L. A. W. Bulletin and Good Roads, Vol 24, No 22
Articles in this issue
- The reader-letters department leads with "Hard and Soft Tires" (a 135-pound New Yorker, No. 124,546, endorsing full inflation and a New Jersey map exchange) and "A Philadelphia Idea" (Chas. H. Davis proposing a division-consul canvass across Philadelphia's 530 election divisions), continuing onto later pages with letters on road rights, tandem seating, and winter riding.
- Stanley B. Huber of Detroit appeals to non-League cyclists who enjoy the road improvements and touring privileges won by the L.A.W. without paying the $2 fee, calling them spongers and urging them to join.
- W. R. Morgan (No. 106,901) of San Francisco praises the Bulletin but complains of isolation from the 1,634 members of his North California Division and seeks some means of communicating with them.
- President Sterling Elliott reports that, despite thousands of members entering bicycles at Canadian ports under the L.A.W.'s customs agreement, not one authenticated abuse of the privilege has been recorded.
- An editorial argues that the bicycle defies all predictions that it would remain a luxury of the wealthy or a tool of the laboring classes, having spread across every age and social station.
- A brief editorial gives thanks for the L.A.W.'s record membership growth during the 1896 season and for the nationwide progress of the Good Roads movement.
- An editorial urges state legislatures to make bicycle theft a penitentiary offence of at least one year, arguing the wheel's vulnerability on the street demands a far stiffer penalty.
- Answering a reader (No. 119,432) who objects that publishing the membership list gives non-advertisers a free mailing list, the editors note that one cent buys four pages in the Bulletin reaching 70,000 cyclists, far cheaper than postal circulars.
- The editors commend Dr. A. J. Wright of Montclair, who runs New Jersey's division press committee compiling and distributing cycling items to cooperating newspapers, and urge every state division to form one.
- A score of readers answer a Delaware Division member's query on keeping cycling stockings from slipping, with remedies ranging from dress-hooks and rubber-tube garters to an elaborate pulley-block rigged to the bicycle frame.
- Correspondents debate the proper tandem seat for a woman: "Ariel" of Pittsburgh and J. Walter Scott of Toledo argue for the rear on grounds of control and safety, while a Philadelphia member insists the front seat is safer and easier to mount.
- W. A. Couhig (No. 133,878) of Philadelphia and a Plainfield, N.J., member offer tall tales of a decapitated pullet and a grey squirrel that rode two miles in a front wheel, plus a Sun account of an Adirondacks cyclist who collided with a deer.
- Lon H. Huchison of Huntington, W.Va., and other correspondents extol the camera as the bicycle's ideal companion; C. M. Shipman describes Brooklyn's wheeling "Whirling Dervishes" and D. M. Farnsworth backs N. A. Bristol's call for an L.A.W. Camera Club.
- A Washington member (No. 93,062) contrasts the city's smooth asphalt streets with its poor suburban roads, comparing them unfavourably to those around Boston, Long Island, and Richmond, Va., and urges the Capital to lead in road improvement.
- The editors give the solution to the autograph-guessing contest: Miss Helen E. Diller of Brooklyn wins the gold L.A.W. emblem, with 176 attempts and 130 different wrong readings of C. De P. Field's signature alone.
- A Good Roads department editorial traces the movement from a dismissed cyclists' fad to a broad national demand, arguing that roads fit for bicycles benefit farmers, tradesmen, and all travellers alike.
- A Leesburg, Fla., farmer calculates that bad sand roads cost him $101.80 extra per season on a ten-acre vegetable crop — over $10 an acre — through extra horses, hired labour, and slow haulage.
- The official department lists the 1896-97 League officers (President Sterling Elliott, Secretary Abbot Bassett), standing committees including the Racing Board and Highway Improvement, the state Chief Consuls and Secretary-Treasurers, and the membership-application and renewal blank forms.
- The Racing Board declares numerous riders professional and suspends others, barring French professionals Mordier and Soibud and John H. Johnson of Toledo, and granting race sanctions to several New York and Brooklyn regiments and wheelmen's clubs.
- Consolidated annual-election results and division notices from across the League, including S. A. Boyle's win as Pennsylvania Chief Consul, M. C. Rotier's in Wisconsin, and reports from Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington, and West Virginia.
- The state-by-state list of membership applications received up to November 23, 1896 (totalling 420, bringing the roll to 72,465), published under Article III of the constitution and headed by Connecticut, New York (181 names), and Pennsylvania.
- The membership-renewal roll covering renewals from November 11 to 23, arranged by state and number, listing renewing members in Connecticut, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and elsewhere.
- The reader-question department answers numbered correspondents on reckless-driving laws, wood rims, royal-purple enamel, thick grease for ball bearings, and membership percentages in towns such as Schenectady, Exeter, and Mount Vernon, Wash.