THE WHEELMEN'S ILLUMINATED PARADE.
The wheelmen's illuminated parade here, on the evening of October 1st,
was a success. It not only surprised and gratified the crowds of people
that lined the streets in the most fashionable part of the city, but
the effect was beyond what the wheelmen themselves expected. I rode out
to the natatorium, about dark, where the wheelmen had already begun
to congregate, and it was interesting to witness the transformations
in their appearance. One after another came hurriedly in, wearing his
ordinary clothes, and disappeared in the numerous dressing-rooms in
the building. Very soon out would come an immense green frog nearly
six feet high, walking on his hind legs, then came a gorilla, but with
an unusual appendage in the shape of a tail long enough for several
"missing links"; soon after a great white rooster came strutting about;
then appeared the devil in red tights and with wings so broad he had
to go sideways through the doors; closely following him was "Cupid"
in white tights with nothing to keep him warm (it was a cold frosty
evening) but a pair of tiny wings and an eye-glass. "Cupid" is better
known to Hartford wheelmen as George W. Baker, who made the wonderful
ride from St. Louis to Boston last year in nineteen and one-half
days. Many had their faces painted white with L. A. W. across their
noses and cheeks in red paint. But I cannot stop now to even attempt
to describe the different costumes.
The machines were variously and tastefully trimmed with different
colored paper and hung with Chinese lanterns. One machine, or rather
three bicycles fastened together and supporting a sort of canopy,
was festooned with nearly a hundred lanterns. There were various
other designs, and in all there were two hundred riders in line, and
probably several thousand lanterns. The ride was over a route nearly
four miles in length, and excepting a few blocks, the pavement was
entirely of asphalt.
Being at the head of the line, as an aid to the grand marshal, with
no duties to perform, and assisted in that work by Mr. H. C. Cake
of Clarksville, Mo., and Mr. H. G. Stuart of Kansas City, Mo.,
I was unable to get a good view of the procession till it reached
the exposition building, where the immense crowd reduced it nearly
to a single line of walking wheelmen, pushing their machines along
as best they could. But the view down Pine street was very fine,
where the street for nearly a mile was filled to the curbstones
with colored men on the sides carrying torches of red fire, and
the middle of the street a mass of moving wheels, burning torches,
fantastically dressed wheelmen, and hideous looking animals astride
of wheels, and the whole filled in with Chinese lanterns hanging not
only from the pedals, handle-bars, and backbones of the machines,
but moving along in the shape of trees, crosses, boats, and canopies.
It was such a weird and beautiful sight that it is almost universally
acknowledged that of all the fall festivities held here this
procession has only been excelled in beauty by that of the Veiled
Prophet. And judging only from the newspaper accounts of the night
parade of the Boston wheelmen last fall, this one far surpasses that,
which was the first and only affair of the kind ever gotten up in
this country. It certainly does in one very important particular of
a negative character. There was no molestation of a single rider by
the crowd of hoodlums that followed the parade everywhere. When it is
remembered how, at Boston, bricks were thrown in the way and sometimes
at the heads of the riders, how sticks were thrust through the wheels,
causing innumerable headers, and how finally some of the wheelmen
dismounted and engaged in knock-down arguments with the roughs and drew
revolvers on them, it may at least be placed to the credit of a city
that is supposed to be so far removed in respect to the civilization
of the "Hub" as is St. Louis, that in this particular, as well as in
other respects, the wheelmen have furnished an example that may well
be followed by wheelmen and hoodlums alike in Eastern cities.
Judging from the remarks at the banquet the next evening, at the
Lindell Hotel, given by the St. Louis wheelmen to the many visiting
wheelmen who joined in the parade, the credit for the great success
of the whole affair seemed to rest mainly upon the shoulders of Grand
Marshall E. K. Stettinills and W. E. Hicks, a "literary fellow" on the
Post-Despatch, both of whom, with becoming modesty, tried to shift the
responsibility upon the other's shoulders. Hicks has dark hair, blue
eyes, a thin face, small moustache, and is slightly built, and a little
above the medium height. A wiry, active sort of a fellow, all nerves,
just the one to create enthusiasm. Stettinills, on the contrary,
is solidly built, of medium height, full face, black hair and eyes,
small moustache, and has a sledge hammer way with him that is sure to
remove all obstruction and insure success. One was imaginative, the
other executive, "chiefly executive." One went off like a sky-rocket,
the other like a cannon--a good combination, as it proved.
After Chief-Consul Rogers, who presided in a very happy manner, had
called upon Mr. Gus Thomas, another literary fellow, to respond to
"The Press," and he had done so in a speech that for wit and humor
is rarely excelled and which kept the wheelmen in a continual roar
of laughter, the presiding officer then said there was in their midst
a touring wheelman who had accomplished the "great feat of crossing,
etc., etc., etc.," and called upon him to respond. This wheelman had
had a Colorado ranchman advance upon him with glaring eyes threatening
to put a hole through him, and he did not know enough perhaps to feel
afraid; had seen an Indian fully armed and galloping towards him,
off on the plains of Idaho near the Yellowstone Park, without having
one additional heart-beat, and during his entire trip had carried
as his only weapon of defense a dull jack-knife with the point of
the blade filed off for a screw-driver, and yet after hearing the
account of his trip so greatly exaggerated, and seeing the eyes of
seventy-five or a hundred friendly wheelmen turned suddenly towards
him, he trembled and turned pale, his breath came and went as if that
Indian was after his scalp, he hid behind the back of his chair,
he could not think of some things he wanted to say and said some
things he did not want to, and altogether presented an appearance
that ought to dispel any impression that might be entertained of his
supposed courage in going where he has been. He says he had rather
wheel another thirty-seven hundred miles than be where he was then.
The Simmons Hardware Company, agents for the Columbia bicycles in
this city (in whose employ were Messrs. Jordan, Sharps, Dennis,
and Smith, and other wheelmen, whose acquaintance I made), had just
moved a part of their immense business into a new six-story brick
block, which was to all outward appearances substantially built,
when one Sunday evening, without the slightest warning, the upper
floor dropped and carried with it the five other floors down into the
basement, burying and ruining one hundred and twenty-five bicycles and
a full stock of bicycle sundries, the walls of the building remaining
standing, apparently little injured. This occurred a short time before
I arrived in the city, and, consequently, an order for a new head for
my machine had to be sent to Hartford; but the delay has given me an
opportunity to become better acquainted with the wheelmen, and although
at Buffalo, Denver, San Francisco, and especially at Salt Lake City,
not to mention other places, the cordial treatment I received made
me regret to go on, yet, notwithstanding I have made the longest stay
here that I have at any place, I am more loath to leave the St. Louis
wheelmen than any I have met, and that is saying a good deal for them.
Distance traveled on the wheel, 3,740 miles.