The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1896-08-14

| even got cyclometer to count
my centuries" | have owned my
treasure" for week or ten DAYS. Dc
you want to buy it? | have wheel
and a pet monkey both for sale. When
| got home | took my first lesson from
an experienced teacher. In less than
half an hour | had ruined suit OF
clothes and my wheel, wiped up tie
face ofearth with corporal existence a
half dozen times. | had lost my tenn
per and most of my religion, The
hide that was skinned off, is now in
process of being tanned and will be
made into souvenirs for my friends.
l never knew how to properly com
pare bicycle with horse until the
last few days. l have now come tc
the conclusion that there is no com.
parison. | was told that | could ride
a bicycle twenty miles an hour, where.
as, if rode a horse at that speed it
would kill the horse. My experience
is that while run of that distance
does not hurt the bicycle, one-fourth
of it puts me in fair condtien for a
first class wake There are many
other differences. When man is tired
of walking; he can rest himself by rid.
ing horse; when man gets tired rid
a wheel, he can rest himself by walk
ing. \ good horse, even an old family
horse, is perfectly safe; you feel atease
on his back: bicycle, you never know
what turn it is going to take: it is
worse than mule; unlike mule, it is
not by blood related to horse. but
much more treacherous. When a
mule throws you, you generally fall
away from the mule; when a bicycle
accomplishes the same feat, it usually
falls on top of you and hurts you worse
than the fall; mule inclines his ears
towards his tail, giving you timely
warning of future events; the future
events of bicycle don't even "cast a
shadow before" A horse will stand
still until you get on him: but wheels
are not built that way; the same rule
applies when you get off: A horse like
his half brother, the mule, warns you
as to what is on his mind, but bicycle
keeps its intentions to itself until its
object is accomplished. A horse sees
the stones and brickbats that lie i'm his
path and avoids them, while bicycle
picks them out and hits them in the cen
ter. In fact it seems determined from the
time you start, either to break your
neck or give the aforesaid agent a re-
pair job. A horse eats oats, hay, corn
etc; a bicycle eats money with which
it fertilizes the aforesaid agent.
If you succeed in mounting the wiry
steed, you will at once begin to think
of how you are going to get off when
you stop, whether you will land on
your feet or head, or whether you won't
get off in lump before you reach your
journeys end Very few falls from a
wheel can be accounted for. A
mans head usually controls his actions
until he gets on a bicycle: then he
finds the bicycle has a head of it's
own.
''Instead of riding with ease" slit
tie or no exertion," find that neither
splitting rails nor saving wood is any
thing to be compared to it. | find, af-
ter, after my said weeks experience,
that not only my body and bones are
broken and bruised, but my spirits are
broken, my courage is all gone, am
afraid of the shadow of a wheel; | feel
like the fellow who is said to have
SHE'D whenever a street car passed him.
The latest improved wheel like mine
has no brake or other contrivance for
stopping it; in fact, it is not consider
ed good form" to have brake on
your wheel; brake Oh wheel would
prevent a man from breaking his neck
and this is mot good form" in cycling
circles. started down long hill and
in some unaccountable manner (every-
thing is unaccountable with wheeD
lost my pedals. Each yard down grade
added velocity to my speed: there l
| sat going at the rate of several miles
per minute, as helpless rs Mother Eve
before the serpant of biblical fame,
with visions of surgical operations,
broken bones, bruised flesh, the hor-
rors of hades and the beauties of Para
disc, travelling through my brain at
the same rate that my wheel was going
ttoW III I'LL I;t't lCSI IlN l't'EtiS, Wis
on the eve of losing everything that
had strived nearly fifty years to ac-
quire, and now if | should lose" my
head for an instant the repair bill on
my wheel would be presented to my
administrator at the same time that
the undertaken sought to be renumera-
ted tor necessary expenses incident to
the birth of new widow. | have
leaned in the sad school of experience
that 2O0-pound man has no business
on a bicycle; light weight can pro
pei one. but if YOU put 200 pounds ON
the top of Il twenty pound wheel it
takes a steam engine to turn that
wheel, and a rider seldom carries an
engine in his pocket.
never start down the street on my
"beauty" that don't feel like crying