The Wheel: Journal of Bicycling, Vol 4, No 9
Articles in this issue
- The editors' miscellaneous notes column on the Third Annual L.A.W. Meet in New York, praising the local clubs' arrangements, the Metropolitan banquet, and Charles E. Pratt's toast-mastering, while urging members to pay their renewal dollar promptly to Treasurer W. V. Gilman and chiding the Boston Bi. Club for not riding at the head of the parade.
- Results of the Williamsburg Athletic Club's annual Decoration Day Games on May 30, where R. G. Rood (Ixion Bi. C., scratch) won the two-mile bicycle race in 7 min. 17.5 sec. over a poor track, ahead of W. H. Austin (W.A.C.) and R. F. Foster (Baltimore A.C.).
- Report on the eighth annual Inter-Collegiate Athletic Association meet at the Manhattan Polo Grounds on May 26, including the badly bungled two-mile bicycle race won by Columbia's C. A. Reed in 6 min. 53.5 sec. after a start-line collision felled Rood and Maverick; the editors argue it should have been run in heats.
- Club department carrying the Fixtures calendar and Closing of Entries notices for June–July 1883, listing race meetings at Morristown, Washington (Capital Club), Baltimore, Detroit and Lancaster, and the three-day Springfield camp and tournament set for September 18–20.
- Stenographic report of the L.A.W. annual business meeting at which Dr. N. M. Beckwith was elected President over the reluctant W. H. Miller, and delegates voted by roll-call—after long parliamentary wrangling led by Pratt, Whiting, Williams and Parsons—to adopt The Wheel as the League's official organ at fifty cents per member.
- Treasurer W. V. Gilman's formal cash account (Dr./Cr.) for 1882-3, showing $2,340.92 received against expenses for the Corresponding Secretary, Treasurer, membership tickets and the Beacon Park race meeting, leaving a treasury balance of $1,177.21 plus accrued interest.
- Standing notice describing the Cyclists' Touring Club (founded as the B.T.C. in 1878) as an international body some ten thousand strong, inviting amateur riders to apply through Chief Consul Frank W. Weston of Savin Hill, Boston; no applications had been received up to publication.
- Lead editorial declaring the Third Annual League Meet the largest and most successful wheelman gathering yet, noting over 800 riders passing spirited horses in Central Park without accident, but regretting that much constitutional business—raising dues and providing for State Divisions—went unfinished when Tuesday's session lacked a quorum.
- Detailed narrative of the meet from the Friday reception-committee assignments and Sunday runs to Yonkers and High Bridge through the Monday parade of riders commanded by Dr. Beckwith up Fifth Avenue and through Central Park's West Drive to General Viele's residence on Riverside Drive, ending with the group photograph at Mount Tom.
- Observations from the parade singling out Capt. Will R. Pitman's veteran command, praising R. V. R. Schuyler's Citizens' Club machine with ivory handles and gold-and-silver trimmings as the handsomest in line, and criticising undisciplined unattached riders whose coasting nearly turned the parade into a burlesque.
- Report on the Tuesday May 29 meeting at the Grand Union Hotel, convened by Chief Consul Beckwith to form the New York State Division, at which Benjamin Sanford (Continental Bank) was elected Secretary and Lewis H. Brown of Elmira Treasurer, with constitutional amendments still pending.
- Account of the evening banquet at the Metropolitan Hotel, with knee breeches plentiful and the Seventh Regiment Band playing throughout, judged the most successful bicycle banquet ever given; W. A. Bryant is credited with managing the affair.
- Notice from Chief Consul Edward K. Hill and Secretary Frank P. Kendall calling a general meeting of the Massachusetts Division for June 13 at the New Marlboro Hotel, Boston, to adopt by-laws, elect officers and act on annual meets, a racing committee and state championships.
- L.A.W. transportation department listing the many railroads—Baltimore & Ohio, Grand Trunk, Wabash, Illinois Central, Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania and others—that carry bicycles free at owner's risk in baggage cars for first-class ticket holders.
- List of League membership renewals for the week ending May 31, 1883, including riders from Hopedale and Winchendon, Mass., Clarion, Pa., and a block of Woonsocket, R.I. members.
- Comic verse by the pseudonymous 'Rev. Micah Humdrum, Prize Poet of the Hope Manufacturing Company,' offering mock-devotional couplets in praise of the bicycle—contrasting its gay roundabout way with horse-car and steam, and equating the wheel with health and uplift.
- Philadelphia letter from A. MacOwen, Hon. Sec. of the Pennsylvania Bi. Club, describing the club's first social night on May 17 in its newly decorated machine-room, where sixty to seventy riders from the Pennsylvania, Germantown, Philadelphia and Haverford College clubs admired machines and took non-intoxicating refreshments.