The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-06-01

have no rights in st. Paul that any
body is bound to respect. There has
been absolutely no provision at Como
for wheels in these weeks when peo-
pie have been riding. because the pa
vilion was not in full operation. and
wheel could not be checked even If you
were willing to pay for it. The most
that is promised Is a checking station
at some future time, where wheels may
be left and the riders walk a mile or so
to reach the spot they have chosen for
recreation. AS an explanation of this
wretched bit of persecution, there Is
held up to us vivid picture of I'M
tanned and riderless bicycles cavortlng
through the sacred groves of Como
park, kicking UP their pedals wildly
into the air, knocking over everybody
who dares to get into the path, tramp
ling down the shrubbery and gnaWing
all the bark off the trees. The invasion
of the park by droves of wild bicycles
is a terrible thing to contemplate, ana
is the reason for this absurd, unneces-
sary and improper restriction.
The whole system of dealing with the
regulation of the wheel in st. Paul is
dictated, as we have said. and as the
events prove conclusively, by that spir-
it of primeval savagery that fingers
still in human nature and suggests pol
icies and regulations, not for the good
81 1,a h11t nlQAS-
ure that they afford in indicting pain
and inconvenience upon others. The
city authorities are exhib1ting,as grown
men, the same instinct that made them,
as bows shy a stone at q bird or a
squirrel in the mere hope of knocking
it over and witnessing it's agonies. 1t Is
the same spirit that has animated In
QUESTIONS, and lies at the bottom OF
all impractical prohibition laws; the no
ton that you must not do something,
harmless in itself, because you want
to do it, and that your acts must De
conformed to what some other fellow
thinks you ought to do, under the
heaviest penalties that the advance Of
civilization will permit.
st. Paul is, in spite Of the splendid
paths that have been created about it,
not by public assistance, but from the
voluntary contributions of enthusiastic
wheelmen, becoming a spot to be avoid
ed by visitors, because of it's preposter-
Gus regulations, with the policeman's
billy and the lookup behind them.
Riders from Minneapolis, where they
! have no such rules, and from which we
hear no accounts of any more accidents
or greater danger to the public than
in st. Paul, find themselves in new
country as soon as they pass the
boundary where persecution rules, and
every week some of them are sent to
the police station for falling to observe
the regulations of which they were ig
norant and ought to be ignorant, be-
cause they could not expect them to
exist in any enlightened community.
| the wheelmen Of this city, and we hope
i to see them resort to it. While resist
ance to an officer. under the cfrcum-
| stances of recent arrests in st. Paul,
would be morally, if not legally, justi-
fable, it is better plan for the riders
of the wheel to combine through their
associations to insist upon at least a
decent regard for their rights. They
/ cannot act too quickly, or declare too
positively their intention to put an end
to the prosecutions of which they are
now the object.