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 interest you.

There is an ancient English rhyme which runs: 

     “St. Swithin’s Day, if then doth rain,
      For forty days it will remain;
      St. Swithin’s Day, if then be fair,
      For forty days ’twill rain nae mair!”

The history of the origin of this legend has been handed down to us through the chronicles of William of Malmesbury.

In the early days, before printing was invented, the records were kept by the monks in the monasteries.

The monks were, indeed, the only people who understood how to read and write.

The records were written by them on parchment or vellum.  The margin of every sheet was very wide, and beautiful designs were often painted thereon The first letter of a new paragraph was always beautifully illuminated, as this method of decoration was called.