The San Francisco call., 1896-02-23

"you must have felt in some measure the
dullness which has affected all other
liverymen
''Of course" was the response; business
isn't all that it used to be; but you can't
blame the bicycle for that. A few years
ago we boarded great many horses for
business men and collectors. The street.
cars have branched out in every direction,
making a network over the City, and even
running far beyond the City limits. Agents
and collectors no longer feel that any horse
is required. They don't feel like paying
$40 month board for horse or So a day
for the use of horse and rig, because they
can just step aboard a car and go wherever
they please in the City. They have no
horse to look after, and can travel around
all day, and all it costs them is so cents or
IS cents A good deal of difference between
that and 50; you see!'
''Who runs the cyclery next doorT'
"a brother OF mine"
$50 the old gentleman has one son to
attend to the livery sta bic and another to
conduct the bicycle business, and he runs
them side by side?"
That's about it,
The fact is that Peter Garrity, shrewd,
ldI sighted man, nOteu the lNrOaQS MADE
on his livery trade by the popular bike.
He was not the kind of man to stick to a
losing game when there was any relief in
sight, and he went to work and fitted up
big room Immediately adjoining his sta
bles as a bicycle store. He has made
little fortune in bicycles and is not troubled
by the encroachments of the bike on his
livery stable. Like Mr.. Haskell, the ha--
ness dealer, what he loses in one way he
makes up IN another.
1t is true that the streetcars have made
hole in the livery trade. 1t is true, too.
that the cable and trolley have knocked
out horses wholesale made them drug
on the market; but the horse, in "pass-
ing" may look with some degree of salts
faction on the very wheel which has op-
Grated largely to his undoing, cause that
same wheel is charming away hosts of old
patrons of the streetcars an d thus making
of itself roundabout vehicle of revenge
E. E. Ames, the manager of the carriage
factory of Studebaker Bros. & Co., said
that the bicycle had injured that portion
OF the trade relating to the livery business.
Livery men throughout the country
have complained" said he; "but it is ap-
parent to US, however, that the bicycle
Juror of 1895 is over with and that bust
ness will soon settle down to conditions
like those which preceded the craze. The
bike has made inroads on us to a certain
extent, but we have letters from gentle
men who are desirous of trading their,
bicycles in part payment for buggies. Our
belief is that about nine-tenths of the
people who purchase bicycles would not
buy horses and carriages for pleasure,
because they cannot afford to keep them;
yet those same people might go to livery
stable and pay 50 to So for horse and rig.
Our trade with Iiverymen is SO slight as
compared to the whole trade, that such a
falling off doesn't worry u.s. Very few
people who are able to own horses and
vehicles will eschew them for the bicycle.
at has been widely reported to be our
intention to enlist in the bicycle manufac-
turing industry. We contemplated no
such thing. We have had to run an extra
force to keep up with the requirements of
the carriage trade.
"We have received fully $4,000 letters on
the subject OF the bicycle factory that we
were reported to have III view"
Captain Dilhan of the Van Ness Riding
Academy said his patrons fell away last
summer and things looked blue for his
school, but the winter has brought back
much of the old custom 1.-THE wheel was
an attractive diversion while it was new"
said the captain, "but it has come into
such common use that the parties who de-
sire to be exclusive cannot bear to ride in
the park any more, and they naturally
return to the more exclusive and more ex-
pensive horseback riding"
The captain had an idea that boomers
| showed up all the defects in woman s
figure, while horseback riding made all
the graces plain.
Does the hiking habit interfere with the
smoking habit?
That is another question. Nearly every
smoker who bikes will tell you that it
does. "You cannot smoke with comfor,
while riding wheel, they say. There is
not only no satisfaction in smoking while
cutting the wind at such speed, but it is
even dangerous to try. Besides the incon-
venience of handling the cigar at all times,
the smoke and ashes are liable to iniure
the eyes of the rider.
Nearly every man who bikes is or has
been a smoker. Ergo-if the smoking
habit is unseated even to small degree
with every man who bikes, does it not save
him that much money-the price of the
cigars or cigarettes that he does not smoke?
Biking is said to be a healthful exercise.
Smoking is alleged to be an unhealthful
luxury. Subtracting that much of the
unhealthful luxury that is cut off by the
speedy wheel. and adding it to the already
healthful exercise, the result must be still
more health. That goes without saying.
This philosophy applies, of course, only
to the unbloomered biker. The woman On
the wheel as off does not figure in dis
cussion of the smoking habit.
As previously stated in this article BIZ
cycle statisticans say there are 10000 peo-
pie in the City who ride the wheel as a
regular diversion. Very conservative
people say 5000. Of this number it is es-
timated that not more than one-tenth are
women. Take the conservative estimate
and leave out the women and you have
13, 500 men IN this City who do not smoke
as much as they used to-that is as a rule
and taking the word of the average bicy-