The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-13
THE BICYCLE Is WITH Us.
1t Figures I'm Large Proportion OF
Each Days News.

Brooklyn Eagle.
1t is new kind of news that half fills
the papers in these days. 1t did not APP
pear before the day of the bicycle Look
at it: Bicycle rider falls from a live wire
and is killed. Eighteen scorchers arrested
for reckless riding. Boy arrested for break
order to injure bicycles and their riders.
Bicycle rider killed by a driver who ran
his carriage pole through his body. Head
man on a tandem tries to turn one way in
order to avoid a woman, and end man, not
seeing her, tries to keep on, with the re-
suit that the end man has his head cut
open against post. Fifteen bicycle racers
in a bunch at the finish, and when one of
them swerved all the others tumbled over
him, several injuries resulting. Searching
nuisance in Jersey City, riding with his
back in the air and his nose on the ground,
butts into a woman who is riding ike
human being and cripples her, after which
feat he rides away to escape arrest. Two
riders on the Jersey boulevard collide and
wreck their wheels and possibly them
selves. A Jersey man falls from his wheel
While trying TO ride a hundred miles in
spite of appendicitis Great suffering in
South Norwalk among bicyclists on ac-
count of the closing of the ice cream and
soft drink places on Sunday. 200-pound
charge of riding on a bicycle that had a
saddle made by free labor Marshall p.
Wilder gives up baseball for the bicycle.
unlaWfully on the left side of the road, runs
down bicycler and pushes in his ribs
Negro bcycler refuses 10 give way for u
white one and both their wheels are
wrecked. Woman on tandem loses her
head and she and the man on the same
with slime. Activity reported among bicy-
Gle thieves and four wheels are stolen in
Long Branch. Hundreds of people getting
ready for meet of wheelmen. Elections
OF officers in wheeling clubs Organization
of the Klondike wheelmen. BicSclers ask
ing for repairs to boueVards and paths
damaged in recent storms. What would u
man who died fifteen years ago think if ne
could sit up and read all this?
The bicVCip is the of han
piness when its history does not get print
ed. Whenever ii is a subject of no.
tice 1t is because it has violated some good
law, or because somebody who still hates
it has been moved by the sight of it to vio-
late the law. There are horse drivers who,
encountering a wheel on a lonely road. cam
not resist an expression of their opinion by
blocking the highway or by running over to-
the left or doing some other thing to en-
dnager and annoy its rider. And there are
wheelmen who just the same sort OF
people on their bicycles that they are at
other times in the day, and who not only
imperil their own lives, but those of other
bicyclistS and of pedestrians. and whose de-
mands and aggressions are nothing less
than hoggish. Nearly all of the accidents
that result from collisions between bicycles
and carriages or trucks are caused by horse
drivers who are on the wrong side of the
road: but the lawless conduct of the scoTch-
er who rides head down has caused nearly
as many injuries as the carriages and wag-
ons Since the use of the bicycle became
general there has been a tendency to en-
force the rules of the road more strictly
than before Indeed, it may be said that
until within a half dozen years those rules
We're almost a dead letter. The safety of
the public, afoot awheel demands that
traffic especially in our congested streets
and boulevards shall be regulated, and our
police have been remiss, rather than over
active. in this reSpectl AS to the accident
in this city resulting in the fall of a trick
rider from a wire. that is a consequence OF
violation of law. There is a specific re-
quirement in the performance of feats on
high wire or t1apeze that q net shall be
spread below, and in several instances
obedience to the law has saved life. Some
body has incurred a serious responsibility
in the disregard of it in this instance.