The Bicycling World, Vol 12, No 17
Articles in this issue
- Editorial on the L.A.W. Board of Officers' spring meeting in New York: the proposal to abolish the annual business meeting was lost thirty-seven to thirty-eight, ten-dollar life memberships were established, the Secretary-Editor's tenure was made permanent, and the writer doubts the treasury can fund the League's broader legal policy on eight thousand members.
- Editorial on the patent litigation between the two leading cycle manufacturers (Pope and Overman), arguing it will decide whether the wheel trade stays controlled or opens to competition, and noting the real foundation patents on the bicycle have virtually expired.
- A picture from the H. B. Smith Machine Co., taken by Rex Smith on 19 May 1885, shows Will S. Robertson of Washington City descending the Capitol steps on a Star bicycle for the seventeenth time; Capt. H. S. Owen is credited as the first to make the descent.
- Full report of the board meeting at the Grand Union Hotel, New York, under President Beckwith: state-by-state membership figures (5,233 on 22 February), the North Carolina Wilmington Turnpike test case, initiation fee raised to $1.00, life memberships at $10, D. H. Renton expelled, and the League Meet fixed for Boston, 27-29 May.
- Deputy U.S. Marshal Gallupe attached all Overman Wheel Company property at Chicopee and Boston in Pope Manufacturing Company's suit, idling about 150 Ames Manufacturing Company workmen; separately, Judge Gardner sustained Overman's demurrer in the tricycle-patent case, throwing it out of court.
- Henry Sturmey, in the Cyclist, argues the ordinary bulbous brad-awl handle is unnatural and champions the T and 'spade' handles set about twenty degrees out of the horizontal, tracing experiments from billiard-ball grips fitted by a South of England cyclist.
- Notes column opening with the satirical verse 'Ye Cycler', announcing the paper's move to 179 Tremont Street, and carrying squibs on Stoddard, Lovering & Co.'s 'The Agents' Guide' by H. D. Corey, the death of H. L. Cortis in Australia on 29 December, Rudge's new Crescent tricycle, R. H. English joining the professional ranks, Miss Von Blumen's bicycle-pedestrian match at Auburn, and Chicago Club mileage records.
- A correspondent signing 'Rover' asks readers how the Rover Safety compares with a high-class ordinary light roadster for speed, ease, hill-climbing and weight, and whether it is proven enough to adopt for general riding around Boston.
- E. H. Glenn of Utica endorses sending American amateurs (the Springfield Wheelmen's Gazette suggests Weber on a Star, Rowe on a Columbia, Hendee on a Victor) to race the Englishmen, but proposes riders subscribe a dollar each to fund the tour rather than let makers pay and taint the men as makers' amateurs.
- 'Digh Nurr' protests against feeding a thousand League Meet banqueters in one room, urging the company be divided among Boston hotel dining rooms like Young's and Parker's, Harvard-commencement style, with each division or club dining apart and after-dinner speeches dispensed with.
- 'Shawmut' agrees it is time for the League parade to go, proposing informal runs into the suburbs instead, since visiting wheelmen will be better pleased by a look at Boston's suburbs than a street parade.
- J. Jaques endorses James A. Chase's suggestion of a twenty-four-inch steering wheel for the Pony Star and criticises the Rover for driving with its small wheel, arguing the large wheel should drive and the small wheel steer.
- The pseudonymous '5678' weighs the safety bicycle against the ordinary, granting the dwarf and the new boneshaker-like safeties are safer but regretting the lost grace of the ordinary, and predicts each type of machine will find its own level.
- London W. recovers his Rover from the office boy, masters it in half an hour in a small hall, then reports from Providence on the postponed Pope v. Overman injunction hearing before Judge Colt, quotes the Overman Wheel Co.'s public notice on the Victor, and closes with a 'tit-willow' parody about Colonel Pope's keeper.
- Club department led by the Springfield Bicycle Club's annual ball ('The Springfield Ball') with Capt. McGarrett's historical pageant and Willie Haradon's trick riding, plus the Leominster club's concert, New Jersey Cycling and Athletic Association incorporators, Cortlandt Wheelmen and Hudson club elections, Elizabeth Wheelmen mileage records (39 men, 38,476 miles), the Orange Wanderers, the Suffolk Club, and a new Colorado L.A.W. division under Geo. F. Higgins.
- C.T.C. department under Acting Chief Consul C. H. Potter of Cleveland, listing State consuls from Connecticut to Wyoming Territory, provisionally electing applicants including C. C. Seabrook of Harrisburg, and appointing F. O. Hyatt consul for Cortland, N.Y.