Vol 6, No 4
Articles in this issue
- A leader issued with the first Meet Card of the year, tracing the Saturday Run back to the early wheelmen who banded together against "the roughs and dogs of the period" and arguing that without its club runs a club's healthy life must depart. Concedes the hard eggs, weak tea and lukewarm veal of the Club Tea but exhorts backsliders ex cathedra to "go to a dozen of them this year."
- Minutes of the meetings of 5th and 19th March: A. C. Forster, A. A. Kelsey, J. G. Boyer and Alexander Buckler elected; resignations of H. S. Heal, Jno. Williams jun. and E. H. Carr accepted; the Field, Cyclist and Tricyclist to be provided for the Editor. The Captain and T. E. Scrutton talked the London Tricycle Club out of its proposed Bath-to-London 100 Miles Trial on Whit Monday, and a room at the "City Arms" Tavern, St. Mary Axe, was taken as an office at £5 5s. a year for up to sixteen nights.
- Records the sudden death on 4th March of Charles Taylor of 180, Kennington Park Road, one of the Club's oldest members, elected in February 1875 and well known in the S.W. Division.
- R. B. Hough of 151, Amhurst Road, Hackney reminds members that the current year's subscriptions fell due on 1st January and asks for all arrears as early as possible.
- Reports of the season's opening runs from four districts: the N.E. (thirteen out to Chigwell and the "King's Head" by Woodford and Snake's Lane, in rain), the N.W. (twelve from "Jack Straw's Castle" through hail and snow by Barnet and Rowley Green to the "Black Lion," Shenley, 25 miles), the S.W. (only two members and a four-legged honorary member from Kingston by Esher and Walton to the "Magpie," Sunbury) and the S.E. (runs to Downe and a short circular, then twenty-one to the "White Hart," Orpington, where James Doyle of the Rovers B.C. presided at the piano).
- A ruled table of the Meet Card for 31st March, 7th and 14th April, giving start points and times for the N.E., N.W., W., S.W. and the Croydon and Blackheath divisions of the S.E. Destinations include Cheshunt, Harrow ("King's Arms"), Godstone, Epping, Ripley ("Anchor"), Wrotham, Mill Hill, Eastcote ("Ship"), Oatlands Park and Weybridge, East Grinstead and Upminster.
- Gerard F. Cobb's touring guide continues with § 11, Thun to Fribourg by Bern (41 miles) and back by the valleys of the Sarine and Simme via Bulle, Chateau d'Oex and Saanen to Zweisimmen, with a height-and-distance table and advice on sending the bag forward by train. Digresses at length on the overrated Swiss organs (Geneva's St. Pierre and Bale praised, Lucerne "noisy, blaring, discordant"), then opens § 12 on Lucerne and the circuit of its lake, where promontories such as the Bürgenstock force the rider onto the steamers.
- Two machines offered: an "Excelsior" tricycle by Bayliss and Thomas, under five hundred miles run, with ball bearings, gun metal hubs and lamp, £9 10s. from Alfred Henry of 57, Moorgate Street; and a 53-in. "Rudge" with ball bearings front, back and pedals and Rucker's bent handles, £10.
- An account of the winter's first and last official smoking concert at the "City Arms" Tavern on 15th March. G. E. Schmettau's illness cost two trios, but C. P. Little opened with the "Norwegian Bridal March," W. A. Smith, C. Y. Lyne, F. N. Large, R. Newman, M. D. Rucker and Mr. H. Dutton sang, the Quintette played "Crown Diamonds" and a Labitzky valse, and honorary member E. T. Sachs produced florins from impossible places in a conjuring interlude.
- A mock legal instrument in which Theo. Godlee "absolutely and irrevocably" disclaims all responsibility to T. E. Scrutton and Arthur Lloyd under their declaration of 1st March, undertaking that anything he does do he does for his own convenience. Scrutton's bracketed reply is "[Come on…T.E.S.]"
- A squib addressed to a West member found playing billiards at Sunbury after the opening Club Run, headed "Non habet leges" and signed Marcus Curius Canonicus; a note glosses the tag as "it has not legs," the cry raised when a ball fails to travel.
- The season's meetings from 31st March to 16th June, including the L.A.C. at Stamford Bridge, Surrey B.C. at Surbiton and Kennington Oval, Lewisham B.C. and Pickwick at the Crystal Palace, the Anfield B.C. Sports at Liverpool, C.U.Bi.C. v. L.B.C. at Cambridge and O.U.Bi.C. v. L.B.C. at the Crystal Palace.
- A run report held over from the Saturday Runs pages: fourteen riders (nine West, one S.W., one N.W. and three S.E.) reached the "Magpie," Sunbury on 17th March through persistent rain and passed the evening at cards and billiards. District Captain Harold C. Pigott appeals against the district's "state of lethargy" and asks for better attendance.
- Two members' new addresses: H. Muir at 86, Hunter's Lane, Birmingham, and H. A. Des Vœux at 2, Sussex Place, Kensington, W.
- The tour narrative resumes on 1st October with L., W. and B. wading three feet of snow to the top of the Wengern Alp, where an American family who had ridden up from Lauterbrunnen thought better of descending to Grindelwald on foot. Next day the party roped onto the Lower Glacier with a guide, lunched in the middle of the Mer de Glace, and W., happier on his cycle, swore he would "rather ride another Bath Race" than cross a glacier again.
- Notes on the Bicycle Union Council meeting, where S. P. Smith and H. R. Reynolds were re-elected to the Executive and T. E. Scrutton resigned the Treasurership, and where W. A. Smith was put up against the Union's founder Mr. G. E. Cobb for President. Also the Birmingham Championship fixed for 7th July, the Pickwick B.C.'s half-mile tricycle invitation race called unfair for the Crystal Palace course, a 69-year-old C.T.C. candidate credited with 53,111 accident-free miles, and E. R. Shipton's appointment as Secretary of the Cyclists' Touring Club.
- Three letters. Alfred Barker reports on the Dramatic Society's performance, about ten guineas to the good, some 600 tickets taken at the door, eleven papers represented and stalls sent to the Universities, Belsize, Druids, Pickwick, Stanley, Surrey, Wanderers and West Kent clubs. "Brefney" doubts that tricyclists will join a bicycle club while tricycle clubs flourish and calls altering the Bath Trial rules for them premature; "Red Tape" asks the coming Special General Meeting to legalise the officers' practice of giving away more gold medals than the Blue Book allows.
- The Porcupine's gossip column, opening on Sir T. Browne's porpentine. Items include a three-act "Scene at Smoking Concert" in which two S.E. members each try to make the other pay for the coffee, a proposal to bar L.B.C. men from belonging to any other metropolitan bicycle or tricycle club, suburban 'Arry hailing the N.W. lamps as the "Lights o' London," T. E. Scrutton's appointment as Professor of Constitutional History and Law at University College, London, a "Humber" that had carried its owner 14,000 miles succumbing to a curb-stone, and news that Arthur Herbert's health is improving at Mentone.
- The Sub-Committee's card of thanks to the members who made the entertainment a success, singling out F. Jolly and C. Y. Lyne for organising the instrumental and choral departments and the visitors Messrs. C. and E. Cockerell, Springmuhl, Little, Butler and Dutton. Money owing for tickets or refreshments is to be sent in stamps to Stephen P. Smith, 9, Morden Road, Blackheath.
- Contributions must be addressed to the Editor, L.B.C. Gazette, 85, Eastcheap, E.C., bear the author's name, be written on one side of the paper only, and reach the office by 6 p.m. on Tuesday, 3rd April.