The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-04-14
HOW ABOUT A RAZOR ?
SHOULD A coLORED MAN CARRY ONE
ON A BIKE?

This Was Among the Important Questions
Considered by the Thompson Street Ri
cycle CIub-women Must Ride or Stop
Kicking-Txue Etiquette of the Wheel.
When the regular Saturday night meet
ing of the Thompson Street Bicycle club
had been opened in due form, President
Toots announced the following new mot
toes to be hung on the walls:
cit is better to take tumble than TO
meet cable car head on
eff you must swear, then swear with
dignity and lay the blame on the other fell
low
''The Iamppost was here before the
bike
"You owe it to humanity to make long
turn around the corners"
''No religion will jump a bike over an
open ditch
Providence never helps the bikist who
goes out with his lamp unlighted."
''The punctured tire comes to the'j just as
we'll as the unjust
The secretary then announced the fol-
lowing replies to letters sent out within the
last month:
A colored man in Alabama wrote that
up to year ago the razor backed hog was
the fastest thing on legs in the whole south,
and that after rs years of useless effort the
colored population had given up trying to
catch him. Then the bike was introduced
and now the hog lies right down without
a squeal and becomes roast pork.
A colored man in Illinois wrote that be-
fore the bike came he was ba1dheaded,
humpbacked, lopshouldered and suffered
with catarrh, sore throat, nearsightedness
and rheumatism. Sixty days of riding
had made such a change in him that
constable who was holding q warrant for
his arrest on a charge of abducting hen
passed him by several times daily. In so
days more he expected to get away from
his wife and seven children and begin life
all over again.
A letter from Ohio announced that the
writer had been so troubled with insomnia
that sometimes he had not slept for 80
nights at time. He had tried stealing a
ham from a butcher shop and going to jail
for a month, carrying off ten rods Of side
walk for frewood, shooting craps, borrow
ing money and running in debt but moth
ing helped him until he began to ride the
bike. After getting out on the road five
times he fell asleep and ran into a toll
gate, and since then his slum bers are SO
sound that his wife has to lick all the
children in rotation and pour a pail of
water over him before he can be aroused.
A oolored man in West Virginia wrote
peal. He was a bikist and had been sent
up for three months under misapprehen-
sion. He didn't complain of that, as ev-
erybody, even the president of the United
States, was liable to be mistaken for an
other man and sent to Jail any day. But
the only harsh thing was that the jailer
refused to furnish bikes for the prisoners
or let them out to borrow wheels. The
law might deprive man of his liberty,
but did the lawmakers intend to deprive a
man of the privilege of riding a bike? It
could not be- and he hoped the club would
take action at once Every Jail and prison
ought to be provided with a bicycle track,
and every such institution should be pro-
vided with from one to ten machines for
the use of the prisoners.
Judge Tarheel Jones then arose and call
ed up the case of Shutdown Green, against
whom charges were preferred at the last
meeting for abandoning his wife and Gre
ating public scandal, to the detriment of
the club. The judge had been appointed
a committee of one to thoroughly investi-
gate the case, and he had performed his
duties conscientiously. He had found the
cause of the trouble to be that Mrs. Green
did not ride a bike She was a very de-
vout person, and she could not mix the
bike and her religion. Her husband had
no such scruples, and he rode; hence clash.
The wife had carried things to such
point that the husband had been compelled
to leave home to enjoy any peace Of mind
Here was q question affecting the domestic
peace of thousands of homes. If the hus-
band rode a bike and the wife didn't,
shouldn't she sacrifice any feelings she
might have for the sake of the good it was
doing him? Should she meet him with
club at his home coming, and should she
express a wish that he would break his
neck as he set out for a spin? Should she
either ride or sacrifice her feelings? The
judge contended that she should and de-
sired vote on it. A vote was taken, and
the judges position was upheld by an over
whelming majority. He then moved that
the charges against the member be dis
missed, and this action was taken without
objection.
Professor Slayback Harper, who was one
of the organizers of the club, arose to ask
for information. Ever since he was 10
years old he had always carried razor
down in his hind pocket the same as most
other colored men. That razor was his
weapon Of offense and defense. It had been
with him as he danced, as he skated, as he
sat in church or walked about The ques-
ton was now being agitated, "Should
colOred man carry q razor while riding
bike?' He couldn' t say who first put the
question, but it was one which must be
promptly met and settled. Tt was his pri-
vate opinion that it was the idea Of white
man who wanted to get away unscathed
after running into a colored bikist 1t was
a question for the club to decide. If it de-
cided ''no razors, y then he would disarIn;
but he wanted it distinctly understood that
in place of razor he would carry an ice
pick or file.
The question being before the meeting,
half dozen mem bers arose one after an
other to discuss it. But all were agreed
that the razor and the colored man should
be one and inseparable and that no excep-
ton should be made. 1t was decided,
however, that all razors carried by mem
bers of the club should have the name of
Il 4 Il. Il