Year: 1869

Iy where you want to GO, generally sew
eral blocks away, often obliging you to
undergo vexatious delays to take cross
town lines, while you are shivering in the
cold, or drenched by the rain.


Again, hacks are not only expensive,
but extravagant, and if you keep horse,
the expenditure attendant is enormous
Besides good horse should not be risked
over a slippery pavement like Broadway,
and good -for-nothing horse is not worth
his keep, and no pleasure to drive.


But the two-wheeled velocipede is the
animal which is to supercede everything
else. It costs but little to purchase, and
still less to keep. 1t does not, like one
Zedechias mentioned by an old historian,
eat cart-loads of hay, with carts, horses
and drivers as relish, just to amuse Louis
lie Debonnaire, or any other sovereign. 1t
does not, like Jeshurun, wax fat and kick.
1t is easy to handle. 1t never "rares up"
1t won't bite. 1t needs no check rein or
halter, or any unnatural restraint. 1t is
light and little; let alone, it will lean low
ingly against the nearest support. 1t
never flies off at tangent unless badly
managed, and under no circumstances
will it shy at anything. 1t is rot ludibri-
GUS, like the young mule, nor does it, like
the Morgan colt, cut up in ridiculously
coryhantic manner, nor does it in
other ways disgrace the memory
of its inventor In its movements it
is all grace. Its one gait is so uniform and
easy and beautiful to look at, and simple
to analyze, that it would be shame to
speak of trot in the same breath. When
it's driver driveth furiously, even as did
Jehu, the son of Nimshi, then there may
be danger to him who obstructs the way.
and will not make room for the flying
steed. But otherwise not. When we have
nationalized the stranger, do not let us for
get his origin, but where many smooth
roads meet, erect to his memory, and in
honor of the inventor, a brave monument
like that which surmounts the grave of
him who first us gave us pickles, and taught
the world how to cure and barrel the bony
herring. Let it not be said that the maker
of the first bicycle went unrewarded by
the descendants Of that posterity WHO for
got Ctesibius, the first organ builder, or
him who introduced the gridiron, nor yet
those other anonymous benefactors to
whom we owe the benefits and blessings
derived from the use of door-knobs and
buttons.


Since the time of Bellerophon, the
first equestrian, of Pelethronius, the in
ventor of the bride and saddle, of Eric
thonius, who drove the first team to
wagon since Thessaly and Epirus and
Mycenas began to be known for their
blooded stock; since the days when Pro
teus drove his two-legged horses, and the
Lapithe spurred their sbitted team over
the plains of Thessaly; from the time
since the first horse which Neptune called
from the earth with tap of his trident,
there has been no racer or hack to match
the Veloce, for elegance, grace, docility
ahd speed It may not be as intelligent
as Bonner's Dexter, or as many of the
carnivorous steeds whose appetite for
human flesh brought Diomedes to grief 1t
may not possess that talent which elevated
Caligula's favorite horse to the consulship,
but with proper management and ade-
quate encouragement it may become quite
as useful to the world as the Thracian
horse admired by Virgil, or the beast
which sat for the Egyptian artists model
of pride, or that historic monster which
concealed the enemies of Troy, or even
as Charlemagne's cob, whose hoof re-
opened to the world the long hidden
springs of Aachen, the Germanic Gettys-
burg.-IHe VeI0cipedjSt.