The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1897-06-10


land Outlook and Judas Lightfoot on the
Quaker City Development.
When the regular Saturday night
meeting of the Thompson Street Bicycle
club had been opened, President Toots
arose and said that all routine business
would be laid aside to listen to reports.
Four weeks ago he sent out large
number of postal cards asking the re-
cipients to report what progress the
bike was making among the colored
people in that section and what partic-
ular moral and physical benefits had
been derived therefrom. Many answers
had been received, and they would now
be read by the secretary in his richest
and juiciest baritone voice.
Shinfoot Thompson, a leading colored
man of Buffalo, reported grand results
in that neighborhood. He was the first
African in that town to tackle the
wheel, and at the outset he was known
to the police and the public as 'tuf
kuss.'' He swore; he got drunk; he was
a scrapper; he stole chickens and coal
and felt himself sinking down into the
pit of degradation. One tumble from
the wheel checked him in his mad ca
reer. After breaking his neck few
times he began to see things in differ
emit light, and by the time he could
wabble two blocks he was no longer
wanted by the police, and local
artist gave him So per day to pose as
model for colored angel.
Six months ago, had he known of a
coop wherein roasted so unsuspicious
pul1ets, he would have had every one of
them between dark and dawn. Today
the man who even whispered chicken"
in his ear would meet with a violent
death. AS it had been with him, SO it
was with a hundred others he could
name. The bike had worked such a
moral change in the colored man of the
city by the lake that no coal dealer now
kept Waterman, and all butcher shops
left smoked hams hanging out over
night.
The Hon Jurisprudence White, who
is known as "the colored poet of
Ohio,' answered from Cleveland that
the bike had upset the colored popula-
ton far more than the Introduction of
the cuckoo clock or the electric door
bell. In the short period of three months
it had been the direct cause of two MUIR
ders, three elopements, ten cases of as
sault and battery and more profanity
than would last pirate vessel on a
voyage around the world. 1t had dimin.
ished church attendance at least one
half, and it had made bad men of citi-
zens who had long records for integrity.
He couldn't exactly explain why this
was So 1t might be that the climate
had a good deal to do with it or that
the excitement of a political campaign
had brought it about. 1t was so, how
ever, and he was sorry for it. Even in
his own case he felt himself bad, bad
man, and there was seldom week
when he didn't have to climb fence ten
feet high to get away from the police.
While his feet were ON the ground he
felt himself tolerably good and gave
everybody half the road, but the minute
lie mounted a wheel and began to work
his legs he wanted to kill somebody or
something and wouldn't turn cut for
street car if he was to be hung for it.
Colonel Judas Lightfoot, one of the
leading colored lights of the Quaker
city, reported mixed state Of affairs.
In his church everybody thought the
bike was boon and blessing, and al
most any fine day the minister could be
seen out on the wheel. In other churches
they were divided, and at least in one
instance clergyman had been bounced
for riding the wheel. The colonel
thought that riding the wheel had made
better man of him. When ON the
wheel his whole time was taken up in
lodging vehicles, running down pedes-
TRANS and picking himself up, and
when he got home his back ached SO
that he felt like sitting down and read
ing his Bible and then going to bed. He
used to stroll around and be gay and
festive, but all that had passed. In the
case of his brother, who used to be so
good that children cried for him, the
case was different. Riding the wheel
had made a bad man of him, and the
last time he was arrested it took four
policemen to crack his skull with their
clubs Riding the wheel Influenced peo-
pie differently, the same as riding a
mule. On the whole, so far as he could
learn, the influence had been beneficial,
and he was one of those who hoped the
bike had come to stay.
The Hon. Abraham Scott of ST. Louis,
who was blown eight miles by the cy-
clone last summer and came down all
right, reported that the bike had not
worked nydecided change in st. Louis.
So far as he could determine, the good
people were no gooder and the bad nc
Bladder. White folks missed their chick
ems just the same, while the church at
tendance had not fallen off in the slight
est. The coming of the bike had not
created either joy or CONSERVATION in
st. Louis.
Professor Slipback Taylor, president
of the Chicago Colored Bicycle club,
which was the second organized in
America, reported that Chicago was in
it with both feet. A colored man OF
woman in that city who couldn't ride
| the bike was supposed to have just come
up from Arkansas to trade coonskins
| for snuff. If thing went en- wheels, il
was all right in Chicago. Everybody
| rode the bike. They began Sunday
morning and kept it up right through
the week ThfS rode in all kinds o.
costumes, and it was not a novel sight
| to see the mayor riding alongside of 6
| coal HEAVIER. It was seldom that Chicago
blessed anything when it could use {
more decided expression, but it hac
come to bless the bike and hold the
memory of its inventor in reveren
/ memory. Whether for good or bad, tims
alone would tell, but Chicago wouldn'
trade it off for clambakes or coon hunts