HOME STUDY.

A practical and complete Business College Course given by MAIL, at student's HOME. Low rates and perfect satisfaction. Trial lesson 10 cents. Catalogue free.

BRYANT & STRATTON, 85 College Bldg., Buffalo, N.Y.

Hold their place in the front rank of the publications to which they belong.—Boston Journal, Feb. 19, 1896.

Harper's

Periodicals

Magazine, $4.00 a year

Weekly, $4.00 a year

Bazar, $4.00 a year

Round Table, $2.00 a Year

This Department is conducted in the interest of Bicyclers, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject. Our maps and tours contain many valuable data kindly supplied from the official maps and road-books of the League of American Wheelmen. Recognizing the value of the work being done by the L.A.W., the Editor will be pleased to furnish subscribers with membership blanks and information so far as possible.

It will be necessary this week again to devote the Department to answering one or two of the general questions on the subject of bicycling. In the first place, letters are being received from time to time asking not only how to join the League of American Wheelmen, but what the advantages of it are. As is stated in the note at the beginning of this Department, we are glad at any time to send blanks for application for membership of the League to any one, but particular reasons why any one should join the League cannot be given in small space and apply to each request. The League of American Wheelmen consists, according to the constitution, of amateur white wheelmen of good character, eighteen years of age or over. An applicant for membership must be endorsed by two League members and three other reputable citizens, and pay an initiation fee and dues.

It is an association of bicyclists who have proved that by combining in an association they can constitute themselves a strong influence for the laying of good roads, can secure legislation for the advantage of and prevent legislation against wheelmen, and can secure special rates at hotels. The League is not a money-making institution, the services of the officers are not paid for, and the two dollars which each member pays for membership go not to any one's individual advantage, but to paying the expenses of putting up signs throughout the country, of getting out the State Road Books and Tour Books, and to the expenses of carrying on correspondence, etc. The advantages that accrue to any one who joins the League are, in the first place, that he receives an interesting weekly paper, The L.A.W. Bulletin and Good Roads, which keeps him pretty well informed as to bicycling matters. The League also spends a large amount each year in keeping up the agitation for the movement for improved roads, and it makes every attempt, so far as it can, to protect wheelmen in their legal rights. The hand-books, maps, road-books, bicycle meets, parades, tours, and entertainments gotten out by each State for the benefit of members are all advantages that do not need to be explained. Any one member may not avail himself of all these, but he will find that at the end of the year he has obtained more than two dollars' worth of benefit from the League. The ticket which is given to him on the payment of the two dollars will secure from ten to twenty-five per cent. reduction in at least one good hotel in almost every large town in the United States, and if the member is making a two weeks' tour in the country in New York State, for example, he will be sure to more than get his two dollars back in that time on reduced hotel rates alone.

Some one writes to ask whether it is important to observe all the city regulations regarding bicyclists. This is one of the most important details of wheeling in cities that can come before the attention of the wheelman. The laws against bicycling would be much more stringent were it not for the work of the League of American Wheelmen. This League maintains, in substance, that a bicycle should be treated practically as a horse and carriage on the road. The tendency, however, for legislators is to curtail the rights of bicycles. As a result, certain laws have been passed, and the contest is continually going on between the two parties: those who assert that bicycles have and should have as much right upon the road as carriages, and those who believe they should be more restricted. If the community of wheelmen wish to have more rights on the road than they have to-day, or as many of them have to-day, the least they can do is to observe the ordinances, for by each infringement of a city ordinance the chances of securing better legislation become less. For example, there are city ordinances in New York which require that every bicyclist should carry a lantern after dark; that no one shall coast within the city limits; that every bicycle should have a bell in good order attached to it, which shall be rung on certain occasions. There are laws of a similar nature in most of the cities in the United States now. It is a very simple matter for one bicyclist who comes to a hill on the outskirts of New York city to coast. It is a pleasure to enlist, of course. There may not be any policeman about, and it is very possible that the bicyclist can have his coast and not be discovered. At the same time, if he is discovered and arrested, the case comes up in court; and especially if he is a well-dressed, respectable citizen of the city, the opposition at once secures a handle for argument that the bicycle must be restricted, that people do not observe the ordinances, and that the bicycle in general is a nuisance. Few readers of the Round Table could perhaps realize this at first sight, but it has been used time and time again in the New York city courts as an argument against bicyclists, and it is therefore the duty of every person who rides a bicycle to observe these rules. The questions of lights and bells are parallel. You may succeed in riding at night without a light in some small city where the laws are not enforced, but if any trouble arises you have done the best you could to bring the bicycle into disrepute.