55 2 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



around a blade of grass, and the great pre- 

 ponderance of accidents have resulted from 

 bicycles encountering horses in the road. 

 In large towns with thronged sidewalks, it 

 is obvious that, whether bicycles are to be 

 allowed in the road or not, they are in the 

 way on the sidewalk, and ought not to be 

 permitted there. A rule adapted to the 

 compact English villages is not necessarily 

 the best guide for ours. But it is not true 

 that bicycles are not permitted on their 

 sidewalks by any such general rule as the 

 professor states. There, as here, the rule 

 depends on the size of the village, and on 

 the question whether such permission would 

 or not be practically inconvenient. When 

 the controversy in Stockbridge was going 

 on, and rival posters were daily going up, 

 considerable evidence was collected to this 

 effect. In some villages, as in " Henley- 

 on-Thames," the postmen travel altogeth- 

 er on bicycles, going freely on the side- 

 walks. In Massachusetts towns of about 

 the size of Stockbridge, such as the neigh- 

 boring villages of Lee and Barrington 

 (which, by-thc-way, are considerably larger 

 than Stockbridge), and where there are no 

 college professors, or, if there are, they re- 

 serve their perambulatory meditations for 

 their return to their Poccile, bicycles are gen- 

 erally permitted on the sidewalks. In much 

 more populous towns, like Pittsfield and 

 Springfield, they arc doubtless excluded. 

 Now, who is to decide when the permission 

 to go on the sidewalk becomes a nuisance ? 

 Certainly, in this country, the people them- 

 selves, through their authorities. In New 

 England these are the selectmen. New 

 England almost if not quite alone retains 

 the system of town self-government which 

 for so many centuries preserved liberty and 

 fostered civilization in Europe. The select- 

 men of a Berkshire village, charged with the 

 supervision of the lives and property of the 

 inhabitants, certainly have better means of 

 judging and a stronger motive to judge 

 rightly in what parts and places bicycles 

 should be permitted within their jurisdic- 

 tion, than a newspaper in Hampden County, 

 or a magazine in New York City, acting on 

 the ex parte statements of even a distin- 

 guished individual, who, having undertaken 

 to have the question settled to suit himself, 

 is indignant because the selectmen, in ac- 

 cordance with the expressed wish of a ma- 

 jority of those interested, have decided 

 differently. 



The writer is one of the professor's 

 many admirers, and would be the last to im- 

 pugn his good faith ; but, once enlisted in 

 a campaign, whether in behalf of science, 

 charity, or some idiosyncrasy, he goes on 

 with a persistency which is always indomi- 

 table and sometimes headlong; and he is 

 apt to assume that his cause has but one 

 side, which, in cases coming under the third 



of the above categories, at least, is not in- 

 variably true. In this instance, he threw 

 aside the sketch-book with which it had 

 been his wont to exercise his charming ar- 

 tistic talent during his vacation, and de- 

 voted his time to scouring and ransacking 

 the by-ways and corners of the village for 

 rumors and reports of accidents from bi- 

 cycles, the existence of which, before they 

 were seen or heard of by any one else, he 

 was as satisfied of as Leverrier was of the ex- 

 istence of the planet Neptune before he saw 

 it. He posted up from day to day notices 

 of incidents more or less founded on fact, 

 which he apotheosized into catastrophes. 

 He went back over a period of four years, 

 to the first introduction of the bicycle into 

 the neighborhood, and the only genuine 

 " accident " worth mentioning, it is believed, 

 if his collection were dispassionately inter- 

 preted, was the result of the fall, on a baby- 

 carriage, of a bicycle unskillfully mount- 

 ed by a learner at this early day. People 

 saw with wonder lists of tragedies posted in 

 front of the post-office which no one had 

 heard of, and which were the more mysteri- 

 ous as they were generally without date, 

 and the sufferers were commonly designated 

 as Mr., Mrs., or Miss Blank, or the infant 

 child of Mr. and Mrs. Blank. Why had no 

 one heard of these terrible things? Why 

 were not half of us in mourning or in tears ? 

 What right had we to walk erect on un- 

 broken legs while so many were mangled ? 

 It seemed as if a wholesale slaughter had 

 been going on in the midst of us without 

 our knowledge. Fortunately, a little inquiry 

 into the facts soon dissipated our apprehen- 

 sions. 



Let me illustrate: the writer, while look- 

 ing at the list of casualties with feelings 

 fortunately for him not quite akin to those 

 with which we used to devour the returns 

 from the Chickahominy, read somewhat 

 as follows (the number and the precise 

 words are not remembered, but the sub- 

 stance of the bulletins is correctly given) : 

 "No. 16. The infant child of Mrs. Blank 

 run over and badly injured by a bicycle. 

 For particulars refer to J. 0. R., Esq." 

 Looking further the writer read as follows : 

 "No. 21, J. 0. R., Esq., run into and hurt 

 by a bicycle." (J. 0. R. was the same per- 

 son referred to in No. 16.) It so happened 

 that the writer observed at the moment in 

 the post-office J. 0. R., Esq., himself, and 

 improved this opportunity by inquiring of 

 him the particulars of the two calamities, 

 calling his attention to the alarming record 

 before us. " Well," said he at last, " that 

 isn't exactly right. I didn't see anything 

 happen to any child, and I haven't been run 

 into myself, but I understood that old Mr. 

 J. G. had been run into and hurt." Soon 

 after this conversation, the writer chanced 

 to meet the wife of the old gentleman in 



