Cycling for Young Girls.
Cycling is revolutionising the kingdom, partly for good, partly, alas! for harm. But I want to warn parents against permitting children of too tender years to cycle. Remember I myself might be called a cyclomaniac. Many is the article and many the book I have written on this charming method of pedal progression, but I never have been a scorcher.
I say, and fear no contradiction, that no girl should be permitted to mount a bike, until she is eleven or twelve years of age, and even then she must ride in moderation. Else years and years of ill-health and trouble are in store for her in after-life. Children should be taken good care of when out cycling, and those with them should ride in moderation, else the child will kill herself in trying to keep up.
The same may be said about club-cycling for young men. Just as there is always a tiny wee "drochy" in a litter of pigs, so in a club out for a spin there is always one or more poor white-faced visions of lads that a Chinaman could whip, and it is pitiful to gaze on their weazened white bits of perspiring faces as they bend over their bars and try to keep up. Such brats often smoke too. Alas! alas! but there is one consolation, they soon sink into their morsels of graves, and the world wags better without them.