and guest at the tables, Godlee, Boyce, Ashley Barrett, Wyndham, Potter, the Kinders, the Kochs, the Brownes, Cleaver, N. B. Morris and their friends among them.
- District Captain Fredk. M. Williams announces that if the ice bears on the Bank Holiday after Christmas Day several members will skate on the lake in Gatton Park, meeting at Central Croydon Station at 11 a.m., with the run extended if there is no ice; the next S.E. social evening is fixed for the "King's Arms Hotel," Croydon, on 8th January 1881.
- Twenty-three members instead of the dozen expected sat down to tea at the "King's Arms Hotel," Croydon, on the 13th, taxing the landlord's resources; songs from Boyce, Hill, Koch, Thorn, Newman, Johns, Kinder, Potter and Oswald followed, with a recitation from H. G. A. Brown and Johns and Law at the piano. About ninety ball tickets were reported sold, the programme was debated (probably to be shaped like the Club badge), and the hope was expressed that the Captain would reconsider his retirement.
- Twenty-one members attended the district's first social of the winter at the "Holly Bush Hotel," Hampstead, on 20th November, sixteen taking the 2s. meat tea; the piano was kept going most of the evening with W. Johns and Law accompanying. The next meeting is proposed for 15th January in the house's larger "Masonic Room," with better acoustics.
- District Captain Ernest H. Barrett has engaged a room with a piano at the "Guildhall Tavern," Gresham Street, for Saturday 18th December, tea at 6.30 p.m. at 2s.; a City room was chosen rather than the suburbs to draw members of other districts, and he asks his own district to help defray the cost.
- At the annual general meeting of 2nd November at 47, Finsbury Circus, Frank Jolly in the chair, the Hon. Sec. presented his accounts and resigned; the spring concert proved a success in every way but financially, the balance slightly wrong through unpaid-for tickets. Alfred Henry was elected Hon. Treasurer and Secretary, the annual concert set for February or March, and members willing to play in the orchestra at the Dramatic Society's 13th January entertainment are asked to write.
- A circular goes out with this Gazette for the first performance at St. George's Hall on 13th January 1881, tickets from acting manager F. M. Williams at 24, Dingwall Road, Croydon, reserved stalls 4s., balcony 2s. The full list of members who have joined the Society so far is printed, with an invitation to other L.B.C. men to subscribe at 5s. without entrance fee.
- Final arrangements for the ball at the Public Hall, Croydon, on Thursday 9th December: dancing from 7.30 until about one, tickets 5s. and 10s. 6d. including supper, over 120 already sold and the sexes nearly even, the Captain unavoidably absent. The hall holds 200 dancers, the drugget will be laid by a man who understands it, and the band of five includes three players coming down from London; trains and an omnibus for the Blackheath men are detailed.
- A special correspondent reports the concluding meeting at Stamford Bridge on the 6th ultimo, where fine weather drew a large crowd. In the One Mile Open Bicycle Handicap H. V. Cleaver of the L.B.C. caught Woolnough and the limit man but, out of condition, failed to stay home; Liles of the Temple B.C. won the final from scratch by four yards from Shaw in 2 min. 55 sec.
- A table supplied by G. P. Coleman, official timekeeper to the Bicycle Union, and never previously published, giving present and previous records at every mile from 1 to 50 with holder and ground, Keith-Falconer's 2 min. 46 sec. mile at Cambridge, Cortis holding almost everything from three miles to forty-nine at Leicester, Surbiton and Stamford Bridge, and Griffith's fifty miles at Surbiton.
- From the Solicitors' Journal: an account of how quickly bicycle law has developed, from a Wandsworth magistrate ruling that anything with two wheels is a bicycle, through "Taylor v. Goodwin" holding the machine a "carriage" within the Highway Act 1835 (so its rider is liable for furious driving and may not use the footpath, though he need not paint his name on it), to the 1878 Act letting quarter sessions make bye-laws, which has produced absurdities such as lamp placement rules and locomotive stopping signals, and an argument that the Local Government Board should frame uniform national regulations.
- A sketch signed "Dodo" on the hardest of all resolutions: a pipe-side reverie before a newly bought nickel-plated American alarum clock, the dreadful moment of waking at five to a cloudless Kentish sky with no excuse of rain, and a legion of alarums since, one overwound, one silenced by a hurled boot, others discarded for going off at the wrong hour. Practical hints follow: go to bed early, decide the night before where you will ride, and turn out at the first stroke without inspecting the weather.
- "L'Homme Qui Rit" on the ladies rallying to the S.E. ball and his own intention to appear resplendent in club badge and colours; the President finding Leipsic so benighted that he has not seen a bi., tri. or any other 'cycle; rumours of the Treasurer's return on 15th January; Boyce's easy chaff at the dinner earning broken wine glasses; the Military Member singing "The Two Grenadiers" at St. James's Hall the same night as Signor Foli; and an appeal for more than fair words for the Dramatic and Orchestral Societies.
- Two further letters: "Misogynist" blames the Editor as the fons et origo mali of the club's epidemic of marriages, foreseeing the Bath race run in couples on double tricycles with a fifteen-hour limit and boards inscribed "To Bachelors…Beware!"; and W. J. Williams of 23, Highbury Place encloses an Evening Standard notice that the Tramways Company will seek powers for lines from the "Archway Tavern" to Finchley and from Swiss Cottage to Chipping Barnet, half-ruining a northern bicycling artery.
- "A Member" argues that prejudice against the bugle comes from the London "'Arry," and that a club of some 240 members ought to have an officially appointed bugler in each district, a warning note being very serviceable when ten or fifteen riders must form single file in the dark behind a cart, and the instrument no more common on the road than on the coaches running into London.
- Three brief replies: Blonde is entered for the fifth round, Astrachan is answered "Yes; next month," and Brunette's aid will be welcome in the first revolution.
- The standing note: contributions to the Editor at 35, Eastcheap, on one side of the paper and bearing the author's name, received by Wednesday morning for immediate insertion; Messrs. Darling supply badge-stamped portfolios at 2s., a few 1878 covers remain, and back numbers cost 1d. each.