L. A. W. Bulletin and Good Roads, Vol 24, No 25
Articles in this issue
- The readers' correspondence department opens with "Crank and Gear," in which a 210-pound rider with 36-inch legs argues for large sprockets and 32-inch wheels, and "A Voice from Rochester," a letter by Frank Van Doorn reckoning Rochester's 30,000 cyclists have spent over $1,000,000 on wheels and demanding good roads of the city fathers.
- A road commissioner argues that winter road upkeep is as vital as summer work, describing how he sends four to ten mules and snowploughs from Peekskill and Fieldhome to keep the central roadway clear of drifting snow.
- A holiday poem in rural dialect by Associate Editor Nixon Waterman, in which Farmer Broadacre cheerfully shoulders the Christmas bills to buy a sled for Ned, a doll for Nan, and toys for little crippled Dan.
- Cities wishing to host the 1897 L.A.W. National Meet are urged to file formal applications with Secretary Bassett at once, since the matter will be settled by a mail ballot in January and late applicants will miss the ballot.
- President Sterling Elliott's Christmas editorial reflects on the holiday as a day of sentiment for rich and poor alike, and reports that thirty-eight suggestions were received in the L.A.W. poster competition, with the prize winner and instructions for the $100 full-size poster to be announced the following week.
- An editorial traces how the Good Roads slogan has spread through business and social life, noting New York druggist Geo. F. Schreyer prints "We Want Good Roads" across his prescription blanks and that the L.A.W. has already contracted over 2,900,000 in catalogue advertising for the movement.
- E. C. Bourne of Sandwich, Mass. suggests that wheel repairers and renters across a State form an association—potentially a chain of L.A.W.-appointed repair shops under each chief consul—to look out for each other's customers, watch for stolen wheels, and extend free minor repairs.
- A department of members' roadside-repair tips, opening with a rider who wrapped a worn-through tire in cotton strips, pine tar, and twine to ride twenty miles home, and continuing with improvised patches, a timothy-grass tire filler, and R. A. Beaumont of Philadelphia's method for mending broken spokes.
- Members from Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, and elsewhere share methods for removing oil, graphite, and grime after working on a bicycle, suggesting borax, lard then soap, benzine, kerosene, an oxalic-acid rinse, and a sawdust scrub.
- Citing the Indianapolis News, this item argues that creosote wood-block pavements are destroyed less by rot than by the hammer-blows of horses' metal-calked shoes chipping the blocks, a fault hard to remedy because the blocks cannot be set tightly enough.
- The Camera Fiends department leads with a photograph forwarded by Chas. Hughes of Red Bluff, Cal. taken by a deer itself at midnight via an automatic flashlight trigger, followed by tips on interior views, a blue-print paper formula, and a developer recipe.
- Reports on legal victories for cyclists: Indianapolis and Philadelphia pass right-of-road ordinances; Mobile, Ala. cyclists win a State Supreme Court injunction against a $1 wheel-license tax; and the Avon Cycle Club of Easton, Md. has its town's bicycle-licensing ordinance voided by Judge Stump as unreasonable, with the Maryland Division pledging to cover the club's costs.
- A comic Good Roads poem by Joe Lincoln in which Noah, mired in mud after leaving the ark on the slopes of Ararat, pleads with the Lord for good roads rather than this "mud and watery plain."
- An editorial holds that Jack Frost's frozen earth demonstrates the first principle of road-building—make the road hard, then smooth it—and urges good drainage and a broken-stone or sand-and-earth bed rather than relying on the weather.
- Drawing on English practice noted in the December 4th Bulletin, this piece warns that well-made American macadam roads are ruined for want of care, prescribing dust and mud removal, open drains, and selling the scraped material as fertiliser.
- The business men of Wamego, Kan. have organized a Good Roads society and are circulating subscription lists for cash, work, and material, beginning with the nearly impassable Wamego-Louisville Boulevard.
- The League's official directory listing the 1896-97 officers (President Sterling Elliott, Secretary Abbot Bassett, Treasurer E. S. Hartwell), the standing committees, and the chief consuls and secretary-treasurers of every State division from Alabama to Wyoming.
- Official racing notices listing riders suspended for entering races and failing to appear or pay entry fees (from Illinois, Missouri, and Texas) and four riders declared professionals, including Marshall Taylor of Brooklyn at his own request, alongside New York State Division stolen-wheel reward notices.
- A full report of the Massachusetts Division's annual Board of Officers meeting at Young's Hotel, Boston, Dec. 9, 1896, with Chief Consul J. E. Tippett presiding: the secretary-treasurer's report showing 9,577 members (third behind New York's 20,428 and Pennsylvania's 10,824), committee reports on rights, transportation, racing, and the road book, the election of 23 delegates to the National Assembly, and President Elliott's nomination for re-election.
- Consolidated division notices: New York State and Kentucky Division delegate and officer elections, Ohio Division club representatives, Wisconsin transportation committee and local-consul appointments, and Georgia Division Chief Consul M. J. Hirsch's drive to reach 500 members by June 1st.
- The constitutionally-required list of new membership applications received up to Dec. 18, 1896, arranged State by State from Alabama through Wisconsin, totalling 235 names and bringing recorded membership to 72,659, followed by a list of new League clubs.
- The editor's reply department answers readers including Jacques (Tahitians have held cycle races at Papeete), J. K. L. (perpetual motion has never been discovered), and J. V. O. (the L.A.W. initials were used on cigars without permission).