L. A. W. Bulletin and Good Roads, Vol 24, No 9
Articles in this issue
- Two members describe cycling abroad: No. 84,660 praises the country roads about Paris, the Touring Club de France signage, and the divided-skirt riding on the Bois de Boulogne, while No. 84,148 of Philadelphia contrasts heavy English machines and enclosed chains with the fine macadam, hedges, and old ruins of a tour through Reading, Oxford, Stratford, and Birmingham.
- Signed members' letters to the editor, including J. S. Briggs (No. 2,287) under "No Right to Wear It" on pressuring a cigarette company to stop giving away L.A.W. buttons to non-members, and Geo. Hayes (No. 108,627) under "Sixteen to One" urging a single crowned bicycle path on Seventh avenue, New York, instead of two side paths.
- Editor Sterling Elliott defends the Bulletin's right to discuss the free-coinage-of-silver question, arguing that intelligent wheelmen should weigh all sides of the country's pressing monetary debate before marking their ballots on election day.
- Sterling Elliott clarifies that his personal opposition to free silver coinage, misreported as official in a Louisville paper, does not commit the League, since his editorial columns are controlled by him as a publisher under contract rather than as an L.A.W. officer.
- An editorial mocks the recurring push to specially tax bicycles, quoting the Scottish Cyclist on the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture's resolution to tax cycles after Mr. Constable of Tarquhair claimed pneumatic tires harm roads more than metal wheels.
- An editorial argues the bicycle and good-roads movements are permanently intertwined and self-sustaining, noting 1896 has set a record for intelligent road-making and citing a Philadelphia member's defence of League membership against an Illinois complainant.
- Mrs. L. A. Sterling (No. 112,667) gives a day-by-day account of a six-rider July 4–11 tour from Philadelphia through Lancaster, York, Gettysburg, Martinsburg, and the Shenandoah Valley to the Luray Caverns, detailing road conditions, hotels, and current-propelled ferries.
- Chas. Tilgner (No. 84,331) of Brooklyn describes a four-rider, seven-day, 267-mile tour from New York to Boston following the New York State Division tour book through Connecticut and Rhode Island, enduring abominable sand near Niantic and Narragansett Pier before returning on the Fall River steamboat Puritan.
- No. 55,524 offers a preferred route from Port Jervis via Water Gap, Saylorsburg, Wind Gap, Nazareth, Easton, and Point Pleasant to Philadelphia, disputing No. 109,067's advice to train from Water Gap to Easton and recommending the scenic Pennsylvania side over Jersey sand.
- An item reprints a veteran rider's rules of bicycle etiquette, urging men to assist dismounted wheelwomen, observe the rules of the road, ride to the left of a lady to shield her from passing vehicles, and never be ashamed to dismount in traffic.
- Reprinted from the Baltimore Sun, an account of the running feud between cyclists and the new Pikesville toll-gate, climaxing in a wheelman thrashing the gate-keeper, with an editorial aside that the company should pay riders to use the bad pike.
- An extract from a paper by Col. F. V. Greene of New York City on asphalt paving, covering bituminous concrete foundations, Trinidad asphalt's granular non-slip surface, Buffalo's record asphalt mileage, and the threefold transportation savings smooth pavements yield in cities like New York.
- Reprinted from the Pittsburg Dispatch, a report that Prof. Hamilton, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, has circularized Pennsylvania's roughly 4,500 township road supervisors and found two-thirds favoring cash-paid road improvements over working out the road tax.
- C. E. Belknap of Grand Rapids narrates a 172-mile wheel tour of Yellowstone National Park from Cinnabar past the Mammoth Hot Springs, Golden Gate, geyser basins, Old Faithful, the Continental Divide, and Yellowstone Lake to the Grand Canon, illustrated with park scenery.
- An editorial in the Bulletin's campaign against theatre hats reprints a Harper's Weekly account of Louisiana's high-hat law barring women's hats at theatres, and the New Orleans confusion over Senator Fenner's amendment permitting undefined "opera hats."
- A trade department noting Humber & Co., America, Limited's plan to open retail depots in every prominent United States city by fall 1896 and its call for city manager applications by September 15.
- Opening the Good Roads department, a New York Ledger reprint argues every horse or bicycle owner has a personal stake in good roads, blaming narrow tires and procrastinating property owners for the frightful state of country thoroughfares.
- A Pittston (Pa.) Gazette reprint surveys convict road labor, citing Hon. Roy Stone's recommendations and describing systems in Tennessee, New York's Clinton prison, and South Carolina's county chain gangs that are macadamizing highways.
- The L.A.W. official department lists 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, with League pins, buttons, and application and renewal blanks.
- Racing Board notices on the rule against paying riders appearance bonuses, with lists of men suspended pending investigation, sanctions granted to meets in Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, professionals declared, and St. Louis, Oregon, and Colorado riders suspended or outlawed.
- A report of the Pennsylvania Division board meeting at the Lafayette Hotel, Philadelphia, on August 10, including Chief Consul Samuel A. Boyle's report of over sixty damage claims, the secretary-treasurer's account of 117 percent membership growth to 8,544, and committee reports on highways, road books, and constitution revision.
- Consolidated division notices including the Massachusetts Racing Board, the Michigan Division's new local consuls and hotels, the Illinois Division's recruiting drive to reach 5,000 members, the Membership Committee's expulsion of E. J. Tinsdale of New York Division, and theft-reward warnings from chief consul Isaac B. Potter.
- The weekly state-by-state list of membership applications received under Article III of the constitution, totalling 787 new names and bringing League membership to 65,693, with division tallies led by New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Illinois.
- The editor answers members' queries on Canadian re-export rules for bicycles, the League's official royal-purple color, joining the Cyclists' Touring Club for foreign tours, and transferring League tickets between divisions, and reports the bicycle-costume wedding of racing-board member Henry W. Robinson and Miss Jennie Morrill at Waltham.