L. A. W. Bulletin and Good Roads, Vol 27, No 17
Articles in this issue
- A Chicago undertaker proposes conducting funeral processions entirely by wheel, with a cycle hearse propelled by eight wheelmen and mourners following on their own bicycles.
- Editor Sterling Elliott argues that seemingly trivial differences in frame height, crank length and sprocket size have, through long evolution, produced the near-perfect modern safety bicycle.
- A humorous editorial on "the other fellow" who always seems to take more than his share of the road, car-seat and post-office queue, concluding he probably finds us just as tiresome.
- A reader (L.A.W. No. 109,707) recounts how a young stranger in a red sweater rode back along the road near Hyde Park to recover his lost bicycle chain and rushed it to the railway station for him.
- A satirical mock play-synopsis, reprinted from the Mason City (Ia.) Weekly Institute, ridiculing the American practice of "working out" road taxes through a day of dialogue, misdirected plowing and paperwork that leaves highways worse than before.
- Argues that the three-wheeler deserves a revival in America, being nearly as fast as a bicycle on good roads, superior on hills, and far better suited to heavy riders, while American cyclists deride anything not of the latest single-track fashion.
- A central New York farmer, writing to a local paper, contends that bad roads knock dollars off adjacent farmland values and burden the farmer more than the bicyclist, citing the Higbie-Armstrong law and state-aid offers.
- C. L. Borreson, in the La Crosse Republican, calculates that $100,000,000 a year for fifty years would be needed to match European roads, arguing it would liberate rural labor and bring electric vehicles and bicycles into ordinary country use.
- A standing prize contest inviting readers to write critiquing the issue's advertisements; the April 8th prize went to W. J. Kaufman of Harrisburg, Pa., with checks of $5, $3 and $2 for the best three letters.
- A department giving a line each to maker catalogues received, listing bicycles (Andrae, Ariel, Fowler, Iroquois, Cleveland, Monarch), saddles, sundries and tires, with makers from Milwaukee, Chicago and Cleveland.
- Prof. R. C. Carpenter of Cornell reports dynamometer tests showing ball bearings lose only one-fifth to one-tenth of one per cent to friction, chain drives reach 95-99 per cent efficiency, and bevel-gear chainless wheels run measurably less efficiently at normal loads.
- The Puzzle Editor offers a solid-gold L.A.W. emblem to each member who correctly identifies the writers of four reproduced autograph signatures by May 10th.
- Government road expert E. G. Harrison explains that the Post-office Department's rural free-delivery trials over stone, gravel, clay and dirt roads in New Jersey and Pennsylvania will succeed best where roads are firm enough for carriers to work in all weathers.
- Short trade items including the Cox Repair Kit (Cox & Tingley, Elizabeth, N.J.) and G. H. Walker & Co.'s new two-part Latest Road Map of New Jersey covering the state north and south of Camden.
- Analyses the newly passed New York road-improvement bill as permissive rather than mandatory, requiring local initiative to secure State aid, and urges continued agitation to turn its possibilities into actual road work.
- Reprinted from the Suffern Independent, the piece likens roads to the veins and arteries of a civil division, arguing villages and farmers each depend on the other and cannot shift the road-improvement burden away.
- Reports on two miles of vitrified brick road at Monmouth, Ill., laid on edge over sand with broken-stone borders, which observer H. B. Garrison says outperforms macadam for country use.
- The L.A.W. official section, edited by Secretary Abbot Bassett, listing officers for 1897-98 (President Isaac B. Potter, Secretary Bassett), standing committees, and the chief consuls and secretary-treasurers of every state division, with renewal and membership-application blanks.
- Consolidated division notices including President Potter's warning to members touring in Canada over unreported wheels, danger-sign offers from Robert L. Stillson, and Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, New York and Indiana division reports on renewals, appointments and membership drives.
- Chairman Albert Mott's notices from Baltimore covering approved track contracts, suspensions (C. F. Godfrey, Geo. C. Standfield, Ben Birdsell), professional transfers, accepted national-circuit dates, registrations including Paris riders, and a Denver tandem record by Swanbrough and Sager.
- A catalogue of League supplies and emblems for members, including the Good Roads badge, ticket holders, veteran bars, rubber stamps, and Isaac B. Potter's handbooks "Good Country Roads" and "Good Macadam Roads," each five cents.
- The state-by-state list of new membership applications published under Article III of the constitution, running from Colorado and Connecticut through Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, plus a list of new League clubs.
- The query department answering members on routes, hill-climbing articles, frame and crank sizing, and the renumbering of League tickets, plus a note on the L.A.W. trade-buying scheme proposed by Indiana Chief Consul Sherwood.