274 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



There is wanting the spirit of resist- 

 ance to apparently trivial violations of 

 right. The man who would fight for 

 his country will not fight a despotic 

 neighbor, but will tamely acquiesce in 

 wrong for the sake of peace and neigh- 

 borly harmony. This spirit of compla- 

 cent acquiescence in wrongs inevitably 

 breeds wrong-doers to take advantage 

 of it. Where there is a low regard for 

 the strictly equitable, equity is sure to 

 be violated. There are always natures 

 that will encroach if not resisted, be- 

 cause the roots of aggression run deep 

 in the soil of selfishness. Boys of 

 strong wills that are petted and pam- 

 pered, or left unrestrained at home, be- 

 come bullies in the streets and tyrants 

 in their social relations. "Resistance 

 to tyrants is obedience to God," of 

 course, but that means the foreign ty- 

 rant, not the one next door, or in the 

 school-board, or church, or in the car, 

 or restaurant to resist him might 

 make unpleasant disturbance. Habitu- 

 al submission to inflicted wrongs, how- 

 ever small, is simply moral cowardice, 

 and there is no disguising the fact that 

 it is a very large element of the Ameri- 

 can character. Mr. Spencer has diag- 

 nosed our condition in this respect from 

 a very few symptoms, but the illustra- 

 tions of wrong tolerated from timidity 

 and dread of what people will say, if 

 small aggressions are seriously resisted, 

 are all too plentiful. An excellent ex- 

 ample of it occurred recently, which it 

 is worth while to note. 



Bicycles upon the sidewalks, as 

 everybody knows, are not particularly 

 conducive to the comfort of pedestri- 

 ans. Even the small machines impelled 

 by children, though hardly dangerous, 

 are often annoying. But large bicycles, 

 ridden rapidly by strong boys on the 

 sidewalk, are sources of constant solici- 

 tude to those who are walking, are 

 dangerous, often result in accidents, 

 and are simply nuisances that should 

 not be tolerated. In most English vil- 

 lages, as we are informed, bicycles are 



not allowed on the sidewalks ; and the 

 hand-books issued by English manufact- 

 urers of bicycles caution their custom- 

 ers that it is a forbidden practice, while 

 in many places bells have to be at- 

 tached to the bicycles even when rid- 

 den in the streets. To what degree this 

 practice is general here in country 

 towns we do not know, but there has 

 recently been an experience in this 

 matter in the village of Stockbridge, 

 Massachusetts, which is quite American 

 in its way. 



In the first place, Stockbridge is a 

 charming town among the Berkshire 

 hills, much resorted to as a summer 

 residence by city people. Moreover, 

 the people that go there and the people 

 that live there are eminently culti- 

 vated and refined ; wealth abounds, and 

 it is not a place where poor people are 

 much harbored. In education, intel- 

 ligence, and all the moral qualities 

 which are said to accompany mental 

 cultivation, Stockbridge is an Ameri- 

 can village of a superior sort. It will 

 be long, very long before American 

 villages generally come up to the Stock- 

 bridge standard of culture and good- 

 breeding. 



Nevertheless, all grades of bicycles 

 were allowed upon the Stockbridge 

 sidewalks, and the vexation and danger 

 attending the practice were such, that 

 last July one of the summer residents 

 presented a petition, signed by eighteen 

 prominent residents, to the board of 

 selectmen, praying that the use of bi- 

 cycles on the sidewalks be prohibited. 

 Immediately after a remonstrance signed 

 by thirty residents was got up and 

 handed to the selectmen. Understand- 

 ing that the main objection to the orig- 

 inal petition was that it did not dis- 

 criminate between large and small bi- 

 cycles, the gentlemen who drew the 

 first document prepared a second draft, 

 asking only that large bicycles should 

 be excluded from the sidewalks of the 

 village, and this was signed by one 

 hundred and sixty - eight residents. 



