The Bicycling World, Vol 1, No 7
Articles in this issue
- A lively account of the Boston Bicycle Club's second annual dinner on 2 February 1880 at Vossler's dining hall, including toasts to the club, visiting club presidents, and the press.
- A witty poem presented at the annual dinner in which a horse and a bicycle engage in a dialogue about their respective merits, roles, and futures on the road.
- The first instalment of a touring narrative recounting a bicycle journey through the Seine-et-Marne region of France in September 1878, with vivid descriptions of roads, villages, and road hazards including cows and dogs.
- A profile of the Essex Bicycle Club of Newark, New Jersey — its slow organisation completed in March 1879, its light blue and maroon colours, and its officers including President Joseph Lafon and Captain L. H. Johnson, with a full member roster.
- An account of the Chicago Bicycle Club, organised in September 1879, noting Brown and Farwell's 450-mile circuit of northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin and F. H. Browne's local record mile of 3m. 25s., with officers and member addresses.
- Letters and notes from readers: a Salem rider proposing accounts of road mishaps, W. Warden, Jr. of Brooklyn urging an American Bicycle Touring Club, Rev. J. C. M. Johnston on his advertisement's fifty replies, a query on hollow forks, and reports from Detroit, Toledo, Kankakee (Arthur B. Holt), Trenton, and Brooklyn (Hermann H. Koop, Jr.).
- Harry Etherington's letter from London answering Captain L. H. Johnson's accusations of fraud in the 'so-called International Contests', detailing his contract with manager E. G. Cotton and the $2,000 wager with J. H. Mack over the Chicago race won by Cann and Stanton.
- Racing results from the American Institute meetings: the professional 25-mile handicaps involving D. Stanton, D. Belard, and the Harrison brothers (with a heavy three-man fall), amateur 2- and 5-mile handicaps won by W. S. Clark and C. Noel, and a note of a five-mile race at San Francisco's Recreation Grounds won by Bennett.
- A directory of bicycle club secretaries with addresses, from the Boston Bi. C. (F. W. Weston) through clubs in Brockton, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Washington, Pittsburg, Chicago, Cleveland, Newark, and other cities.
- An editorial on Harry Etherington's published reply to Captain L. H. Johnson of the Essex Bi. C., rebuking a British contemporary's claim that no libel law exists in America and declaring the paper would back Johnson against Etherington for courtesy, standing, or speed on the path.
- An editorial note thanking readers for their many letters and communications, explaining how correspondence is condensed, culled, and used in the paper's columns during its busy early days.
- Editorial praise for the midwinter Scribner's article reporting the first overnight bicycle excursion around Boston, commending its faithful sketches and urging readers to explore their home country by wheel in the opening spring.
- A two-part editorial arguing that the bicycle is a serious long-distance vehicle, citing a Massachusetts Bi. C. member's 3,293-mile year, the Rev. H. C. Courtney's 6,368 miles, and long English day's rides, and rebutting a cyclopaedia agent who dismissed the bicycle as a mere toy.
- A column of humorous paragraphs: a cautious beginner with a spirit-level in his handle-rod, telegraph wire proposed for wheel fibre, Longfellow's and Holmes's 'iron' poems, and a hunt for the 'Xtraordinary' bicycle lately seen in the vicinity.
- Captain Jack's advice to archers on arrow construction, arguing for footed arrows over 'selfs' and discussing feathering set parallel to the shaft, horn nocks versus silk whipping, and straight-grained seasoned pine steles.
- A report of the indoor archery match of 24 January at Plimpton Hall, Boston, won by the Hawthorn Archers of Roxbury over the Pequossette Archers of Watertown, with full scores headed by F. H. Brackett's 330.
- Terse rules for the hare-and-hounds game clipped from the Harvard Advocate — hares, hounds, whipper-in, and prizes — with an invitation to correspondents to suggest adaptations for playing it on bicycles.
- 'Yonker' describes the Scotch game of curling — the rink, 42-lb. granite stones, skips, and sweeping — noting its spread in America since 1856 and the Thistle of New York and Yonkers clubs leading the Grand National Curling Club.
- Replies to readers covering the cost of bicycle suits ($12 to $16) and helmet caps, the machine ridden by G. Tappan Francis, and Cunningham & Co.'s forthcoming catalogue.
- Reviews of the midwinter Scribner's Monthly with 'A Wheel Around the Hub' and Allen C. Redwood's illustrations, St. Nicholas for February, and the double Christmas number of 'Cycling, Walter D. Welford's monthly magazine.
- The Boston Bi. C.'s second annual meeting of 2 February re-elected Charles E. Pratt President, Frank W. Weston Secretary-Treasurer, and Edward C. Hodges Captain, passed a resolution holding W. R. Pitman a professional while expressing good-will, and reported a treasury balance of $222.12.
- Items on W. P. Goodrich and a nucleus of wheelmen at the University of Rochester, the paper's travelling representative reaching Aspinwall en route to San Francisco, H. B. Thompson's new riding school at Oil City, Penn., W. H. Ames's 3,293-mile riding diary, and Wentworth Rollins's 'Bicycle Emporium' pamphlet.
- The first bicycle exhibition ever given in Philadelphia, at Horticultural Hall on 22 January: Prof. Rollinson's comic beginner act and mile against time, a road drill by the Centaur Bicycle Club, a slow race won by Charles Collier, and fancy-riding prizes taken by C. Cope and F. E. Siddall.
- Foreign notes: totals from the Hull six-days contest omitted last issue — Waller's 200-mile final day and £100 first prize, Phillips's gold medal for best 100 miles — an amateur relay contest won by G. Scaum, and the Union Vélocipédique's fifth race meeting in France.