 THE ROAD AWAY FROM REVOLUTION by Woodrow Wilson. In these doubtful and anxious days, when all the world is at unrest, and look which way you will, the road ahead seems darkened by shadows which portend dangers of many kinds. It is only common prudence that we should look about us and attempt to assess the causes of distress and the most likely means of removing them. There must be some real ground for the universal unrest and perturbation. It is not to be found in superficial politics or in mere economic blunders. It probably lies deep at the sources of the spiritual life of our time. It leads to revolution. And perhaps if we take the case of the Russian Revolution, the outstanding event of its kind in our age, we may find a good deal of instruction for our judgment of present critical situations and circumstances. What gave rise to the Russian Revolution? The answer can only be that it was the product of a whole social system. It was not in fact a sudden thing. It had been gathering head for several generations. It was due to the systematic denial to the great body of Russians of the rights and privileges which all normal men desire and must have if they are to be contented and within reach of happiness. The lives of the great mass of the Russian people contained no opportunities, but were hemmed in by barriers against which they were constantly flinging their spirits, only to fall back bruised and dispirited. Only the powerful were suffered to secure their rights or even to gain access to the means of material success. It is to be noted as a leading fact of our time that it was against capitalism that the Russian leaders directed their attack. It was capitalism that made them see red, and it is against capitalism under one name or another that the discontented classes everywhere draw their indictment. There are thoughtful and well-informed men all over the world who believe, with much apparently sound reason, that the abstract thing, the system which we call capitalism, is indispensable to the industrial support and development of modern civilization. And yet, everyone who has an intelligent knowledge of social forces must know that the great and widespread reactions like that which is now unquestionably manifesting itself against capitalism do not occur without cause or provocation. And before we commit ourselves irreconcilably to the attitude of hostility to this movement of the time, we ought frankly to put to ourselves the question, is the capitalistic system unimpeachable? Which is another way of asking, have capitalists generally used their power for the benefit of the countries in which their capital is employed and for the benefit of their fellow men? Is it not, on the contrary, too true that capitalists have often seemed to regard the men whom they used as mere instruments of profit, whose physical and mental powers it was legitimate to exploit with a slight cost to themselves as possible, either of money or of sympathy? But not many fine men who were actuated by the highest principles in every other relationship of life seemed to hold that generosity and humane feeling were not among the imperative mandates of conscience in the conduct of a banking business, or in the development of an industrial or commercial enterprise. And if these offenses against high morality and true citizenship have been frequently observable, are we to say that the blame for the present discontent and turbulence is wholly on the side of those who are in revolt against them? Or do we not rather to seek a way to remove such offenses and make life itself clean for those who will share honorably and cleanly in it? The world has been made safe for democracy. There need now be no fear that any such mad design as that entertained by the insolent and ignorant Hohenzolans and their counselors may prevail against it. But democracy has not yet made the world safe against irrational revolution. That supreme task, which is nothing less than the salvation of civilization, now faces democracy, insistent, imperative. There is no escaping it unless everything we have built up is presently to fall in ruin about us. And the United States, as the greatest of democracies, must undertake it. The road that leads away from revolution is clearly marked, for it is defined by the nature of men and organized society. It therefore behooves us to study very carefully and very candidly the exact nature of the task and the means of its successful accomplishment. The nature of men and of organized society dictates the maintenance in every field of action of the highest and pure standards of justice and of right dealing. And it is essential to efficacious thinking in this critical matter that we should not entertain a narrow or technical conception of justice. By justice, the law here generally means the prompt fair and open application of impartial rules. But we call ours a Christian civilization. And a Christian conception of justice must be much higher. It must include sympathy and helpfulness and a willingness to forego self-interest in order to promote the welfare, happiness, and contentment of others and of the community as a whole. This is what our age is blindly feeling after in its reaction against what it deems to be too great selfishness of the capitalistic system. The sum of the whole matter is this, that our civilization cannot survive materially unless it be redeemed spiritually. It can be saved only by becoming permeated with the Spirit of Christ and being made free and happy by the practices which spring out of that Spirit. Only thus can discontent be driven out and all the shadows lifted from the road ahead. Here is the final challenge to our churches, to our political organizations, and to our capitalists, to everyone who fears God or loves his country. Shall we not all earnestly cooperate to bring in the new day? End of THE ROAD AWAY FROM REVOLUTION by Woodrow Wilson. In the edge of this wood facing the open but not venturing into it long lines of troops halted. The wood was alive with them and full of confused noises. The occasional rattle of wheels as a battery of artillery goes into position to cover the advance. The hum and murmur of the soldiers talking, a sound of innumerable feet in the dry leaves that strew the interspaces among the trees. Horse commands of officers. Detached groups of horsemen are well in front, not altogether exposed, many of them regarding the crest of the hill a mile away in the direction of uninterrupted advance. For this powerful army moving in battle order through the forest has met with a formidable obstacle, the open country. The crest of that gentle hill a mile away has a sinister look. It says, beware. Along it runs a stone wall extending to the left and right a great distance. Behind the wall is a hedge. Behind the hedge are seen the tops of trees in rather straggling order. Among the trees, what? It is necessary to know. Yesterday, and for many days and nights previously, we were fighting somewhere. Always there was cannon-aiding with occasional keen rattleings of musketry, mingled with cheers, our own or the enemy's. We seldom knew, attesting to some temporary advantage. This morning at daybreak the enemy was gone. We have moved forward across his earthworks, across which we have so often vainly attempted to move before, through the debris of his abandoned camps, among the graves of his fallen, into the woods beyond. How curiously we regarded everything. How odd it all seemed. Nothing appeared quite familiar. The most commonplace objects, an old saddle, a splintered wheel, a forgotten canteen, everything related something of the mysterious personalities of those strange men who had been killing us. The soldier never becomes wholly familiar with the conception of his foes as men like himself. He cannot divest himself of the feeling that they are another order of being differently conditioned in an environment not altogether of the earth. The smallest vestiges of them rivet his attention and engage his interest. He thinks of them as inaccessible and, catching an unexpected glimpse of them, they appear further away and therefore larger than they really are, like objects in a fog. He is somewhat in awe of them. From the edge of the wood leading up to the eclivity are the tracks of horses and wheels, the wheels of cannon. The yellow grass is beaten down by the feet of infantry. Clearly they have passed this way in thousands. They have not withdrawn by the country roads. This is significant. It is a difference between retiring and retreating. That group of horsemen is our commander, his staff and escort. He is facing the distant crests, holding his field glasses against his eyes with both hands. His elbows needlessly elevated. It is a fashion. It seems to dignify the act. We are all addicted to it. Suddenly he lowers the glass and says a few words to those about him. Two or three aids detach themselves. Two or three aids detach themselves from the group and canter away into the woods, along the lines in each direction. We did not hear his words, but we knew them. Tell General Axe to send forward the skirmish line. Those of us who have been out of place resume our positions. The men resting at ease straighten themselves. The ranks are reformed without a command. Some of us staff officers dismount and look at our saddle girths. Those already on the ground remount. Galloping rapidly along the edge of the open ground comes a young officer on a snow white horse. His saddle blanket is scarlet. What a fool. No one who has ever been in battle but remembers how naturally each rifle turns toward a man on a white horse. No one but has observed how a bit of red enrages the bull of battle that such colors are fashionable in military life must be accepted as the most astonishing of all the phenomenon of human vanity. They would seem to have been devised to increase the death rate. This young officer is in full uniform as if on parade. He is all a gleam with bullion, a blue and gold addition of the poetry of war. A wave of derisive laughter runs abreast of him all along the line. But how handsome he is. With what careless grace he sits his horse. He rains up within a respectable distance of the corps commander and salutes. The old soldier nods familiarly. He evidently knows it. A brief colloquy between them is going on. The young man seems to be preferring some request which the elder one is indisposed to grant. Let us ride a little nearer. Ah, too late. It is ended. The young officer salutes again, wheels his horse and rides straight toward the crest of the hill. He is deadly pale. A thin line of skirmishers, the men deployed at six paces are so apart, now pushes from the wood into the open. The commander speaks to his viewmler who claps his instrument to his lips. Tra-la-la, tra-la-la, the skirmishers halt in their tracks. Meantime the young horseman has advanced to hundred yards. He is riding at a walk, straight up the long slope, with never a turn of head. How glorious. What would we not give to be in his place, with his soul? He does not draw his saber. His right hand hangs easily at his side. The breeze catches the plume of his hat and flutters it smartly. The sunshine rests on his shoulder straps, lovely, like a visible benediction. Straight on he rides. Ten thousand pairs of eyes are fixed upon him, with the intensity that he can hardly fail to feel. Ten thousand hearts keep quick time to the inaudible hoofbeats of his snowy steve. He is not alone. He draws all souls after him. We are but dead men all, but we remember that we laughed. On and on, straight for the hedge-lined wall he rides. Not a look backward. Oh, if he would but turn, if he could see the love, the adoration, the atonement. Not a word is spoken. The populous depths of the forest still murmur with their unseen and unseeing swarm. But all along the fringe there is silence absolute. The burly commander is an equestrian statue of himself. The mounted staff officers, their field glasses up, are motionless all. The line of battle in the edge of the wood stands at a new kind of attention, each man in the attitude in which he was caught by the consciousness of what is going on. All these hardened and impenitent man-killers, to whom death in its awfulest form is a fact familiar to their everyday observation, who sleep on hills trembling with the thunder of great guns, dying in the midst of streaming missiles and play at cards among the dead faces of their dearest friends. All are watching with suspended breath and beating hearts the outcome of an act involving the life of one man. Such is the magnetism of courage and devotion. If now you should turn your head, you would see a simultaneous movement among the spectators a start, as if they had received an electric shock. And looking forward again to the now distant horseman, you would see that he has, in that instant, altered his direction and is riding at an angle to his former course. The spectators suppose the sudden deflection to be caused by a shot, perhaps a wound. But take this field-glass and you will observe that he is riding toward a break in the wall and hedge. He means, if not killed, to ride through and overlook the country beyond. You are not to forget the nature of this man's act. It is not permitted to you to think of it as an instance of bravado, nor, on the other hand, a needless sacrifice of self. If the enemy has not retreated, he is in force on that ridge. The investigator will encounter nothing less than a line of battle. There is no need for pickets, bidets, skirmishers to give warning of our approach. Our attacking lines will be visible, conspicuous, exposed to an artillery fire that will shave the ground the moment a break from cover, and for half the distance to a sheet of rifle bullets in which nothing can live. In short, if the enemy is there, it would be madness to attack him in front. He must be maneuvered out by the immemorial plan of threatening his line of communication, as necessary to his existence as to the diver at the bottom of the sea, his air-tube. But how to ascertain if the enemy is there? There is but one way. Somebody must go and see. The natural and customary thing to do is to send forward a line of skirmishers, but in this case they will answer in the affirmative with all their lives, the enemy crouching in double ranks behind the stone wall and in cover of the hedge. We'll wait until it's possible to count each assailant's teeth. At the first volley, a half of the questioning line will fall, and the other half before it can accomplish the predestined retreat. What a price to pay for gratified curiosity! At what a dear rate an army must sometimes purchase knowledge? Let me pay all, said this gallant man, this military Christ. There is no hope except the hope against hope that the crest is clear. True, he might prefer capture to death. So long as he advances, the line will not fire. Why should it? He can safely ride into the hostile ranks and become a prisoner of war. But this would defeat his object. It would not answer our questions. It is necessary either that he return unharmed or be shot to death before our eyes. Only so shall we know how to act. He if captured, why, that might have been done by half a dozen stragglers. Now begins the extraordinary contest of intellect between a man and an army. Our horseman, now within a quarter of a mile of the crest, suddenly wheels to the left and gallops in a direction parallel to it. He has caught sight of his antagonist. He knows all. Some slight advantage of ground has enabled him to overlook a part of the line. If he were here, he would tell us in words. But that was now hopeless. He must make the best use of the few minutes of life remaining to him by compelling the enemy himself to tell us as much and as plainly as possible, which naturally that discrete power is reluctant to do. Not a rifleman in those crouching ranks. Not a canineer at those masked and shot at guns, but knows the needs of the situation, the imperative duty of forbearance. Besides, there has been time enough to forbid them all to fire. True, a single rifle shot might drop him and be no great disclosure. But firing is infectious, and see how rapidly he moves, with never a pause except as he whirls his horse about to take a new direction. Never directly backward toward us. Never directly forward toward his executioners. All this is visible through the glass. It seems occurring within pistol-shot. We see all but the enemy, whose presence, whose thoughts, whose motives we infer. To the unaided eye there is nothing but the black figure on the white horse, tracing slow zig-zags across the slope of the distant hill. So slowly they seem almost to creep. Now, the glass again. He has tired of his failure and sees his error, and has gone mad. He is dashing directly toward the wall, as if to take it at a leap, hedge and all. One moment only, and he wheels right about, and is speeding like the wind straight down the slope towards his friends, towards his death. Instantly the wall is topped with a fierce roll of smoke for a distance of a hundred yards or so, right and left. This is instantly dissipated by the wind, and before the rattle of rifles reaches us, he is down. No, he recovers his seat. He has but pulled his horse upon its haunches. They are up and away. A tremendous cheer bursts from our ranks, relieving the unsupportable tension of our feelings. And the horse and its rider? Yes, they are up and away. Away again. Away indeed. They are making directly to our left, parallel to the now steadily blazing and smoking wall. The rattle of musketry is continuous, and every bullet's target is that courageous heart. Suddenly a great bank of white smoke pushes upward from behind the wall. Another and another. A dozen roll up before the thunder of the explosions and the humming of the missiles reach our ears, and the missiles themselves come bounding through the clouds of dust into our covert, knocking over here and there a man and causing a temporary distraction, a passing thought of self. The dust drifts away. Incredible! That enchanted horse and rider have passed a ravine and are climbing another slope to unveil another conspiracy of silence to thwart the will of another armed host. Another moment, and the crest too, is interruption. The horse rears and strikes the air with its forefeet. They are down at last. But look again! The man has detached himself from the dead animal. He stands erect, motionless, holding his sabre in his right hand, straight above his head. His face is toward us. Now he lowers his hand to a level with his face and moves it outward, the blade of the sabre giving a downward curve. It is a sign to us, to the world, to posterity. It is a hero's salute to death and history. Again the spell is broken. Our men attempt to cheer. They are choked with emotion. They utter hoarse, discordant cries. They clutch their weapons and press tumultuously forward into the open. The skirmishers, without orders, against orders, are going forward at a keen run, like hounds unleashed. Our cannons speak, and the enemies now open a full chorus to left and right as far as we can see. The distant crest, seeming now so near, erects its tower of clouds, and the great shot pitch, roaring down among our moving masses. Flag after flag of ours emerges from the woods, line after line sweeps forth, catching the sunlight on its burnished arms. The rear battalions alone are in obedience. They preserve their proper distance from the insurgent front. The commander has not moved. He now removes his field glasses from his eyes and glances to the right and left. He sees the human current flowing on either side of him and his huddled escort, like tide waves parted by a rock. Not a sign of feeling in his face, he is thinking. Again he directs his eyes forward. They slowly traverse the malign and awful crest. He addresses a calm word to his bugler. Tra-la-la, tra-la-la! The injunction has an imperiousness which enforces it. It is repeated by all the buglers of all the subordinate commanders. The sharp, metallic notes assert themselves above the hum of the advance and penetrate the sound of the cannon. To halt is to withdraw. The colors are moving slowly back. The lines face about and sullenly follow, bearing their wounded. The skirmishers return, gathering up the dead. Ah, those many, many needless dead! That great soul, whose beautiful body is lying over yonder, so conspicuous against the Sarah Hillside, could not it have been spared the bitter consciousness of a vain devotion? Would one exception have marred too much the pitiless perfection of the Divine Eternal Plan? The End of A Son of the Gods by Ambrose Bierce Requisites of a Husband Having spent so much time in the study of principles and laws, we will now return to the discussion of this concrete case. What can you decide in regard to this individual young man to whom you think you have given your heart? What is he in his inheritance? What is he in himself? I do not ask that he shall have inherited wealth, for that often proves the young man's ruin. But does he come of an honest, industrious family? Have you just reasoned to suppose that he will make a fair success of life? Is his father shiftless, lazy, improvident? If so, it will be harder for him to be provident, business-like. Has he true ideas of the dignity of life and his own responsibility? Is he looking for an easy job, or does he purpose to give a fair equivalent for all that he receives? Would he rather toil at honest manual labor than be supported by a rich father-in-law? What are his ideas as to his responsibility in the founding of a home? How will he look upon his wife, as an equal, a companion, or as a plaything, a petted child, or a sort of upper servant? What value does he put upon the wife's labor in the conducting of the household? Will he consider that the money he hands over to her is a gift from him, or only a fair recognition of the value of her work, a rendering to her of her share in the family purse? What is his estimate of woman? Is she an individual with rights, with intellect and heart, with a judgment to be consulted, opinions worthy of recognition, or only an appendage to man, created for his comfort and to be held in her sphere by his will? What are his defects of temper, or his weaknesses of body? Of course, to you now he seems perfection, and yet he is a human being, fallible and imperfect. If his faults are similar to yours, you double the possibility of their inheritance by your children. If you both have a tendency to lung trouble, the probabilities are that your children will have consumption. If you are both of rheumatic proclivities, you may expect a manifestation of the same early in the life of your children. If you are both nervous or irritable in temper, both jealously inclined or are morbid and melancholy, you need not be surprised at an intensifying of these qualities in your little ones. If there are more serious family traits such as insanity, epilepsy, alcoholism and the like, it might even be your duty never to run the risk of their transmission. I once spoke on heredity when in the audience said a young man by the side of his fiancee, who, I was afterwards told, had been in an assain asylum three times, and yet he purposed marrying her. I know a clergyman who has wisely dedicated himself to a celibate life because there is marked insanity in his family. You chafe a little under this reiteration of the duty you owe to children yet unborn, and who may possibly never exist, and perhaps you say, as I have heard girls say, oh, I don't mean to have any children, and perhaps you add, I don't see why people may not marry and be happy just by themselves without having children. It is not strange that you should not understand all that is involved in such a statement. It is true that some married people do not have children and are comparatively happy, and yet perhaps if we could read their hearts, we should find that the one great longing of their lives is for the blessing of a child. It is natural to desire to know the joys of parenthood. In the home, through the cares and love, the anxiety, self-sacrifice, tenderness and patience, which accompany parenthood, the education of the individual is made most complete and perfect. The girl who marries without a willingness to accept these responsibilities is willing to sacrifice that which, rightly borne, will bring her the highest development. If she purposes deliberately to avoid motherhood, she puts herself in a position of moral peril, for such immunity is not often secured, except at the risk of criminality. I say not often, although I believe that if husband and wife are actuated by the worthy motive of not inflicting on posterity some dower of woe, they are justified in a marriage that does not contemplate parenthood, if they are of lofty purpose enough to live solely until and spiritual companionship. But all attempts to secure the pleasure of a physical relation and escape its legitimate results are a menace to the health and a degradation to the moral nature. This subject and the question arising therefrom will be discussed more fully in the next book of this series, What a Young Wife ought to Know. But how is the girl to know all these things concerning her lover's ideas, thoughts, principles, and purposes? Many of these, you think, cannot be known until after marriage, and then it is too late. That is true. Therefore be wise and learn all you can of each other's habits, peculiarities, opinions, and predilections now, before it is too late. Talk over business matters. Find out what your lover's ideas are as to the wise right to a pecuniary recognition of the value of her labor in making the home. Does he think that she earns nothing and that what he gives her of his money is a donation for which she gives no return? I know a young woman who had been self-supporting before marriage who felt timid about asking her husband for money. So she wore her wedding garments until they were shabby, went without money when her own funds were exhausted, and kept silent for five years. And her husband, a young clergyman, never thought to ask her if she needed anything. Never observed her growing shabbiness. When at last she summoned courage to tell him her needs, he was overwhelmed with regret for his own lack of thought and observation, and yet he could not understand why she should hesitate to ask him for money. Why it is all yours, dear, he said. You were only asking for what already belongs to you. And many young husbands are just as obtuse. Therefore, they should receive in advance the instruction that is needed to prevent a possibility of such neglect. Have it understood that if you are worthy to be trusted as a bearer of the name and a share of the fortunes of a man, you are worthy to share also the burden of the knowledge of his business experiences and to bear the responsibility of economically guarding his interests in the expenditure of money, which, by your love and care and labor, you have helped him to earn. I think a young woman should know something of the personal habits of her future husband. Does he like fresh air, or does he want the windows hermetically sealed at night? Is he a believer in the godliness of cleanliness? I have just read of two people who married after six weeks acquaintance, knowing nothing of each other's antecedents, personal habits, caprices, or principles. The man proved to be a regular hypochondriac, taking medicine constantly, at one time with five doctors prescribing for him. He counted his pulse at every odd moment and looked at his tongue instead of at the eyes of his wife as he had done when a lover. He had a dread of pure air and was as averse to bathing as a cat. The woman had lived in the open air, taken a daily morning bath, and was disgusted with those who did not do likewise. The writer says she stormed, took her baths, and opened the windows. She cried, took no baths, shut the windows, and called the doctors. There is no need to depict the unhappiness of the home, and yet no doubt the girl would have been shocked had anyone suggested that she inquire into these facts concerning her lover. But if she had been less romantic and more practical, if she had remembered that the marriage contract would bind her for life to one who would be more closely connected with her than anyone else could be, in this union for life by day and by night, constant, continuous, and not to be annulled by any such small matters as bad breath or unpleasant personal habits, perhaps she would have considered it no small matter to discover the possible causes of disgust before they became fixtures in her life. And perhaps also she would have given her own personal habits more consideration. True love will endure much, but it sometimes dies in the presence of untidiness, of carelessness, as to dress or room, or lack of sweetness of person or of breath. If you demand much of a husband, he has a right to demand just as much from you. If there are habits concerning which you would rather he as a lover should be ignorant, believe me that it is even important that as a husband he should not know them. Therefore employ your available time before marriage to rid yourself of them. If a lover would be disenchanted to see the room from which his blooming, beauteous, adored one had departed, bearing the marks of carelessness and disorder, with soil clothing, unmade bed, shoes, hose, and dresses, all in tumbled heaps on chairs and floor, remember that the marriage ceremony does not make such a room more attractive to the husband who must not only see, but share its discomforts. In addition to the knowledge of each other's personal peculiarities, there should be an understanding of each other's ideas as to the duties and responsibilities of their proposed relation to each other. I lately received a letter from a young woman who asks, how freely do you think two engaged young people may talk concerning their future life? Would it not be indelicate for them to discuss their future relations, the possibility and responsibilities of parenthood, et cetera? I answer that depends on the young people. If they have false ideas, if they have little or no scientific knowledge, if their thoughts are filled with wrong mental pictures, they will not know how to talk wisely and beneficially. But these two young people are intelligent, are scientifically educated, are Christians. Their hearts are pure, their standards high, their motives praiseworthy. It would seem that they might talk as freely as their inclination would prompt. In fact, there seems to me more indelicacy and more danger from long evenings spent in murmuring ardent protestations of love and indulging in embraces and endearments than in a frank, serious conversation on the realities and responsibilities of marriage. An exchange of earnest thoughts voiced in chaste, well-chosen language, a conversation which by its very solemnity is lifted out of the realm of sense-pleasure into the dignified domain of science and morality. End of What a Woman ought to Know by Mary Wood Allen. What to Avoid in Cycling It has been my lot for so long a series of years to be concerned in the art and practice of cycling that the various effects of it, good and bad, have become with me a matter of common observation. I feel as conversant with the details as if they formed a part of my professional life, and this fact enables me to speak with a certain degree of confidence, which is strengthened by the circumstance that I have no kind of prejudices bearing upon the subject. Cycling came before me in the first place in what may be called an accidental manner. I had been presiding at a sanitary congress held at Leamington in the county of Warwick, the first held in England in which matters relating to health alone were introduced. Connected with this congress was a large sanitary exhibition, and amongst the exhibits there were a few bicycles and one of the first machines manufactured in this country in the shape of a tricycle. This tricycle was worked by what was called lever movement, the pedal, now so universal, not having been then applied to tricycles. The late Sir Edwin Chadwick, one of the vice presidents of the congress, who, though far advanced in life, was as alert as a schoolboy on all inventions that presented novelty and that affected the health of the body, had his attention called to this new machine, greatly struck by it and by the good work that could be done upon it, he promised to bring me next day to see it in action, and so, accompanied by a large number of the council of the congress, I went with him and had the whole thing explained to me by the exhibitor. Seeing that movement upon it was comparatively simple, I had the machine brought out to an asphalt passage leading to the main road and straightway mounted it. The attendants were prompt in their efforts to prevent my sustaining injury from the venture, but all idea of danger rapidly disappeared and I very soon ran away from my protectors, reached the main road, which lay at a right angle from the asphalt passage, proceeded a good half mile on my own account and returned in triumph to the great delight of the looker's on. From that day until now I have been a cyclist. I very soon had a machine of my own choosing what was called a rob-roy, in which the levers were replaced by pedals, a very nice instrument which had, however, the misfortune of being what is called a single driver. That is to say, progression upon it was by the work of one wheel. Then followed the salvo, in which machine the late Dr. Starley of Coventry got over the difficulty of the single wheel by the compensation process and turned out a really admirable instrument, one of which kind I rode for several years with great comfort and safety, and which in fact I still retain. It was a very heavy machine weighing about 120 pounds. The wheels were unnecessarily high and the gearing was low, but nevertheless I got on with it, climbing the hills with great ease, and as the break was perfect went down hills with a rapidity and safety that could not easily be excelled. Later on I followed the various improvements of machines using two trackers. My experience has all been personally with the tricycle, but my observation has extended also to bicycles through the experiences of those who have been my companions. For very soon I found companionship in cycling more than in any other pastime, and it is from such experiences, together with my own, that I write what is subjoined. From the first my impressions have been always in favor of cycling, and to some extent the expression of that favor on certain public occasions has, I think, helped to popularize the movement. I believe the exercise has been of the greatest service to large numbers of people. It has made them use their limbs. It has called out good mental qualities, and it has taken away from close rooms, courts and streets hundreds of thousands of persons who would otherwise never have had the opportunity of getting into the fresh air and seeing the verdant hills and woods, the lakes and rivers, and the splendid scenery that adorn our land. This is all in favor of the cycle, the bicycle or tricycle, but I have yet more to say in the same direction. I am bound to indicate from direct observation that cycling has been useful in the cure of some diseases and that it is always carried on with advantage even where there is a marked disease. I have seen it do a great deal of good to persons suffering from fatty disease of the heart, from gout, from dyspepsia, from varicose veins, from melancholia, from failure due to age, from some forms of heart disease, from intermittent pulse and palpitation and distinctly from anemia. Moreover, I have known persons who could not have been expected to ride without danger, get on extremely well in their riding and have often, with due precautions, given permission to ride even to some patients to whom five and twenty years ago I should have forbidden every kind of exercise. These truths I have proclaimed publicly without any hesitation and sometimes to the wonder of friends who still held views which I had been compelled to discard. But now it is my duty to speak on the other side and to report such experience as yields evidence of dangers from cycling. I shall speak on this point as explicitly as is necessary. There are dangers from cycling. The first is the danger of teaching the practice to subjects who are too young. Properly, cycling should not be carried on with any ardor while the body is undergoing its development, while the skeleton, that is to say, is as yet imperfectly developed. The skeleton is not completely matured until twenty-one years of life have been given to it. The cartilaginous structures have to be transformed into true osseous structures before the body can be said to be naturally perfected. If it is to be pressed into too rigid exercise while it is undergoing its growth, it is the easiest thing in the world to make the growth premature or even to cause a deformity. The spinal column is particularly apt to be injured by too early riding and the exquisite curve of the spinal column which gives to that column when it is natural such easy and graceful attitudes for standing erect, stooping, and bending is too often distorted by its rigidity or want of resiliency. When that is the case, the limbs chair in the injury. They do not properly support the trunk of the body and pedestrian exercise thereupon becomes clumsy, irregular, and ungraceful. We see these errors particularly well marked in the young now that the crossbar system of the cycle has come so generally into use. The tendency in riding is for the body to bend forward so as to bring itself almost into the curve of the front wheel and in this position many riders hold themselves for hours and the spine more or less permanently assumes the bent position. In plain words the column becomes distorted and through the whole life affects the movements of the body. There are further injuries done to the youth, male or female, through other organs of the body and especially through the heart. Dr. Colb, as well as myself, has found that it is the heart which is principally exercised during cycling. So soon as risk cycling has commenced the motions of the heart begin to increase. In this respect cycling differs from many other exercises. Rowing tells most on the breathing organs. Dumbbells and other exercises where the muscles are moved without progression of the body tell most on the muscles. Whilst in climbing and long pedestrian feats it is the nervous system that is most given to suffer. There is not a cycle rider of any age in whom the heart is not influenced so as to do more work and although in skilled cyclists and trained cyclists a certain balance is set up which equalizes the motion. Such riders are not exempt from danger. I have known the beats of the heart to rise from 80 to 200 in the minute. In the first exercise of riding an increase which, for the time, more than doubles the amount of work done. A very serious fact when we remember that the extreme natural motion of the heart allows it to perform a task equal to raising not less than 122 foot-tons in the course of 24 hours. That is to say over 5 foot-tons an hour. In the young we may apply the same argument to the heart as we have done to the skeleton. The heart is undergoing its development and it is an organ which cannot without danger be whipped on beyond its natural pace. What occurs with it under such circumstances is that it grows larger than it ought to grow, that it works out of harmony with the rest of the body and is then most easily agitated by influences and impressions acting upon it through the mind. I have many times seen this truth illustrated too plainly and I doubt whether in the young, after extreme exercise such as that which arises from a prolonged race the heart ever comes down to its natural beat for a period of less than three days devoted to repose. In the young excessive writing affects unfavorably the muscles of the body generally as well as the heart which is itself a muscle. Properly the muscles go through stages of development just as the skeleton does and to attain a truly good muscular form all the great groups of muscles ought to be evenly and systematically exercised. But cycling does not do that. It develops one set of muscles at the expense of the other. It does not develop the chest muscles properly. It does not develop the arm muscles properly. It does not develop the abdominal muscles properly. It does not essentially develop the muscles of the back. But it does develop the muscles of the lower limbs and that out of proportion to all the rest. I have a picture in my mind's eye at this moment of a youth who, when stripped was actually deformed by the disproportionate size of the muscles of the calf of the leg and of the fore part of the thigh an effect which unbalanced the body as a whole and greatly impaired it for good healthy action. Lastly, in the young, cycling often tells unfavorably on the nervous function the brain and nervous system, like skeleton and muscle have to be slowly nurtured up to maturity and if they be called upon to do too much while they are in the immature state if the senses of sight and hearing and touch have to be too much exercised even though by such exercise danger from collisions may be skillfully averted perhaps to the admiration of lookers on there is a tax put upon those organs which makes them prematurely old and unfitted for the more delicate tasks that have afterwards to be performed. There are two classes of dangers arising out of over strain in cycling the first may be called the extreme the second the moderate danger I will take the extreme first this is shown in those remarkable athletes who enter into competitions such as have never before been dreamed of in the history of the world the results of such competitions have as yet excited comparatively little notice among men who are specially skilled in estimating their importance but they convey the strangest intelligence as to the physical capabilities of man they show that men have been found able to travel by virtue of their own bodily energy 400 miles at one effort they show also that men can be trained to perform this effort without sleep and that the body can be kept using itself up as it were for the long period of 40 hours sleep which the poet tells us quote, knits up the ravelled sleeve of care is the balm of hurt minds the chief nourisher in life's feast end quote sleep which is the very harbinger of health is here set aside with the result of a victory absolutely purposeless at the expense of the whole body there has not been as far as I can ascertain a single example of a feat of this kind being accomplished without direct and immediate sign of injury finally when the labor is done there is a period of recovery which lasts for many hours and is in itself an ordeal such as the strongest nature ought never to be subjected to the result is that these victims of extreme competition last but a few years in the ordinary condition of health and strength in this criticism is included a summary of the objection which has to be made to record-breaking a kind of absurd effort the end of which it is very difficult to foresee for unfortunately it may be urged with apparent plausibility that it is good as practice the enthusiastic cyclists tell us that it is through record-breaking that all the great advances have been made record-breaking they say depends upon improvements which take place not simply in the work of the riders or in those who compete but also in the development of the machine itself it has been found for example that the lightening of the machine the reduction of its weight down even to twenty or thirty pounds has been one of the great achievements a man put more work originally into a machine weighing say one hundred and twenty pounds while doing ten or fifteen miles an hour then is now put forth on a light machine doing over twenty miles an hour there is a great deal of truth in this statement and I fully admit that the record-breakers have done service in making cycling as an art a remarkable exhibition of human skill and endurance I have suggested for many years past that the end of these efforts will be a transition to the domain of flight and that a good flying machine will ultimately come out of the cycle the cycle in fact will develop into the flying machine through the intervention of wings which will be workable by the power of the individual alone or aided by some very light motor it is therefore with great reluctance that I protest against the overstrain which I have seen it is a kind of self-martyrdom to which we may conscientiously give admiration and support the second effect of overstrain is rather a force than a voluntary martyrdom those who suffer from it are mostly young persons often mere boys who are made to ply the machine probably heavily loaded in commercial duties and business it is astonishing in this metropolis of London what an amount of work a youth can be trained to do he can really do the work of a horse owing to the quantity and weight of goods he can distribute and the rapidity with which he can get through his task there is a little ambition about it also for the young people often like the exercise and are proud of showing off their skill and energy while their employers apprehending no evil from it let them do as much as ever they can the result is a greatly expedited circulation in these young laborers and an extreme tension of the heart and arteries these organs being as yet immature and easily over expanded under undue pressure the effects are not immediate but they lead to enlargement or hypertrophy of the heart and to those derangements of the blood vessels which follow upon dilation of the arterial circuit afterwards when the maturity is completed and the organs of the body cease to develop there is a disproportion between the vascular system and the other parts of the body which means general irregularity of function a powerful left heart pulsating into a feeble body and a powerful right heart pulsating into the lungs the effect must of necessity be injurious and the fact is too well demonstrated in practice I have seen this enlargement and overaction in so many instances I am convinced that when it is more correctly and widely understood it will be recognized that cycling is one of the causes of disease from occupation and that some public steps will have to be taken to limit the danger but the danger is not always connected with occupation many well-to-do young persons of both sexes by the enthusiasm and competitive work they throw into the exercise become affected in a similar manner and have to be restrained when that is possible from too great an indulgence in the pursuit in noticing these evils I have proceeded at once to the most important central evil that which applies to the heart and circulation from over strain but there are other phenomena I must not let pass there is often developed in the cyclist a general vibratory condition of the body which is mischievous and is shown in various acts of movement and thought there are certain unconscious or semi-conscious movements of the body which become sensible to the subject himself at particular moments when great steadiness is called for as for instance when sitting for a photograph there is also shown an over-desire for rapidity of motion as if it were necessary at every moment to overcome time and curtail distance by labor of an extreme degree lastly there is developed a kind of intoxication of movement which grows on the mind by what it feeds on and keeps the heart under the impression that it is always requiring the stimulation of the exercise these sensations it will be said are entirely nervous and under a correct interpretation of the word I perfectly admit that they are so it is improper at the same time to consider that a persistent sensation or series of sensations should be disregarded altogether because they are what is called nervous a repetition of nervous phenomena produces in a short time a habit that is strengthened by craving or desire like the desire for alcohol and other stimulants when the need is felt of whipping the heart into a greater state of activity I have long been of opinion that all cravings and impulses indeed spring from the heart as from their centre or magazine and not from an independent brain as if in short the heart were the mind-centre of motive desire and action there are some further symptoms observable in many developed men and women who indulge in cycling and which, though they may be minor in degree should not be neglected in all long tours carried out by cyclists we meet with these minor developments and I candidly confess that, prudent as I have been in my excursions I have experienced the symptoms myself you are out on a bright day skimming along the roads with everything in favour of the exercise you have gained your wind that is to say your breathing and circulation are going together in harmony you have lost the sensation of strain in the front muscles of the thigh your spirits are exhilarated as you pass along you do not indulge in spurts but keep steadily at your work and as the day begins to close you are going so merrily that you actually regret that the journey has come to an end you dismount for the night you take perhaps a fair supper you luxuriate in a bath and you go to bed but when you get into bed a most provoking thing occurs you do not sleep you are kept awake by a constant restlessness of the muscles the muscles of the lower limbs will not be quiet they start you up in twitches and if you look at the muscles especially the muscles in the calves of the legs you will see that they are in motion although you may not feel them I remember an instance in which the observance of these muscular twitchings created actual alarm to the rider and I myself counted no less than sixty of them within the minute they are muscular motions arising from an over irritable condition excited by the riding they may extend even to the muscles of the thighs and they always produce a restless night toward the morning the muscles become more composed and a heavy sleep follows with a weary waking as if the body were as tired on rising as it was on going to bed presently when the muscles are again exercised the weariness passes away and a repetition of the cycling effort actually after a time appears to bring more relief so that you cycle with the greatest freedom the continued exercise is however no real cure the phenomena are repeated and cycling becomes at last a very weary some pursuit I have known actual breakdowns from this distressing cause I warn all cyclists but especially those who have attained middle age to moderate their enthusiasm whenever they find that the motion of cycling long continued produces muscular restlessness and impaired sleep the question has often been put to me whether dangers not as yet referred to are induced or increased by the efforts of cycling does hernia or rupture occur through cycling I can say fairly I have never known it does enlargement of the veins increase through cycling I can say fairly I have never known it on the contrary I have I think seen a reduction of venous enlargement under the exercise does congestion of the brain ever occur with giddiness or other symptoms referable to the head I confess I have never known it and I do not recall an example in which owing to symptoms immediately induced any rider has felt it necessary to dismount from the machine but there are two things which I have witnessed and which I would like finally to record I have known persons of lymphatic and gaudy tendency who have taken to cycling and have felt at first great good from it they have become warm advocates of the pastime and indulging in it extremely have suffered from their extreme devotion to it I have observed that certain of these have become depressed have lost tone and have been obliged peremptorily to give up the sport they were so fond of I have also known amongst the gaudy a peculiar kind of gout induced by the exercise and there upon a dislike to it a result which is rather unfortunate as well as unnecessary because the injury has been brought about by overdoing the thing and by turning what would be useful into an injurious practice in conclusion though as I have said severe head symptoms from cycling are unusual it is within the range of my experience to have known general injury in nervous subjects brought on by a too great stress of observation in riding such as is induced by the fear of collision in crowded thoroughfares too rapid emotion in descending hills or too severe a trial in overcoming obstacles that caused the danger of a fall I have even known young people not bad riders injured by too great trespass on nervous power and I certainly would advise all timid riders to avoid tempting providence too far in trying to show off their ability as against their better trained and cooler companions and of What to Avoid in Cycling by Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson William Kilburn, 1745, 1818 and Copyright for Artists' Original Designs a biographical sketch from the Gentleman's Magazine London, March, 1832 by J. H. This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org a letter addressed to the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine Dublin, March 6th Mr. Urban in the Life of William Curtis the Botanist published in your magazine, August 1799 it is mentioned, quote, that in 1772 he commenced his great work, the Flora Londonensis having had the good fortune to meet with an artist of uncommon talent in Mr. Kilburn, end quote I have seen no memoir of Mr. Kilburn who has been dead some years and when a man like him disappears from the world by whose genius, talents, or industry the arts, sciences, or manufactures have been improved it may not be deemed uninteresting to rescue the incidents of his life from that oblivion in which those of the generality of mankind are buried William Kilburn was born in Cappell Street, Dublin, 1745 his father, Samuel Kilburn was an architect of some eminence and married Sarah Johnston niece to General Johnston of Tyrone his uncle, Sinclair Kilburn was a Presbyterian clergyman and reared his only son, Sinclair Kilburn to his profession this son was afterwards a very eloquent and popular preacher published a treatise on theology and a volume of sermons but having unfortunately early imbibed Republican principles he became a leader of the United Irishmen and during the suspension of the habeas corpus act of 1798 was arrested at Belfast by order of government conveyed to Dublin and imprisoned in Kilmainham jail where from long confinement he lost the use of his limbs and died shortly after his liberation William Kilburn, the subject of this memoir was also an only son and very early exhibited his genius for drawing this and the wish to have him in the country as his health appeared delicate determined his parents to place him apprentice with Mr. John Listen, an Englishman who had established a calico printing factory at Lexslip near Dublin here he quickly learned the different branches of that ingenious art but attached himself to drawing and engraving those being more congenial to the bent of his genius few lives are more marked than his with unceasing industry and application during the summer he rose at four and occupied his leisure hours in drawing patterns for paper stainers which with his master's leave he sold the produce gave him pocket money and enabled him to purchase a pony on which he rode to Dublin on Saturday and passed every Sunday with his mother and sister he had acquired an amazing readiness of pencil so that if a new pattern caught his eye and passing through Dublin he would take out his pocket book for his master on his return he always spoke gratefully of the kind attention paid him by Mr. and Mrs. Listen during his apprenticeship at the expiration of which he found himself alone with his mother and sister his father who had speculated largely in building became embarrassed in his circumstances and died only a small property settled on his mother remained this probably determined him to visit London the great mark for genius here he obtained a ready sale for his drawings amongst the calico printers he also drew and engraved flowers from nature in which he ever delighted for the print shops and this led to his acquaintance with Mr. Curtis and concern in the floor at Londonensis when he had entered into this engagement he returned to Ireland and brought over his mother and sister took a small house in Page's Walk Bermondsey with a garden and greenhouse and there occupied himself from sunrise to sunset in drawing and engraving the plants for that work which reflects so much credit on English science soon after the completion of the floor at Londonensis he received a proposal from Mr. Newton to undertake the management of a calico printing factory at Wallington near London for which he was to have a share of the profits without advancing capital to this he agreed and they were so successful that at the end of seven years he was enabled to purchase the concern and became sole proprietor he now rose rapidly in wealth and was soon the most eminent calico printer in England having brought the art to a pitch of perfection never since equalled he gave the highest wages to his workmen some of whom came from the continent and gave annual premiums for the best designs his pieces of muslin chinses sold for a guinea per yard and he had the honour of presenting one of them the seaweed pattern designed by himself to Her Majesty Queen Charlotte finding that his patterns were pirated in Manchester he applied for a bill which was brought into the House of Commons by his countrymen and neighbour the right honourable Edmund Burke quote to secure to calico printers the copyright of original designs end quote Mr Kilburn married the eldest daughter of Thomas Brown Esquire an East India director a most amiable woman who survives him and by whom he had several children in the relative duties of son and brother husband and father his conduct was most exemplary as a true believing Christian and moral man though he had been a delicate child he enjoyed excellent health until a few months before his death when feeling indisposed he repaired to Brighton and not getting better he returned to Wellington and calmly resigned his soul to his maker December 23, 1818 in the 73rd year of his age the poor inhabitants of the neighbourhood by whom he was much lamented followed him bare-headed to the grave Mr Kilburn was above six feet in height thin but well proportioned and perfectly straight to the last the pencil in his long fingers appeared scarcely to touch the paper when drawing so much had he acquired of grace and freedom the flowers that he engraved about the time he became acquainted with Mr Curtis are now sought for by connoisseurs being so true to nature and I have before me his engraving of a dead canary on a marble slab with wreaths of flowers which even in this advanced stage of the arts would rival many of the bijoux that adorn our modern annuals being most domestic in his habits and constantly occupied he was never able to visit Ireland after he had settled at Wellington but every Irishman that was introduced found an hospitable reception at his table he prided in his country of which he may be justly said to have been an ornament JH End of William Kilburn 1745, 1818 and copyright for artists' original designs a biographical sketch from the Gentleman's Magazine London, March 1832 by JH Read for LibriVox by Sue Anderson The Woman Thou Gave Us Me an essay by William Calper Brand published in the Complete Works of Brandy Iconoclast 1919 Now that the clarion voice of the reformer is heard in the land demanding for women all the rights and privileges enjoyed by the sterner sex perhaps it would be well to ask the fair client to come into court and establish that natural equality so vigorously claimed for her as well as the fact, if fact it be that she is being wronged and cruelly oppressed by the tyrant man Is it possible that the dear creature has for some thousands of years been robbed of her birthright and delegated to an inferior position in matters mundane simply because her biceps are not so large as those of her big brother and she has no war like whiskers as her attorneys in the suit to try title to this world's warren ship clamor for truth without trimmings and rest their case upon principles of justice untainted by prescription or premonier suppose we grant their prayer and proceed to the consideration of their cause unhandicapped by chivalric sentiment that the greater intelligence should control the lesser must be conceded to deny it would be to deny man's right to the life and labor of inferior animals to question God's authority to govern man or beast if the experience of several thousand years may be admitted in evidence the subservience of the minor to the major intelligence is an immutable law of nature only equal minds can be accorded equal authority without doing violence to this law is woman man's intellectual peer entitled to share equally with him the warship of this world the simple fact that for thousands of years man has been able to hold her in that state of subjection of which her attorneys so bitterly complain is sufficient answer to this question is proof positive that he is as much her superior mentally as physically this sounds unshivalrous but she will please remember that her attorneys insist that this cause be tried solely upon its merits brute force does not rule the world if it did the lion or the elephant would be creations lord and the Ethiope and the red Indian drive the Caucasian into the waste places of the earth or reduce him to slavery knowledge is power brain not brawn is master throughout the world had all Eve's fair daughters been blessed with more than masculine strength their position would have been practically the same they would have sung lullabies to the little ones adorned themselves and dreamed of love and loves conquests while their brothers founded empires subdued the forces of nature and measured the stars and both sexes would have been well content as they have ever been despite the protests of self constituted reformers of the order established by the infinite man is creations lord de facto and desure the immutable laws of nature make his sovereignty both a privilege and a duty the voice of prophecy proclaims him king he wears his crown by divine ordination and right of conquest woman was created to be and helped meet unto man not his co-ruler it matters not whether Genesis be fact or fiction that such was her destiny she has proven by fulfilling it whatever rights and privileges she enjoys must be man's free gift man asserts his position woman can but ask to share the fruits of his victories these he can divide with her but he could not if he would share with her his sovereignty his power because he cannot endow her with his judgment his mental vigor his courage and enterprise whether he wills it or not man must perforce remain the master of the world God's soul vice-regent on this earth in very few civilized countries does man manifest much opposition to the enfranchisement of women many favor it heartily and those who object do so chiefly on the ground that woman does not want it let a majority of the women in any state of the American Union ask enfranchisement and it will be accorded them let them unite in demanding any particular legislation and it will be enacted let them ask any possible thing whatsoever of their husbands and brothers and it will not be denied them woman does not demand the ballot because her interest centers in her home rather than her country because she shrinks from responsibility because she knows that she may safely trust her destiny to those who would die for her paradoxical as it may appear woman is at once the subject and the sovereign of man his inferior and superior mentally and physically his inferior in strength she is his superior in beauty woman is the paragon of physical perfection it is small wonder that the simple people of bygone days believed that gods and angels became enamored of the daughters of men and left heaven to bask in their sunny smiles the mental differences of the sexes correlate with the physical woman's mind is not so comprehensive her intellect not so strong as that of man but it is of a finer texture what it lacks in vigor it gains in subtlety if the mind of man is a coreless engine throbbing with resistless strength and energy that of woman is a Geneva watch by which the mightier machine is regulated occasionally a woman enters the field of masculine endeavor and keeps pace with the strongest but such cases are rare exceptions the women who have really taken high rank in art and literature may be counted on the fingers of one hand and those who have achieved anything remarkable in the field of invention science or government upon the fingers of the other it is not good that man should be alone and it would not be did he like had miss soldiers spring full grown from the earth man is the brain woman the heart of the human race she is the color and fragrance of the flower the bright bow in the black or hanging firmament of life the sweet cord that makes complete the human diapason if woman is kept in a state of subjection as those who are trying to drag her into court and force her to fill the bill of grievances against her companion assert she is certainly the proudest of earthly subjects if she is a slave she is bound with chains of her own forging and wears them because she wills it in obeying she rules in serving she leads captive her captor really she is the autocrat of earth the power behind the throne the ruler of those who rule in all life's battles woman's love is man's chief incentive his greatest garden of victory for woman he bears his bosom to every peril braves every danger it is for her that he subdues the elements and searches out the hidden treasures of earth for her that he measures the stars and determines the procession of the planets for her that he fills the world with art and luxury for her that he is a creative god rather than a destructive demon woman is with us but not of us she is in very truth but little lower than the angels and we should not drag her down to our level under pretense of lifting her to greater heights give to her every possible advantage open to her every calling and profession that she cares to enter accord her all she asks not grudgingly but cheerfully but do not force upon her rights she does not want duties she would shun and which that beneficent god who gave her to us to civilize and humanize us destined for our own strong hands End of The Woman Thou Gave Us To Me by William Cowper Bren Read by Michelle Fry, Baton Rouge, Louisiana in March 2019