The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-08-17

What shall be done about the bicycle?
In London, bicyclists have been forbid
den to enter Hyde Park and the tax on
bicycles in France brings in nearly $780,
600 per annum. But English laws are
generally construed against the rights
of the masses as against the classes and
France finds it necessary to tax every
thing in sight irrespective of any opinion
for or against the usefulness of the art
icle. In America we do things differ
emily and having no near neighbors whom
we are trying to rival or surpass in cost
ly ornaments we are not 80 intent upon
adding new articles to our tax list as
some European countries. AS one goes
West liberality, like freedom, increases.
Thus while East London has to get along
with % gallons of water per day to the
inhabitant New York uses 100, and in
Chicago we complain because we are
limited to about 119. In short, in the
United States councils, legislatures and
Congress alike act or profess to act upon
the principle, the greatest good to the
greatest number, and though this is not
always realized, a comparison of his
condition with that of person of sim
liar circumstances in Europe tends to
complacency and satisfaction on the
part of the average American citizen.
800
Thus, while in England and in France
the bicycle, as would seem from legisla-
ton, is not in favor, in America it's pres
ence has been accepted, even by those
who never use it, as perfectly legitimate
even if not conducive to meditation and
reverie on the part of the pedestrian and
the stroller in the parks. There is even
talk in Chicago of setting aside one
bridge over the river at certain hours to
the bicyclers who are growing so rapidly
in numbers that from the present indi-
cations it will not be long before they
will be in the majority. The question
then may be somewhat changed and we
may ere long be asking: what will the
bicycers do with us?" The question
whether or not the bloomer is to be toll
Grated is merely question of fashion.
Look back to the prints of forty years
ago and you will scarcely recognize the
woman of the fifties as belonging to the
same class as the woman of today, so
far has fashion veered from the mon
etrous crinoline then in vogue. In mat
ters Of fashion, good taste and good sense,
unfortunately, are not always the law
givers, and were Paris suddenly to pro-
mitigate the edict that, as at the Court
of Siam, it is now the proper thing to go
about on all tours, we fear there would
promptly be demand for durable russell
gloves to correspond with russell shoes.
500
The head of the Episcopal diocese of
New York, Bishop H. w. Potter, is do
ing his East Side Summing like vet
eran. He SCOTS at all talk of hardship,
of dangers, of contagion, of terrors of
the fierce heat in narrow and crowded
streets. HE makes business heavy for
me-" said the patrolman on the beat
Everybody is talking about it, and
when he is in the street the word is
passed round that the Bishop is to be
seen. Then the people run. No, they
don't think anybody is up to date unless
he can say that he saw the Bishop"
But the Bishop is not resting on the
empty laurels of admiration and curiosi-
ty. He is in Stanton street not as
Bishop of New York, in charge of
the Cathedral mission. 1t is one thing
to read prayers in bedroom in Fifth
avenue and it is quite another thing to
read prayers in Essex street, rear base
ments, fourth floor rear, with the bed in
one corner and the onion soup cooking
on the stove in the other corner, with
two rats fighting under the bed and the
baby shrieking at the window and the
doorways full of curious peering faces.
Bishop Potter is simply doing his duty,
but he is entitled to great respect for
entering upon this work. 1t is setting
the right kind of an example to his
clergy. There will be more of this work
done hereafter as a sequence of Bishop
Potter's heroic action.
500
1t appears by the London Christian
World, as quoted in the Standard, that
Rev. r. F. Horton. of that city, has been
lecturing for fifteen years the artisans
of Hampstead, London district, on
subjects of interest to them in their
special calling. On recent such occa-
sion he compared the aspect of thinge,
in certain respects, in 1880. with what it
now is, in 1885, I'm 1880 the acknow-
lodged leaders of the working men were
atheists and secularists; Huxley and
Tyndall were quoted as authority for
the reputation of the Christian faith.
Today the leaders of the working men
are practically none of them atheists,
the halls of science are chiefly closed,
the secularist platforms are silent. In
1880 the first mutterings of the storm of
Biblical criticism were filling English
souls with dismay. Today it is perfect
ly we'll understood that criticism has
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