L. A. W. Bulletin and Good Roads, Vol 27, No 12
Articles in this issue
- Recurring run of short illustrated squibs on cycling topics, including a new folding bicycle, Hudson River steamer rates for carrying wheels, a member's plea for cavalry-style gauntlet gloves, the Woonsocket damage award against an electric-car company, E. E. Eaton's chain-repair file tool, tandem gearing, and magnetized pedals to replace toe clips.
- Editorial leader arguing that the cyclist returning from even a one-hour local ride enriches non-riders and shut-ins by sharing fresh observations of the countryside, just as the world-traveller enriches those who stay home.
- Editorial ridiculing a Wisconsin physician ("M.D.") who published claims that ten years of riding will make three-quarters of cyclists chronic invalids and even grow scorchers a baboon's tail, citing millions of healthy wheelmen as a living refutation.
- Fairmount Park statistics for 1897 record 285 punctures and 381 other accidents to wheelmen, with 392 persons injured, and note two French girls who opened a successful Philadelphia cycling school.
- The editor invites League members who have successfully recruited many new members to share which inducements and arguments work best in persuading cyclists to join the L.A.W.
- The Century Wheelmen of New York vote to exclude women and minors from their spring century run on April 24, 1898, citing medical opinion that the strain is harmful to women, while leaving regular ladies' club runs unaffected.
- Signed letter from Joseph Pennell, Foreign Marshal L.A.W. and American Representative Councillor of the Cyclists' Touring Club, protesting the Bulletin's preference for the Touring Club de France and urging members abroad to join the cheaper Cyclists' Touring Club (consul F. W. Weston, Boston), which publishes road books for all Europe and seeks American members.
- The L.A.W. offers $125 in prizes (top prize $50) for photographs of bad country roads to aid the Good Roads agitation, submitted to Otto Dorner, Chairman of the National Committee for Highway Improvement, Milwaukee, with the competition open until June 1, 1898.
- The Long Island Railroad runs its first bicycle-only baggage car (capacity 144 wheels) on a Sunday excursion from Flatbush Avenue to Babylon, with riders wheeling on to Patchogue for dinner.
- "The Highwaymen," a Louisville cycling organization formed in January 1898 at the suggestion of park commissioner R. C. Kinkead, has raised over $2,000 to link Iroquois, Shawnee and Cherokee Parks by cycle path, the first seven-mile Ohio-River path opening May 1.
- An English manufacturer argues that weight and ease of propulsion are distinct, pointing to racing machines that gained weight from 20 to 25 lbs. while still setting records because frame rigidity matters more than lightness alone.
- F. W. Halsey describes the wooded Wissahickon Drive in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia (the issue's cover subject), tracing its macadam route past the Old Red Bridge, Rittenhouse mill, Valley Green, the "Sneaking Indian" rock and Indian Rock, and urging cyclists to ride it by day and lamplight.
- Editor Sterling Elliott announces the withdrawal after April 1, 1898 of his offer to pay $100 to the heirs of any Bulletin subscriber killed cycling within two weeks, the $600 cost last season having proved a poor advertising investment.
- Sterling Elliott's "Ad. Critic" proposition offering $5.00 weekly for the best reader letter criticising the Bulletin's advertisements, with five numbered questions inviting opinions on which ads attract attention and persuade.
- A humorous dialect poem by Joe Lincoln, prompted by a report that the human stomach can be surgically removed, musing whether life without one would spare us mince-pie groans and colic.
- Recurring history series tracing the earliest chain-driven rear-wheel safeties from H. J. Lawson's 1876 lever machine and H. Bate of Croydon's cord-driven "Flying Dutchman" through Lawson's 1879 Bicyclette (built by D. Rudge & Co.) to the 1884 Marvel tested by A. J. Wilson.
- Highway-improvement department: New York's Higbie-Armstrong Road Bill passed the senate 38-9 and assembly 90-40 and awaits Gov. Black's signature; New Jersey's road commissioner estimates one mile of good road equals 75 miles of rail haulage; plus notes from Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Saginaw.
- L.A.W. official matter listing 1897-98 officers (President Isaac B. Potter, Secretary Abbot Bassett) and standing committees, the spring renewal season notice, L.A.W. supplies price list, and division news from Iowa, Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, Maryland, Colorado, Nebraska and Wisconsin.
- Further division reports including Michigan and Iowa honor-medal winners, the Kentucky Division's local-attorney and guide-board campaign, the Wisconsin Rights and Privileges Committee, and the Massachusetts Division's quarterly meeting under Chief Consul Sterling Elliott (bicycle-theft reward plate, North Shore Highway protest, junior membership).
- Racing Board notice: Arthur W. Robinson announces professional registration under Article 5 of the by-laws ($2 fee, effective May 1, 1898), with district registrars Albert Mott, H. W. Foltz, J. B. Sheridan, W. I. Doty and A. D. Wait, plus sanctions granted to J. J. Shea and T. B. Baylies.
- Albert Mott's Racing Board report giving the registration rules, the 1898 National Circuit dates from Atlanta to St. Louis, riders transferred to the professional class and suspended (W. Tackaberry permanently ruled off all tracks), expired Minnesota suspensions, sanctions granted, and a list of stolen wheels.
- State-by-state list of new L.A.W. membership applications (total 675) published under Article III of the Constitution, covering every division from Arkansas and Colorado through New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and beyond.
- Reader correspondence department answering members' questions on touring routes (New York to California, Springfield to Yellowstone), a forthcoming article on correct pedaling, road-book routes, and the Bulletin's editorial policy on "sporting" content.