The Bicycling World, Vol 17, No 8
Articles in this issue
- Editors C. W. Fourdrinier and J. S. Dean explain that the whole paper is given to the L. A. W. meet and that the forms were held back a day for a fuller report, omitting only Halsted's dinner and the bay excursion; they welcome clause V of Art. VI, Sect. 2 of the new constitution creating a National Committee on Improvement of Highways, and hail the League's first clean balance sheet after the debt-burdened year of 1887.
- Chief Consul Chas. S. Davol asks publication of the appointment of Geo. Lewis Cooke to the Rhode Island Division Touring Committee, vice Rev. L. A. Pope, resigned.
- Alex S. Ireland, chairman of the California Division L. A. W. Racing Board, announces that the five-mile national championship assigned to his division will be contested at Stockton, California, on 4 July.
- Harry G. Stuart of Kansas City, Missouri Division representative, seeks a companion for a fall wheel tour from Kansas City to Los Angeles by way of Pueblo, Manitou, Denver, Cheyenne, Salt Lake City, perhaps Yellowstone National Park, and San Francisco.
- The Ohio Division Board of Officers, meeting at Cleveland on 13 June, fixes a three-day Toledo gathering from 23 July: parade and business meeting with a Toledo Bicycle Club entertainment, a special train to Ann Arbor and ride to Saline and Ypsilanti, then a wheel to Detroit and a chartered steamer back — racing deliberately omitted in favour of touring.
- Opening of the paper's exhaustive report of the ninth annual meeting of the L. A. W. at Baltimore, Md., on 18, 19 and 20 June 1888, covering the Board of Officers, the Constitutional Convention, the parade, the races and the entertainments.
- Vice President Hayes calls the Board to order at 10.25 with 38 present in person and 93 by proxy; Secretary-Editor Bassett reads President Kirkpatrick's appointments, among them Geo. S. Atwater as Chief Consul of the District of Columbia, J. Fred Probst of Indiana, Geo. G. Clark of Mississippi, and Gerry Jones as Chairman of the Racing Board.
- W. M. Brewster accounts for $1,130.56 received since 1 March against $565.51 paid out — including C. S. Butler's and J. R. Dunn's Re-organization Committee expenses and Mast, Crowell & Kirkpatrick's printing — leaving $565.05 on hand at 16 June, plus a $423 relief fund led by Massachusetts' $305 and Rhode Island's $66.
- Abbot Bassett reports every Division paid in full to 1 June, a balance sheet closing at $3,574.10 on each side, and that letting the Bulletin out by contract turned a debt-producing monster into a source of income; he urges the strictest economy through the ten dull months before the May renewal season.
- Membership by state to list No. 145 of 15 June 1888 totals 10,118, or 10,218 with applications in hand — New York 2,153, Pennsylvania 1,288, Massachusetts 1,115, Ohio 794 — against 9,480 at St. Louis in 1887, 8,463 at Boston in 1886 and 1,654 at Boston in 1881.
- Chairman Charles S. Butler reports the year's work was chiefly advising clubs wishing to organize under League rules, and that the committee's study of the governing rules was folded into the Reconstruction Committee's report, so it offers no recommendations of its own.
- Mr. Luscomb's committee reports ordinances prohibiting cycling at Columbus, Ga. and Dodge City, Kansas, a Kenton County bill thrown out by the Kentucky legislature, and a San Mateo road-hog complaint; it warns of deliberate assaults on riders in large cities, asks for better policing of thoroughfares, and hails the New York and New Jersey statutes fixing the legal status of the wheel.
- C. H. Luscomb nominates T. J. Kirkpatrick for re-election as President and the Secretary casts a single ballot; Mr. Dunn of Ohio proposes H. W. Hayes for re-election as Vice President, W. S. Bull of Buffalo takes the third Executive Committee seat after Bidwell declines, and W. M. Brewster is re-elected Treasurer.
- Called to order at 3 P.M. with 1,228 club proxies received, the convention rejected E. J. Shriver's amendment to take the new constitution section by section, 272 to 704, and carried Dr. Emery's motion to adopt it as a whole, 891 to 161.
- Full text of the new constitution: Divisions of 100 resident members and Subdivisions of 25; a National Assembly of Chief Consuls, Vice-Consuls and Delegates meeting the third Monday in February; a fifty-cent per capita tax on dues; seven national committees including Improvement of Highways; and the L. A. W. Bulletin guaranteed as the official organ.
- The business meeting proper transacted nothing beyond votes of thanks to the officers and members of the Maryland Division and hearing invitations from visiting delegates to meets in their own localities.
- Reconvening at 4 o'clock under President Kirkpatrick, the Board continued the Constitutional Committee and, on N. H. Van Sicklen's appeal for the Chicago Bicycle, Lincoln Cycle and Fort Dearborn Cycling clubs, voted 17 to 8 to reinstate Philip Hammel of Chicago as an amateur.
- 615 wheelmen and wheelwomen started from North Avenue and Charles Street behind Grand Marshal Kirkpatrick, thirteen mounted buglers and Hayes and Davol on a tandem — 53 Brooklyn, 49 Baltimore, 39 Rambler, 33 Missouri Club, 31 Pennsylvania, and Parks on a unicycle — finishing in Druid Hill Park for the annual photograph on the slope before the Mansion House.
- At Arlington Driving Park before nearly two thousand spectators Will Windle won the one-mile L. A. W. championship on a Victor racer in 2.43 from Canadian champion Fred Foster, and took the three-mile lap race in 9.33 3-5; Kingsland won both tricycle events on a Quadrant, W. E. McCune the half-mile novice and three-mile handicap on Springfield Roadsters, and Midgley the two-mile safety handicap.
- Day-by-day notes from Sunday 17 June onward: five hundred wheelmen arrive in sweltering heat, Rev. A. C. Dixon preaches on Ezekiel's "Living Wheels" at Immanuel Baptist Tabernacle, an Ohio Division member is run down by a driver who is discharged for not exceeding six miles an hour, and Monday's run to Mount Washington brings an impromptu climb of "Windy Gates" Hill by Percy Harris, McDaniels and Decker before the Ladies' Run to Arlington.
- Squibs from Arlington: a foot race down the homestretch between Chief Consul Jessup and Secretary-Editor Bassett, S. T. Clark's bowl of iced lemonade for the press, A. H. and C. R. Overman conspicuous on the drags, Chief Consul Atwater voted one of the two handsomest men on the grounds, and an impromptu ladies' race won by an unnamed Washington rider.
- The grand national smoker at the Concordia Opera House opened with the Garland Musical Association's fourteen-number programme, including the overture to Fra Diavolo and a "Wheelman Waltz" composed for the occasion; Kingsland of the Ramblers received his championship medals to an ovation, Wallace gave a humorous recitation, and Sprengel and Warwick boxed.
- L. A. Clarke describes the Newark-to-Philadelphia century of 16 June: forty men started at 4.20 A.M., took hot coffee at Westfield from Dr. F. A. Kinch of the Union County Wheelmen, scorched the last eight miles into Trenton in 45 minutes, and after a two-hour storm twelve pushed on with the Trenton men to supper at the Belmont Mansion, thirteen finishing the hundred miles.
- Editorial paragraphs give W. A. Rowe's 2.29 4-5 ordinary mile record at Springfield and C. Frazier's 2.38 2-5 Star mark at Lynn, ask what became of the Eastern Road Club, note a Louisiana Liberty bill, the abandoned Holyoke-to-Springfield bicycle path, Rev. H. Long's arrest at Currie, Minn., toll proposed on the Lancaster pike, and $100 gifts from the Pope Manufacturing Co. and Overman Wheel Co. toward A. G. Fisher's New Haven to New York path.
- F. D. Hatch won the Hartford Wheel Club's five-mile handicap in an actual 18m. 45s. out of a four-man bunch finish with H. K. Lee, J. B. Spencer and F. T. Reed; C. H. Way did not finish and scratch man Ludwig Foster, meeting bad luck, was placed last.
- On 17 June J. H. Shurman of Lynn, Mass. rode a stock Springfield Roadster up and down the mile-long Eagle Rock twelve times without a dismount — 24 miles in 3h. 39m. in 95 to 97 degree heat — doubling Wells' record, before witnesses including Paul H. Bangs of the New York Wheelmen and L. S. Kloz of the E. N. Y. Club.
- In the Louisiana Cycling Club's second race for the Renaud cup on 10 June, W. M. Hathorn won the 10 1/2 miles in 52.43 from J. W. Jay and M. S. Graham; E. M. Graham fell overcome by heat 400 yards from home and was revived with ice water by Betts, Hobson and Ruhlman, who declined to take advantage and let him finish fourth.
- The Beaver Valley Wheelmen's postponed climb of Ross' Hill on 14 June — 3,507 feet long with a 340-foot rise, average grade about 1 in 10.4 — gave the gold medal to E. T. W. Craig of Beaver Falls, who fell off after 1,793 feet, and the silver to W. D. Banker of Pittsburg after 250 feet.
- A correspondent signing "Leo" argues that mass-entry road racing is both dangerous to riders and a nuisance to other road users, and will set the public against the wheel just as the New York and New Jersey statutes have given cycles the same rights as carriages.
- A Pennsylvania correspondent, J. H. Yohey, recounts a five-mile night run to Mount Jay where the party's lamps balked a two-horse team; they tied the horses' limbs and ears, threw dirt in their mouths and applied the lash in vain, and praises Mr. R. and Miss H. of Lancaster for their courtesy as a model to riders' "colossal ignoramuses".
- Prince Wells reports that six wheels once covered all of Seattle and Tacoma, but Tacoma now has a club of over forty and Seattle thirty riders, with a Seattle club forming, a Fourth of July race meet planned, and fifteen Tacoma men steaming up the Sound for a picnic run over a mountain road.
- Dr. S. A. Defoe of Washington, N. J. calls for repeal of the old cowpath law letting people "work out their road tax" in favour of a slight general tax, and specifies macadamising: clear mud and large stones, crown the bed, spread three inches of inch-and-a-half broken flint or granite, use no clay for binding, and bind with a sand-filled roller drawn by a pair of horses.
- The Outing Cycling Club, revived by new members and captained by S. F. Booth, Jr., late of the Bay City Wheelmen, limits itself to fifteen active members and plans runs to San Mateo, Camp Taylor, the San Ramon Valley returning via Dublin and Haywards, and later Santa Rosa and Mark West Springs through Calistoga and down the Napa Valley.
- List furnished by patent attorney Henry W. Williams of Boston, including Thos. Benfield's bicycle step, Renouf and Boothroyd's London steering head, H. M. Pope's tricycle and velocipede seat assigned to the Pope Mfg. Co., E. G. Latta's tandem tricycle, C. F. Hadley's bicycle assigned to the Overman Wheel Co., and A. H. Overman's velocipede.
- Secretary W. S. Reed of the Capital City Cycling Club details the Illinois Division meet at Springfield on 3 and 4 July: racing at Butler's Driving Park for two $50 diamond-centred gold medals and a $30 gold-handled silk umbrella, a lantern parade and impromptu smoker, a business meeting in the Senate Chamber of the Capitol, a run to the Springfield Fishing Club at Cedar Lake, and an evening banquet.
- Official Department list 144, total 116, bringing the League to 10,234, with new applicants from the San Francisco Bi. Club, the Capital Bi. Club and Washington Cycle Club, the Cairo and Joliet Bi. Clubs, the Detroit Bi. Club, the Brooklyn, Buffalo, Manhattan and Troy Bi. Clubs, and the Chesapeake Wheelmen.