Vol 6, No 31
Articles in this issue
- Leader on the close of the riding season, arguing that Balls, Smoking Concerts, the Annual Dinner and the Dramatics are worth their labour and expense because they bring members and their friends together from every quarter of the Club's domain. It warns against over-doing the entertainment, now less likely since the Committee took Smoking Concerts out of the District Captains' hands, and presses the Sub-Committee to attend to ventilation, acoustics and room to move, rather than penning a member immovably in a corner to be saturated with carbonic acid, music and tobacco smoke.
- E. S. Price, Hon. Sec., fixes the winter's chief event for Wednesday 21st November at the St. James's Hall Restaurant, Piccadilly, with special attention to be paid to the menu and particulars to follow.
- Theo. Godlee, N.E. D.C., withdraws his earlier complaint as publicly as he made it, thanking the Secretary of the Clapton Lacrosse Club for telling all his L.B.C. members that the opening practice had been postponed.
- R. G. Francis lists four extra runs for men unwilling to give up riding yet, Westerham on the 6th (tea at the 'King's Arms'), Brighton on the 13th by full moon (the 'Gloster'), Bletchingley on the 20th (the 'White Hart') and Orpington on the 27th (the 'Maxwell Arms' near the station), promising that someone will always be at the Katharine Street start.
- Reports of the last meets of the season on 29th September, all ridden in rain. The N.E. built from three men and a tricycling visitor to double figures at the 'White Hart,' Abridge, where Kelsey borrowed the landlord's garments and S. G. Hough arrived on a badly damaged machine after a nasty spill; J. S. Whatton single-handedly represented the W. and S.W. at Leatherhead by way of Ripley, Newland's Corner, Gomshall and Dorking; A. H. Lowy rode alone to Mill Hill, turned round, emptied the rain out of his shoes and rode home, adding thanks to the men who have made the N.W. meets a success; and the S.W.'s Joseph Gatey, with one other and a 'Coventry Rotary,' abandoned Leatherhead for Barnes in a storm. The S.E.'s Godstone finish drew thirty members and three visitors to the 'Clayton Arms', eighteen men climbing Godstone Hill in one long grey line, the six Potter brothers among them, and closed with songs and 'Auld Lang Syne.'
- H. G. A. Brown's account of the tribute paid to S.E. District Captain R. G. Francis in the first-floor room of the 'Clayton Arms' at Godstone. The speaker claimed the most successful season of any District since the Club was formed, an average of 15.4 members a meet and the club-run record equalled that day, credited it to Francis's energy, popularity and choice of runs, praised his contributions to the Gazette, and pressed him to stand again for 1884. Francis replied by naming the Oswalds, the Herberts and attendance-medal winner S. E. Whealler, and noting the district holds the District and Ladies' Challenge Cups; the record was then broken outright when Stephen dragged in one more member.
- 'Goethe' catalogues the excuses a District Captain has to hear from the habitual non-attender, friends coming to tennis, an old friend's cricket match, having 'taken to the river,' an endless series of particular friends, and week after week of machine trouble (something bent, the maker will not return it, the tyre loose, a young brother has let it fall). He suspects mere bad weather is the real prime cause with all but the incorrigible, and closes with the genuine and unique plea of the member who has found three antique spiders' webs spun through his spokes and has served them a formal notice to quit.
- 'D. T. C.' disputes the 20th September leader's assumption that road racing is in itself illegal, arguing that a Highway Act conviction needs either proved obstruction or furious driving to the common danger, that the police notice may well be ultra vires, and that cyclists are the best behaved of wayfarers and too timid in asserting their rights. 'J. S. W.' then appends twelve notes to the recent tour accounts, Leeming Lane is one of the best roads in Yorkshire, Fountains Abbey should not be missed between Harrogate and Ripon, Ripon has the best Yorkshire pudding, the Buxton swimming bath and Punch and Judy show are first rate, the 'Old George' at Glastonbury is no place to dine, and cider is unobtainable in Devon in August because the old is finished and the new not yet brewed.
- Second instalment: from Olney (where the only picturesque object was a shopful of wooden pincushions commemorating Cowper) by Northampton and Welford to a Leicester en fete, then Loughborough to Nottingham over dangerously loose road, 68 miles for the day. Next through Sherwood Forest to Mansfield and on to Chesterfield to see its twisted spire and the church at which its builder is said to have killed himself, then a drenched Bank Holiday ride to Sheffield, 'the most unpleasant town I had ever been in', Rotherham and Doncaster, and finally Gainsborough and Lincoln by the Market Rasen road. (To be continued.)
- 'Porcupine' corrects the last issue: the Naylor who entered the Tennis Tournament was H. S. and the winner W. E. He salutes the S.E.'s thirty-four men at Godstone, weighs it against the thirty-four at Orpington last year (which included other districts) and 'Rambler's' claim of thirty-four at Hampton Court in 1878 against the 32 printed in Vol. I, and concludes R. G. Francis has beaten the record, the more creditable for the weather. Also Hume Young riding over from Croydon in rain and darkness, Paxon of the N.W. giving up among the wilds of Banstead, and notice that the N.C.U. Council meets on Thursday 11th October with an important proposal on Professional Racing.
- Under Rule 40 the Captain sanctions members racing at the Stoke Unity B. and T.C. sports on 6th October and at the L.A.C. meeting at Stamford Bridge on the 27th.
- Contributions must be addressed to 'The Editor, L.B.C. Gazette, 35, Eastcheap, E.C.,' bear the author's name though not necessarily for insertion, be written on one side of the paper only, and reach the office by Tuesday evening for immediate insertion.