3o8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



them pay for it. The philanthropists that advocated the bill could 

 not see that they, in reality, were the " free-lunchers " ; for they 

 were not so much interested in the encouragement of generosity as 

 they were to profit from it after it had been encouraged. It was 

 not " the kickers " that needed reformation it was the reformers 

 themselves. 



What such excellent persons need most is not more knowledge, 

 as many reformers suppose, but, as Mr. Spencer has often pointed 

 out, a livelier imagination and keener sympathies. Had the 

 training of these faculties been more perfect, the proposed tax 

 would have called to mind the hundreds, if not thousands, of 

 poor owners of bicycles that had been forced to practice the most 

 rigid economy to buy them the shop girls, the mechanics and 

 laborers, the servant girls and messenger boys, and the impover- 

 ished invalids advised to take exercise to restore health shattered 

 by long hours in shops or stores. There would have been the 

 feeling that to these unfortunates a dollar was a considerable 

 sum, and that if it could not be paid, as the bill required, the cost 

 and annoyance of the legal proceedings authorized for its collec- 

 tion would be a serious hardship. The possible sufferings of un- 

 fortunate delinquents, rather than the advantage of paths and the 

 suppression of " free-lunchers," would have filled the mirror of 

 consciousness. With feelings stirred by pictures of injustice and 

 suffering, not unworthy of the best days of a feudal despot, the 

 benevolent advocates of the bill would have opposed it with 

 even greater energy and skill than they defended it. 



Another curious fact brought out was the ignorance of many 

 of the petitioners as to the true character of the bill. Until the 

 objections to it had been set forth in the newspapers, they did not 

 realize what they had petitioned for. Even then it was impos- 

 sible for some intelligent persons to comprehend that the bill was 

 an outrage. I remember talking with two or three lawyers about 

 it. Both from a legal and moral point of view they thought it 

 an excellent measure. Another professional man, one of the 

 brightest I ever knew, pronounced it the most just and practica- 

 ble that could be proposed. But in spite of these perverted opin- 

 ions, the discussion evoked such indignation and opposition that 

 the bill was rejected by the mayor and common council, whose 

 approval was required to make it law. 



II. 



Now that the bill had been defeated in accordance with the 

 social philosophy of Mr. Spencer, what, in accordance with that 

 philosophy, was the next thing to be done ? Was the construction 

 of side paths to be opposed altogether ? Were bicyclists to be de- 

 prived of this means of pleasure and rapid communication between 



