Vol 3, No 32

188018 articles

London Bicycle Club Gazette, Vol 3, No 32 cover

Articles in this issue

  • 1880.
    The review of the year: tolerable weather and higher attendances, a marked increase in joint and general meets (the N.E. deciding at last that the river is not impassable, and the three-district run to Chigwell), the loss of Captain, Secretary and an absent Treasurer, a favourable balance-sheet helped by race-meeting profits, the Cambridge match being held in the provinces and the total failure of the Bath Trials, and a racing year in which Wyndham's times still improve, W. T. Thorn leads, Cleaver was put hors de combat at Oxford on Whit Tuesday and the C.U.Bi.C. have turned the tables.
  • General Meeting.
    Hon. Sec. Herbert R. Boyce announces the Annual General Meeting at the "London" (late "King's Head") Tavern, Fenchurch Street, on Monday 24th January 1881, with Rule 30's fourteen days' notice for motions, and prints the Committee's recommendations, that the Gazette be continued, and the nominations of the Hon. I. K. Falconer as President, T. E. Scrutton as Captain, F. Godlee as Treasurer and Ashley Barrett as Editor, with district captains and committeemen.
  • Committee.
    Meetings of 6th and 20th December: Robert Lamberg and Louis Baillie Reynolds elected; resignations from F. A. Drew, E. W. James, C. H. Dickinson, F. W. Nicholson, H. J. Bovill, A. Broad and the two Trollopes accepted; four members struck off under Rule 18; H. Sharp and A. Henry asked to audit the Treasurer's accounts; the C.U.Bi.C. match to be at Cambridge again at that club's request; and the general meeting fixed for 24th January.
  • Report.
    Herbert R. Boyce asks members to forward lists of prizes won and notes of touring and long-distance riding for insertion in the annual report.
  • The S.E. Ball.
    District Captain F. M. Williams's account of the Croydon ball: the first valse under way within ten minutes of half-past seven, a five-piece band of piano, violin, cornet, double-bass and flageolet, programmes by Darling and Son, drugget laid by Mr. Chapman and supper by Mrs. Pusey, twenty-six dances of which twenty-two were valses, and the National Anthem at nearly two a.m. About 145 people attended, some 75 of them ladies, with two bicycles lent by Arthur Herbert and J. W. Potter and the District Challenge Cup on show.
  • Found.
    A long piece of muslin and lace and a broken black fan were found at the Public Hall, Croydon, after the ball.
  • Lost.
    A lace handkerchief was lost at the Public Hall, Croydon; apply to the District Captain.
  • L.B.C. Dramatic Society.
    The full cast for the Society's first performance of "Cyril's Success" at St. George's Hall on 13th January, Fred. W. Morris as Cyril Cuthbert, J. F. Darrell as Viscount Glycerine, Ashley Barrett as Colonel Rawker, with Miss Cresswell, Miss Agnes Willoughby, Miss Maria Harris and Miss Kate Lee by arrangement with Miss Litton of the Gaiety, and J. T. Stephens as stage manager. Curtain at 7.30, evening dress requested but not compulsory, tickets from F. M. Williams at 4s. and 2s.
  • London Bicycle Club West District Ball.
    A dance at Willis's Rooms, King Street, St. James's, on Monday 14th February 1881, Valentine's Day, from eight until twelve so that country members can get home, with a long list of stewards drawn from every district. Tickets 10s. 6d. for gentlemen and 7s. 6d. for ladies with light refreshment, from the stewards or Hon. Sec. W. T. Thorn, Jun.; chaperones' tickets free, one for every five sold.
  • Social Evenings.
    The N.W.'s next meeting is on Saturday 15th January at the "Holly Bush Hotel," Hampstead, this time in a fine large room, with "the sympathetic waiter" as an added attraction, and full omnibus and rail directions; the S.E.'s second is at the King's Arms Hotel, Katharine Street, Croydon, on 8th January, tea at 6.30, with a member meeting arrivals at East Croydon Station. The alternating district system is said to be working well.
  • A Brother in Training.
    A sister signing "Patience" describes her briefless-solicitor brother H…, twelve stone and "as broad as he is long," going into training for the S.B.C. races: an all-bright 52-inch "Humber," blue and yellow stripes, dumb-bells at six in the morning in a smoking cap, Japanese slippers and a red table-cloth, four-mile walks before breakfast, no sugar, butter, sweets or tobacco, and then an ignominious cropper in the second lap of the first mile that turned face, hands and stripes a dusky cinder-path hue.
  • Stray Notes.
    "L'Homme Qui Rit" on the coming Dramatic Society show and a curiosity to see Backbone behind the footlights; the old Londoners calling the S.E. ball the pleasantest club meet on record, free of the freezing ceremonial of a public ball; a bird's-eye view from the central chandelier of grey grenadines and blue bombazines like a variegated flower bed; the West determined the ball rolling shall not stop; Miss Lizzie Payne in amateur theatricals at East Grinstead; George C. Nooth Cooper home from three years in Texas; and the Treasurer believed to be this side of Aden.
  • Through South-Eastern France and Northern Italy. From Valence (Dep. Drôme) to Pisa.
    "Lewt-nong" opens the account of the 1880 continental tour with N. B. Morris as "Capitaine" and W. J. Williams, the remnant of the 1879 Pyrenean party, from Newhaven on 27th September through Paris and eighteen hours in a third-class compartment among singing, snoring militaires to Lyons. A daily précis totals 427 miles from Valence to Pisa; the narrative proper reaches Montelimar and its nougat, which brought one of the party "modified lockjaw." To be continued.
  • Correspondence.
    Includes an unsigned-but-for-".E." letter prompted by the last Gazette's "alarming eye-opener" on the duties of the Hon. Sec., asking whether life is not too short for such an office and proposing a separate racing secretary so that Boyce might be prevailed on to keep one or the other post.
  • The Ball.
    "Georgina" writes to "Angelina," kept in quarantine by measles, a long account of the S.E. district ball, the prettily decorated hall with its treacherous trap door, silks, velvets and old gold, six belles named by six different men, an obstructive dancer likened to Parnell who stopped dead in the thickest of the room, a chaperone who was one of the best waltzers present, and excellent supper, cups and sherry.
  • Tramways.
    A West member answers the N.W.'s alarm at tramrails, confessing he has used the Acton lines on dark nights as a cinder path for making good time up from Hayes, a heavy well-sprung machine on a well-laid line being more comfortable than semi-rolled and fully-holed macadam, and noting that if you skid and drop four and a half feet onto the granite the coming tram will carry a bruised bicyclist two miles nearer home.
  • Change of Name.
    H. C. Clifton encloses for publication the copy of a letter to Hon. Sec. H. R. Boyce stating that for private family reasons he has changed his name from Frith to Clifton and that his address is now 21, Alpha Road, Regent's Park.
  • Notice to Correspondents.
    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.