L. A. W. Bulletin and Good Roads, Vol 27, No 16
Articles in this issue
- Judge Lippincott's charge to the Grand Jury urges the Hudson County, N.J., Board of Freeholders to repair the deteriorated boulevard using pauper and prison labor from Snake Hill, threatening indictment for public nuisance if they fail.
- The lead editorial column, beneath the journal's masthead and staff (editor Sterling Elliott, associates Nixon Waterman, Luther H. Porter and Joe Lincoln), humorously contrasts the bicycle's obedience to veterans with its misbehavior under novices, and reflects that no wheel ever truly retires from service.
- An editorial essay tracing how inventions — the telescope, telegraph, telephone, photography and phonograph — have extended man's senses, and arguing the bicycle completes the set as 'the long leg,' adding thousands of square miles to the daily horizon of ordinary people.
- The first installment of a technical series by Prof. R. C. Carpenter of Cornell University, defining mechanical efficiency, foot-pounds and horse-power, and reporting dynamometer measurements of the power an ordinary rider expends in easy, hard and heavy cycling.
- A detailed instructional article (continuing to p.13) on correct pedaling, explaining how constant ankle movement keeps the foot near right angles to the pedal through 220 degrees of the stroke, eliminating the 'dead centre' and greatly increasing power, comfort and control.
- Notice that each Pennsylvania Division member will receive free the new road-book volume covering his own section of the State, with the companion volume available for twenty-five cents, the two together giving every road, town, grade and condition in the State.
- A signed letter from John F. McAree, President of the New York Firemen's Cycle Club, defending women on century runs by citing their club's Fall Century Run in which over a hundred ladies entered and all but two finished, ahead of many of the men.
- Reprinting the Philadelphia Press, the article reports that New Jersey has decreed the abolition of toll roads with compensation to turnpike companies, and urges Pennsylvania to enact a similar statute against its many toll-gate nuisances.
- The Ad. Critic department announces $5, $3 and $2 prizes for the best reader letters judging which advertisements in this issue best (and least) influence buyers, illustrated by 'A Shoe-String Tale'; the April 1st prize went to Dr. T. B. Van Alstyne of Binghamton, N.Y.
- Correspondent No. 155,971 argues that road improvement should be funded by land owners, since every good road raises adjoining land values, and proposes shifting the whole road tax onto the value of land rather than on houses, bicycles and other products of industry.
- An editor's appeal inviting members to share the makeshift expedients by which they got home on an unrepairable punctured tire 'about 'steen miles from nowhere,' toward a proposed book on 'Bicycle Emergencies and How to Meet Them.'
- Opening the Good Roads department, this piece uses the Suffern Independent's figures for the Ramapo valley near Suffern, N.Y. — sixty miles of road improved by a $150,000 bond issue — to show how cheaply better highways could be financed, followed by further essays on inexpensive road repair and the cost of stone roads.
- A Good Roads essay paired with photographs of roads in the adjoining Pennsylvania townships of Moreland and Abington, contrasting macadamized and muddy roads to argue that the whole public, not just roadside residents, benefits from and should maintain good highways.
- The L.A.W. official department, edited by Abbot Bassett, listing the 1897-98 officers (President Isaac B. Potter), standing committees, the full state-by-state roster of Division chief consuls and secretary-treasurers, renewal-season notices, and the membership application and renewal blanks.
- Consolidated division reports including Renewal List No. 15 and renewal-season instructions, the L.A.W. Pioneers organization and its proposed Indianapolis reunion, and notices from the Ohio, Maryland, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and Massachusetts divisions (the latter detailing Spring Meet and Field Day plans for May 30).
- Chairman Albert Mott's Racing Board notices from Baltimore approving track contracts, registering riders (including Jaap Eden, John S. Johnson and several French wheelmen), recording suspensions and class transfers, and listing the sanctioned National Circuit and championship meet dates and a roll of stolen wheels.
- The lengthy state-by-state roster of new membership applications received up to this date (totaling 737), published under Article III of the Constitution, running from Colorado and Connecticut through New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Canada.
- The reader query-and-answer department covering member renumbering, the waning popularity of coasting and adult tricycles, lady-back tandems in England, and household tips for cleaning lamp reflectors, alongside the comic dialect adventure of 'Coary Gus' and 'Shure Shott Sandy.'