dle-bar, and a pedal
broken.

Happily there were two bicycle machinists in the party and they were
able to make the necessary repairs, so that all the wheels were usable
throughout the entire trip except one, which was so badly broken that
the rider had to leave the company.

Captain Lyon, who was in command, says that it has been shown that the
bicycle can be of great service in military operations. He says that
under the very worst conditions a wheel can accomplish much more than a
horse.

He thinks that the weight carried on the machine has very little to do
with its endurance, but at the same time in future trips would recommend
that a carbine be carried instead of the musket, which he considers too
heavy and cumbersome to carry on a wheel.

An effort was made to send a despatch by one of the troopers from
Jamaica, L.I., to the camp at Peekskill in seven hours, a distance of
one hundred miles.

Private Walter Dixon was chosen for the service and started out at seven
o'clock in the morning.

He did not reach the State camp till six in the evening, owing to
mishaps. He was thrown from his wheel and stunned during his journey,
and lost a long time while recovering. His actual time in the saddle was
eight hours.

This was considered the most important event of the trip.

In war time the carrying of despatches is one of the most essential
duties, and much depends on the promptness of their delivery. To be able
to send a despatch a hundred miles in eight hours means a revolution in
modern warfare.

The weather and the mosquitoes combined in an effort to make the trip as
difficult as possible. When the men arrived in New York they were tired,
grimy, mud-stained, and punctured with mosquito bites, but very happy
over the success they had had.

They never once sought shelter in hotels, but, rain or no rain, camped
out as they had intended to.

Another trial of the bicycle has been made in the West, and it has again
come off with flying colors.

The Twenty-Fifth United States Infantry Bicycle Corps has just completed
a two-thousand-mile ride from Fort Missoula, Montana, to St. Louis. The
trip took forty days.

The riders and wheels stood the journey remarkably well, and the
lieutenant in command considered the trip a great success.

* * * * *

The constant rain that we have had for the last few weeks has called to
mind a very curious old superstition which will amuse and int