CORRESP ONDENCE. 



55i 



a note to the professor, requesting that his 

 name might be removed. When the note 

 was received at the professor's house, he 

 was out, busily engaged in getting signa- 

 tures. The next day he called on the re- 

 pentant signer and informed him that, be- 

 fore the note was received, the document 

 had been already presented to the select- 

 men. 



These selectmen, though I maintain just 

 and well selected, were puzzled. After dis- 

 cussing in open session the question whether 

 a thirty-eight-inch bicycle ridden by a small 

 boy should be compelled to take to the road, 

 while big boys on thirty-six-inch bicycles 

 were allowed to patrol the sidewalks, and 

 the difficulties of enforcing regulations de- 

 pending on the exact size of the bicycle, 

 they decided, as the wisest practical course, 

 to exclude all bicycles, in accordance with 

 the original, principal, and most definite 

 purpose of the petition. This decision, we 

 believe, was a perfectly honest one. There 

 was, at any rate, enough to justify it as 

 such, and the burden is on those who charge 

 dishonesty to prove it. It is true, as al- 

 leged, that this order necessarily " caused 

 irritation." Why ? Because it was unjust, 

 or appeared so to the village. Yet this in- 

 discriminate exclusion was the real object 

 at which the professor aimed, and which he 

 partly gave up only in order to make sure 

 of as much restriction as he could get. 



But the order was not generally satis- 

 factory, and a counter-petition (which your 

 informant seems to have forgotten) was 

 drawn up and at once signed by about two 

 hundred of those who favored the cause of 

 the bicycles. The list included a great ma- 

 jority of the substantial names of the vil- 

 lage, and was handed in long before any- 

 thing like a complete canvass could be made, 

 because the chairman of the Board of Se- 

 lectmen was to leave town the next morn- 

 ing for a considerable absence, and imme- 

 diate action was necessary. The selectmen 

 held another session. Horses were fright- 

 ened daily under the eyes of all by bicycles 

 oa the road. No accidents known to the 

 community at large had resulted from the bi- 

 cycles on the sidewalks. The decision of 

 the magistrates was a responsible one in a 

 pecuniary sense, as they might entail on the 

 town heavy damages as the result of forcing 

 the bicycles into the road, to the distress 

 and dismay of the riding and driving public, 

 Still, prompted by the desire which they 

 throughout showed to act cautiously and fair- 

 ly on a controverted point with which they 

 professed no personal acquaintance, they 

 made, in accordance with the general senti- 

 ment, a modified and, as the event seemed 

 to prove, a judicious order. They excluded 

 the bicycles within certain designated limits 

 from the central and business part of the 

 village, where alone they thought accidents 



likely to occur, but permitted them elsewhere 

 on the sidewalk. From extreme caution 

 they proceeded tentatively, however. The 

 order was made about the middle of August, 

 to remain in force till the 1st of September. 

 This was for the purpose of testing its prac- 

 tical operation before establishing a rule at 

 the expiration of the time limited. No ac- 

 cident happened. Nothing happened which 

 the lenses of the learned professor could 

 magnify into an " accident " ; and on the 

 1st of September the order was indefinitely 

 continued, with the like beneficent result. 



Now, the selectmen are charged with 

 "playing into the hands of an active party 

 in favor of the boys." We will not stop to 

 inquire who was this active part} 7 which 

 overawed the selectmen and commanded a 

 majority of the votes. But is not it hard 

 on the selectmen, who did what they con- 

 ceived their duty in the manner described 

 above, to charge them with knavery, with- 

 out, so far as appears, other grounds than 

 that the order they finally made, in view of 

 all the facts, was unsatisfactory to the pro- 

 fessor? This is not Spencerian doctrine. 

 If it is what the editor of this magazine 

 calls a " vigorous canon of scientific meth- 

 od," it is rather too vigorous. 



In the article in the " Springfield Repub- 

 lican," the accusations (according to the 

 writer's recollection) are more bitter, and 

 one of the magistrates is attacked by name. 

 We shall come presently to the charge of 

 Stockbridge special amenableness to Mr. 

 Spencer's indictment against the American 

 people. But here we may inquire whether 

 there is no other fault found by him with 

 our people, to which those are amenable 

 who publish accusations against official per- 

 sons for which there is no scintilla of proof. 

 Mr. Spencer's ethics prohibit slander and 

 personalities. 



Now let us glance at the more general 

 facts : 



It will be admitted that bicyclists, like 

 other domestic animals, have some rights 

 which, once defined, are as much entitled to 

 protection as the wider liberty allowed pe- 

 destrians. The question to decide is, at 

 what point the exercise of these rights be- 

 gins to turn into a trespass. It will hardly 

 be denied that in the open country bicyclists 

 may leave the rough road for the more 

 traversable path which runs by it, and when 

 the road and the path lead into a small, 

 straggling village, where pedestrians are 

 rare, the practice is still clearly permissible. 

 When the road and path lead into a larger 

 village, the road becomes paved or macad- 

 amized, and the path becomes a sidewalk, 

 the question changes its aspect. In villages 

 like Stockbridge, where there is plenty of 

 space, and the broad, graveled sidewalks are 

 never crowded, it is not a simple one. A 

 good bicyclist can guide his machine almost 



