The Wheel: Journal of Bicycling, Vol 1, No 14
Articles in this issue
- A satirical death-card mourning the 'loss' of Article II of the L.A.W. Constitution, dated March 19th, 1881, declaring that New York mourns her loss after the directors' Meet decision.
- A comic poem by Jas. Revell in which the god Mercury, flying along Fifth Avenue, alights at Wright's shop at 791 Fifth Avenue and is welcomed into the Mercury Bicycle Club by members including President Pierre Noel and Neergaard.
- A miscellany column noting James Revell taking charge of the Sunday Courier's bicycling department, the Hawthorne Bicycle Club of Salem joining the L.A.W., the founding of the Kings County Wheelmen in Brooklyn (President George T. Brown), and a comic street-dialect retelling of The Merchant of Venice from the Cincinnati Enquirer.
- Special-supplement editorial announcing a monthly fifty-cent supplement that will publish the League's proceedings, consuls, candidates and touring information, rather than charging members triple dues for the official organ.
- List of the L.A.W. national officers: President Charles E. Pratt of Boston, Vice-President Thomas K. Longstreth of Philadelphia, Commander C. K. Munroe of New York, secretaries Albert S. Parsons and J. Frank Burrill, and Treasurer Hugh L. Willoughby.
- Directory of L.A.W. consuls appointed across Canada and the U.S., listing names and addresses by city in Ontario, Quebec, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states.
- A note urging members to scrutinise published applicant names to bar objectionable persons, followed by the March applications from the Mercury Bicycle Club of New York, the Centaur Bicycle Club of Philadelphia, and the Arlington Bicycle Club of Washington.
- Report of the special L.A.W. Board of Officers meeting at Boston on March 19, 1881, covering a new $1 membership fee, adoption of the gray-homespun 'Bedford blouse' League uniform from G. W. Simmons & Son, Albert Parsons's attempted resignation as corresponding secretary, and the debate ending in a six-to-two vote for Boston over New York and Philadelphia for the May Meet.
- A letter from Capt. C. W. F. of Farmdale, Kentucky describing a coat-in-the-wheel header on muddy roads, his patent-pending cyclometer to be called 'the Perfect,' and a red-aniline-and-shellac recipe for bronzing and rust-proofing a bicycle.
- New York city letter signed A. G. Rowler protesting the directors' choice of Boston over Central Park for the League Meet, and reporting on the New York, Manhattan, Lenox and Columbia College clubs' affairs.
- Report of the season's opening bicycle races at Madison Square Garden on March 14-15 with the New York Athletic Club games: Chas. A. Reed of Columbia College Bi. Club won the two-mile handicap, and W. M. Woodside took the five-mile handicap in 22m 22 3-5 sec., passing Walter Clarke.
- The paper's editorial stating its aims and lamenting the directors' 6-2 vote for Boston as the May Meet venue, arguing the eastern-dominated board failed Article II of the Constitution by not choosing New York, the place offering the greatest field for protecting wheelmen's rights.
- Boston letter signed 'Juvenis' accepting the settled Boston Meet, predicting a tricycle vogue for the season, and vigorously defending the American bicycle-verse collection 'Lyra Bicyclica' against a garbled, unfair review in the English 'Cycling.'
- Notice that entries close May 31 for a three-mile bicycle race at the Young America Cricket Club games at Stenton, Philadelphia, with a fifty-cent fee to W. T. Wilcox.