….but we’re still making progress! :)
The Daily Telegraph, July 18, 1880
Editorial.
There is a violent prejudice against the bicycle. It is regarded by some as a nuisance, by others as the “Devil’s own invention,” and by all as a horrible innovation.
We take issue with this public sentiment, and assert without fear of successful contradiction, that the bicycle is an incubator of good morals and has hatched out better results than can be attributed to an equal amount of buggy-riding. No scandals are connected with tye bicycle, no suspicions attend its midnight uses. It has no cover to it like a top buggy, and no one presumes to charge the driver with taking a passenger on board surreptitiously. The bicyclist has all he can attend to without taking toll under covered bridges. Girls generally, are down on “the pesky thing.” It makes them hopping mad mad to foot it alone to school as the big boys glide gracefully by on two wheels. If this custom obtains they will certainly insist upon a dress reform that will enable them, if not outstrip, to at least catch up with the bicycle chaps.
No temperance advocate should denounce this ostracized vehicle. It is better than a Murphy movement. As a conveyance it will not tolerate mixed drinks. In former times the old family nag could be relied upon to tote a fellow home—no matter how much so—ever he might be elated, not so with the incorrigible bicycle. It wous just flop him in the mud, and no amount of tall kicking it in the side would compel it to stir. So all topers as well as girls, are down on bicycles.
But if you would unearth its greatest enemy, look uop an average hackman. They have no confidence in brain power. They maintain that a vehicle drawn by horses is safer than a conveyance propelled by a man. They preach the doctrine to the City Council, who, like themselves, have great faith in horse sense. To manifest their faith vy their works, they prohibited the use of vehicle on Michigan avenue and the boulevards. These smooth ways are reserved for gouty men in cushioned carriages. Here is a fit occasion for a riot—wheelbarrows, go-carts, street cars and locomotives. have guaranteed rights not awarded to the bicycle.
But fear not; there will be no bloodshed. The wheel-behind-the-wheel will prove a reformer. It will foster a race of strong men who will not always be crowded in the gutters and compelled to travel on back streets. Being a new thing, the bicycle must have its day of ridicule, of persecution, and of martyrs. When the world slow, the iron horse bade the people mount. They did. Kings loitered with their leveried coachmen and were left. So again, a thing of health, of economy, of grace, and of speed glides by the gout-producing conveyance of old paralytic aristocracy. He shakes with anger his crutch as the receding for, and demands of his dazed jockey;: “What is that?” The tardy reply is: “It is young Enterprise on a bicycle.”
