The Bicycling World, Vol 43, No 21
Articles in this issue
- Three Bicycling World reporters pose as customers at the Manhattan Storage Company's new Cortlandt Street store in New York, an outpost of a Philadelphia price-cutting concern, and are told a defunct March-Davis "Admiral" is a Wolff-American, that a chain-driven machine is a "Howard Chainless," and that stock seized for storage charges is 1901 goods; the manager "Isadore" throws them out on suspicion of being detectives.
- The O. J. & F. E. Smith Co. of St. Paul, Minn., becomes C. J. Smith & Co. after C. J. Smith buys out F. E. Smith's interest.
- Ernest Terah Hooley promised twenty shillings in the pound when he went bankrupt in June 1898, but creditors have had only 10 per cent; a second dividend of about two shillings more is due from the trustee, on claims of £537,950 out of the £1,500,000 lodged.
- A newly patented English tire fastening using hollow vacuum studs spaced two and a half inches along each edge of the cover — a glove-fastening principle — is noted as almost identical to a fastening used on an early American pneumatic a decade earlier.
- Leader denouncing the Manhattan Storage Co.'s New York "invasion," citing the New York law of three years earlier that makes fraudulent advertising a crime, and warning the firm that the paper will hand its evidence — already offered to the makers of the Wolff-American — to the authorities unless the practice stops.
- Argues that the 1902 machines will bring no radical change, present-day standards being too firmly established, but that weights, tubing sizes, frame shapes, fork crowns, handle bars, rear forks and sprockets are all due for a going over.
- Contrasts British and American practice on the coaster brake: British trade and public hold a hub-contained back-pedalling brake indefensible and pair a coaster with a hand brake, while American riders dispense with hand brakes entirely.
- Blames the rise of the purely utilitarian rider — carrying lunch baskets and implements of trade — for the poor riding form now seen, with saddles too low or too far back and handle bars in every position but the right one.
- Notes that ceaseless rain has wrecked the selling season, with a brief let-up in June and July, and that the trade now pins its hopes on a modicum of business in September and October if Jupiter Pluvius relents.
- Rebuts a Cycling paragraph suggesting wood rims be given a light metal lining so detachable tires could be fitted for road work, pointing out the thing was done almost a decade ago and is now held unnecessary.
- W. H. Fauber confirms he is incorporating as the Fauber Mfg. Co. and moving his Chicago hanger and parts works to a large plant at Elgin, Ill., expecting to run there between the 10th and 15th of September and eventually to make automobiles.
- According to Wheeling, the Dunlop Co. has drafted a contract binding tire users to Dunlops, Warwicks, Scotts and Clippers for 80 per cent of their dealings, with rebates of 37 1/2 cents to $1 per pair, aimed at unfriendly licensees as well as outside makers.
- The Minneapolis Cycle Trade Association attacks the Flour City police for lukewarmness against tack-throwers on the cycle paths and offers $25 for the arrest and conviction of any offender; rewards for bicycle thieves may follow.
- The Co-operative Cycle and Motor Co. of St. Catherine's, Ont., is wound up at Toronto on the petition of the Dunlop Tire Co., a creditor for $5,000; liabilities are put at $50,000 and the National Trust Co. is appointed liquidator.
- Notices the catalogue of A. L. Dyke, Linmar Building, St. Louis, which describes his line of automobile fittings for assembling vehicles from a single-passenger runabout to an eight-passenger wagonette; an illustration shows a delivery wagon built from the No. 1 parts.
- Judge Brown of the U.S. Circuit Court for Massachusetts grants the Central Trust Co. of New York a decree of foreclosure on its $500,000 mortgage over the Worcester Cycle Mfg. Co., and separately orders the receiver to pay the city of Worcester $1,500 in taxes and water rates.
- An early morning fire does some $3,000 of damage at 42 Vesey Street, New York, badly injuring the stock of William Roche, maker of dry batteries for motocycles, who occupied four floors of the building.
- Fred. Menke of Ellis Menke, Frankfort, one of Germany's largest factors of bicycle parts and accessories, arrives at the end of August on his usual buying tour, care of John Menke & Co., 15-17 Greene Street.
- Middletown, Conn., rumour has the Eisenhuth Horseless Vehicle Co. arranging to pay the balance of its purchase price, with Receiver Betts expected to allow the $10,000 already paid if the rest is forthcoming.
- Weekly racing round-up: Kramer leads the professional championship points table with 50 to Taylor's 27 and Lawson's 22; Lawson takes the quarter-mile and ten-mile championships at Buffalo, Walthour beats Elkes over an hour at Manhattan Beach, Michael defeats Champion in heats at Charles River Park, and Nelson beats Stinson over 25 miles at Providence.
- Manager James C. Reber tells a Reading paper that the old Acme plant at Reading, Pa., now being dismantled, turned out more than 170,000 bicycles since it started in 1897.
- Gustav Hegmann, a prominent dealer of Santa Rosa, Cal., died suddenly on August 11, and his widow wishes to sell the successful business as soon as possible.
- Quotes the Des Moines Capital's report that the city's nine retail agents have already sold 1,593 wheels with the fall trade just beginning, that repair shops are flooded, and that farmers, clerks and coal miners now ride to work — evidence that the trade's decline is in pleasure riding only.
- Hawthorn, Victoria correspondence: Australian trade has relapsed with the antipodean winter, seven small Melbourne shops closing in the first half of the year, while tariff uncertainty in the new Commonwealth keeps merchants from landing goods and the Dunlop Tire Co. opens a rubber mill in October.
- Describes the case-hardening telltale — a piece of round iron reaching into the centre of the pot and projecting an inch through the cover — which is drawn with tongs and quenched to test whether the work has hardened to sufficient depth.
- Weekly trade changes: dealers succeeded or sold out at Bayonne, N. J., Newport, Vt., Osakis and Winona, Minn., Keene, N. H., Buffalo and Penn Yan, N. Y., Peoria and West Chicago, Ill. and elsewhere; new stores at Lyme, Conn. and Miami, Fla.; a slight fire loss at Newsome Bros., Danville, Ind.
- A Brooklyn dealer keeps intruders out of his repair shop by standing a stripped diamond-frame triplet — tires, saddles, handle bars and pedals all gone — across the entrance.
- The American Bicycle Co. brings a fifth suit on the 1888 William E. Smith bottom bracket and front fork patents, this time against the Wisconsin Wheel Works of Racine in the U.S. District Court at Milwaukee; the earlier suits against H. P. Snyder, Eagle, Keim and Crosby still drag on.
- F. C. Finkenstaedt, secretary and treasurer of the National Cycle Mfg. Co., tells the Bicycling World the cycle trade is no tail to the automobile kite and will take care of itself, but will say nothing yet of his 1902 patterns.
- A successful hardware man's rule for retailers: the newspaper brings people to your windows, the window show brings them into your store, and the merchant's affability keeps them there and makes customers of them.
- A Bicycling World man cleans his neglected roller chain himself — an overnight soak in kerosene in an old tomato can, then rendered tallow melted on the gas stove over the family's loud protests — and concludes that, though it worked, the job is better left to the repair man.
- To refasten a loose handle bar grip, pour fish glue into the grip a little at a time while holding it obliquely, then replace it on the bar; in a few hours it will take the strength of a Sandow to remove.
- A local paper advertises for a salesman also qualified to act as a demonstrator of motor bicycles, evidence of a small but real demand for such men.
- Quotes an English writer's complaint that ordinary Dunlop-pattern valve stems are badly designed and that the solutioned canvas tab round the stem is "a huge farce," while in America metal and rubber-and-canvas stems have long ceased to give trouble.
- A merchant argues the show window is the public's index to the store's contents and should be staffed with the same care given to hiring help — it is the dealer's first silent salesman and can give no offence except through his own fault.
- Claims abstracted from six patents: Baker and Taylor's luggage carrier, Robert Eccles's lever-driven cycle gearing (Ballywalter, Ireland), Leslie B. Moore's rubber cement, Frederick B. Hayden's lamp wick tube, Herbert E. Irwin's detachable tire, and Alfred J. Neunier's braced bicycle fork; plus Isaac S. McGieran's pneumatic tire design.
- A German method of joining aluminum heats the wire ends or sheet edges until plastic and kneads them together until homogeneous, exploiting the metal's softening well below its melting point; a Brooklyn man's secret process was reported earlier.
- Martin Dodge, director of the United States Office of Public Road Inquiry, credits "the reflex influence of the bicycle and the automobile" with forming the sentiment now crystallising into highway betterment across the United States and Canada.
- Connecticut dealers help the sidepath cause by stocking the 50-cent sidepath licences the new state law requires, good for the calendar year and valid on any sidepath in the State.
- American cycle exports fall off from the previous week, London and Liverpool taking the bulk — 91 cases at $3,027 and 12 cases at $1,732 respectively — with further shipments to the British West Indies, Copenhagen, Dutch Guiana, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Havre, Smyrna and Moscow.
- The Canadian Manufacturers' Association opposes any unilateral Dominion adoption of the metric system but backs a conference of Great Britain, the United States and other Anglo-Saxon countries on a common decimal system of weights and measures, and has written to the Minister of Inland Revenue, the London Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers.