The Wheelmen's Gazette, Vol 4, No 4
Articles in this issue
- A Rip Van Winkle pastiche by Charles Alexander Persons: shiftless Georgian Wip Van Rimple and his dog Shucks stumble on a costumed nighttime gathering of cyclists near Mayslick, drink from their bottles, and wake decades later to find his wife Molly and the world transformed, the tale closing with a courtroom scene and his death in the poorhouse.
- A digest of club activities from March 15 to April 15, 1889, including the Maverick Club's fifth annual supper in East Boston, the Cambridge Cycle Club's fancy-dress ball, the Missouri Bicycle Club's runs to Bartold's and Point Breeze, and the Tennessee L.A.W. division's spring meeting at Clarksville.
- A calendar of cycling fixtures running from April through October, including the Chicago tournament at the Exposition Building (May 13-18), Frank A. Elwell's European touring party sailing May 18, three Stone-Lumsden match races at Chicago, St. Louis and Crawfordsville, and L.A.W. division meets in California and Maine.
- A satirical poem etching an unflattering portrait of the professional racing man as a scheming, self-serving showman who sneers at amateurs while banking his "fees."
- The Gazette's regular patent digest, supplied by Washington attorneys C. A. Snow & Co., lists new American patents -- including several to Thomas B. Jeffery of Ravenswood, Illinois and George T. Warwick of Springfield, Massachusetts -- and new English patents covering velocipede frames, brakes and safety mechanisms.
- A technical reference table furnished by Mr. C. D. Buckwell, reprinted from the Cyclist, giving wheel circumferences and revolutions per mile from 30 to 60 inches, with worked examples for calculating how far a driving wheel is geared up or down.
- A wistful poem musing on the hidden, unspoken sorrows folded into every life, likened to a turned-down page in a book.
- An editorial pushing back on readers who ask the cycling editor to plan their tours for them, recommending Karl Kron's exhaustive "Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle" as the proper resource for route planning.
- A profile of Dayton, Ohio's A. W. Gump & Co., reprinted from the Dayton Board of Trade Journal, describing its three-story bicycle house, its trade reaching Bermuda, Mexico and South America, and its partnership with the Gormully & Jeffery Manufacturing Company; illustrated with a portrait of A. W. Gump.
- A miscellany column of cycling squibs and jokes covering German champion Lehr's training, a Leipzig cycle exhibit, London's Vegetarian Cycle Club, S. T. Clark sailing for England to hurry New Rapid Safeties, Wm. A. Clarke's climb of Stamford's historic "Put's Hill" on an Eagle bicycle, and a Denver meeting organizing a rival cycling association to the L.A.W.
- A directory of newly elected officers at dozens of clubs, from the Albany Bicycle Club and Brooklyn Bicycle Club to the Missouri Bicycle Club of St. Louis and the Wanderers' Bicycle Club of Toronto.
- A humorous sketch signed "Pres. Merg" describing a fictional club's shabby meeting loft above a saloon, the trial of a barrel-riding member named Dave for drunkenness, and a mouse scare that disrupts the meeting; illustrated with a cartoon of the clubroom.
- A scientific essay by Dr. Benjamin Ward Richardson, F.R.S., analyzing cycling-induced vibration as a form of "spinal shock" akin to railway-accident injury, and surveying contemporary attempts to design non-vibratory machines through spring saddles, rubber-cased wheels and break-in-circuit handle mechanisms.
- An essay signed "Stamson" of Stamford, Connecticut, complaining of ill-tempered road hogs and rude female carriage-riders who refuse to share the road with wheelmen, while noting that most travelers are growing more courteous.
- Publishing notes reporting the demise of the Australian Cycling News, the start of Dr. Willard Mackenzie's serial "Jo and Nat" in Golden Days, and the March 10 publication of Thomas Stevens' first round-the-world letter, datelined Aden, Arabia.
- A letter signed "C. A. P." recounting a 103-mile ride from Macon to Atlanta for $1.40 in expenses against a $3.09 rail fare, capped with a tongue-in-cheek boast of stealing a pointer dog along the way.
- Tall tales of aged wheelmen, including 130-year-old Deacon Phineas R. Shinbone riding his daughter's tricycle to the grocery, and 105-year-old Jasper Sorethumb of Jo Daviess County, Illinois, watching his "youngest son" ride to town for tobacco.
- A feature on the Kingston Knitting Company of Boston, maker of athletic jerseys, tights and the "Niantic" worsted bicycle stocking, crediting proprietors J. A. Hatch & Co. as pioneers of polo-worsted club suits.
- A first-person reminiscence signed "L. B. G." of learning to ride a 54-inch Star seven years earlier after watching a friend wobble one down a sidewalk, and of the string of machines that followed -- a Sansparcil, an imported Rucker, a Yale and finally a Columbia Light Roadster -- each remembered for its particular breakages.
- The Warwick Cycle Manufacturing Company, over President George T. Warwick's signature (Springfield, Mass., April 15, 1889), publicly denies rumored threats of patent-infringement suits from the Pope Manufacturing Company and the Overman Wheel Company and pledges to defend its customers against any such litigation.
- A recurring dialect-humor column signed "C. A. P." in which Uncle Kerlumbia arrives lugging firewood and instructs the club-room audience on how a beginning cyclist keeps balance: "ez long ez hit keeps er movin', hit ain't er gwinter fall down."
- A cartoon page pairing the Shakespeare tag "I'll fetch a turn about the garden" with a comic illustration of a crowned figure pedaling an ordinary bicycle through a garden.
- A nine-panel cartoon sequence depicting acrobatic stunts on an "umbrella-cycle" performed by two Japanese riders, including balancing atop each other's shoulders and spinning parasols while riding.
- A news report on the April 6 hill-climbing trial at Eagle Rock Hill witnessed by wheelmen from Orange, Newark and Elizabeth, in which Wm. A. Clark of Stamford, Conn. rode a 50-inch Eagle bicycle to the summit without a waver, watched by E. S. Walsh, L. B. Gaylor and other named cycle-trade representatives.