Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1895-07-05
BlCYCLOMANlA.
From the Rider and Driver

Hyste:ical articles appear in the daily
papers with great frequency of late pre-
dieting the abrogation of the horse. BIZ
cycles and manumotve vehicles are hailed
as harbingers of "the hOrseless age"
Electric and cable cars already in exist
ence are pointed out as the forerunning
agencies of usurping mechanical power.
According to the melancholic walls and
the hypochondriacal screenings of the
sensational newspaper the temporary ces-
sation of horse breeding and the fanatical
check upon horse racing are signs of the
approaching equine dissolution. All of
sudden the New York editor, with
truly Knickerbockeran hindsight, has
walked up to the existence of agencies
that have been in force throughout the
world for some years. Immediately he
cries out, like the Scotchman who tum-
bles to a Joke when its relator has for
gotten how he related it, that he has dis
covered a great thing. Let him go on
with his inverted telescope making dis
coveries. Cable and electric cars are
chestnuts in Western towns. Bicycles
have been in use more or less since we
all were children. For a quarter of
a century experiments have been making
with motors for carriages. Now, how
ever, while the craze for indulgence in
these things is on, the great minds of the
great press, instead of surveying the
whole field and stopping to think calmly,
reflectlvelly and collaterally, rush at
conclusions that make them as silly as
they are shallow. The Rider and Driver
has been asked why it does not ''pitch
into" the bicycle as the enemy of the
horse. When the fad started The Rider
and Driver was thoughtless enough to
make some alusion to the disadvantages
the grotesquenesses and the indelicacies
of the wheel, but on more serious con-
sideration of the subject we have reached
the empirical determination that, as with
nearly all diseases, it is best to nurse the
patient through the progress of the fever
up to the climacteric point and then on
the subsideoce of the evil administer a
dose that will exercise the malady and a
tome that will sustain the victim through
Its throes. Should the bicycle become
obsolete we should be sorry Should
the cables refuse to yank and the trolley
fail of its electric potentiality we
should be very sorry. Should the
experiments with manumotive vehicles
prove of no avail our hearts would be
torn with sad emotions. The horse
would then be obliged to return to his
drudgery. The breeding of common
brutes would again start up with renew
ed activity. Progress in civilization
would be set back. In all probability
the love of the beautiful and the ideal
in the horse which is now crystallizing
would be SmOthered out of existence.
Let the bicycle move on to the topmost
limit of its popularity. What matter if
clergymen and physicians differ as to
its moral and physical effects? What
matter if one minister preach with the
wheel on his lectern, that the rubber
tired, ball-bearing cycle is to take us all
to heaven: What matter if another
point his index finger to a figure on the
carpet and declare in fine rhetoric that it
will swirl us all into the sub-cellar of
stellar space: What matter if doctors
say it is an oXygenated blessing? What
matter if others declare it to be the agent
of Old Nick, to make us hump ourselves,
turn our broad chests into narrow air
chutes, convert our strong hearts into
pumps of nervous excitement, and so
disOrganiZe our other vital organs that
instead of suffering disorders late in life
we shall have them early and be done
with it? We say let's try it on. While
we are at it let's be at it and not be out
of date. If this fad should die out sud-
denly there is no telling what new de-
rangement might arise. We might col
lapse. History is full of all sorts of
things in the past, and astrologers say
there are all sorts of things In the future.
As to the horse, what is he good for {?
while another is taking a canter through
the park. You may invent manu-
motive vehicle that will travel faster
than another who may be INDUCING his
fancy for slowly driving spirited pair
of blood horses. Touch the button and
off you go. Let's get there" That's
all we want. But when we settle down
we think it will be pleasant to hear the
whnny of the docle faithful beast who
carries us under saddle; or the neigh of
the blithesome creature who thrills us by
his dash and beauty as he trots in the
shafts, at the pole or on the lead. His
whms, his moods, his affections, his
capers, his ailments and his imperfec-
tions! What are they not to us wlro love
comDanionshpl