Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 March 1869 — Mr. Wilkins on Velocipedes. [ARTICLE]

Mr. Wilkins on Velocipedes.

From the Philadelphia Evening BYlletiu.

BY JOHN QDILL.

Rut Wilkins, I—” “I tell you, Mrs. Wilkins, I ans not going to have it; you may as well make up your mind to that at ouce. No woman shall ever go prancing around this community on a velocipede while she’s a wile of mine if I can help it; so you can just take that old pair of wheels you -ftTOfight Tioiuts amt jghtdiW Ilia keaa¥ of some kindling wood man with them, lor ride on them you don’t; il you do I’m a Dutchman ; there!” “Mr. Wilkins you know I—” “No. I don’t know anything of the kind. Do you think I’m going to let such a looking woman as you dress up in Bloomers and mount a high hat and go round trying to show olf that figure—” —“Mr. Wilkins!”

“Go straggling around the thoroughfares of this town, looking like an old beer cask propped up on two legs, and showing those ankles which are so thick that you couldn’t get one of them through the equator?” “Wilkins, I’ll scratch -” “Well, I should think not. And, besides, I don’t know where on this terrestrial globe you expect to find any wheels strong enough to bear you,. You’d smash a pair of castiron oar wheels into smithereens the minute you sat down on them, you would. The best thirtg you can do is to walk, and on the ground, too, where the crust of the earth isn’t thin, or else sit in front of a fire and melt down your avoirdupois.” “Mr. Wilkins, you aro perfcotly scandalous.” “But I’m not going to put up wittf it. I don’t intend to have you flopping around town on a velocipede, and very likely failing off and breaking your bones, and then having a lot of doctors coming to my house and making a post mortem examination, and sawing you up, and discovering things With hard Latin names in your lungs and your liver, and your physiquo generally. Well, I Bhould think not! It’s bad enough to have to submit to you now, without having your gore spilt over the carpet, and a parcel of sawbones

— r 1 blaspheming at your anatomy. I — v “Mr. Wilkins, ain’t you ashamed to talk so ?” “I want you to understand that if you ride that velocipede I’llsne for a divorce. I don’t believe in a woman exercising her muscles on any such contrivance. You’d a good deal better gpt a scrubbing brush, and go down and tackle the front door steps with some sand and a chunk of soap. That’s the kind of exercise you want in my opinion.” “Mr. Wilkins, if yon will only listen—” ! “Or ebe practice carrying a coal scuttle up and down stairs everyfivc minutes in the day. But as for the mother of a family and a flabby old girl of vonr years undertaking to ride a velocipede, why it’s simply ridiculous.” “Mr. Wilkins, I—■”

“The next thing I know, I suppose you will be parading yourself in the papers as ‘Madame Wilkins, the Champion Veloeipedist,’ running mile heats on the Nicholson pavement for hundred-dollar purses, best two out of three. A beautiful spectacle won’t it be ? And then I suppose you’ll want me to bet on you and back you up; but not one cent of my cash do you get. Not a single, solitary red. Do you suppose lam going to throw away my hard-earned money on such a lunatic as you ? Well, I should think not. I would not put up a dollar bn you, if I was worth untold billions. I’m not proud of you; I want you to distinctly understand that.” “Mr. Wilkins that’s all nonsense.” “And a pretty example you are setting to your children. Hero only yesterday Ilolferness Montgomery made a velocipede out of two flour barrels, and when he and Bucephalous Alexander tried to mount it it broke down and hit Mary Jane on the leg and maimed her for life, while Ilolferness Montgomery fell over the cat, which yawled and spitted around and scratched Ilolferness Montgomery over the irontespiece,- so that Bis beauty is entirely destroyed, and he looks more like you than ever. I say' its perfectly outrageous, aud I’m not gjung t 0 p tand it.” “Mr. Wdkins! Oif you'll listen

I'll tell you’ something.” “Oh ! I do/>’t wanLto hear it.— We’ll discontinue the conversation. I’m tired ofheanUg ?’QU cackle.” “Well, that veloci/'eJe that came home—” “Never mind now. I want to go to sleep. Just give your tongue a chance to rest, will you.” “Wa# for you. I heard ' you SAY you wanted one, and so I bought it out of the market money I saved.— But you treat me like such a. brute, that I—l—l— *'■ ‘•For me, did you say, Sarah? ‘then nevermind now.’ Don’t cry, Sarah, I say. Never mind; I won’t do it again, Sarah. Sarah ! Sarah ! Don’t cry, Sa-rah J Oh, well, cry, then, cry; who cares? You’re the most aggravating woman that ever lived. I’ll get on that velocipede to-morrow morning and abandon you as sure as my name is Wilkins. ITTdon’t, hang me !”

The Small Arabs of New York. Thousands of the street children of New York, however, have neither parents nor any regular places of abode to which they can resort at night. In summer they are careless and happy, for clothiug irof no consideration then; and in some recess behind the open door of a tenement house, on the grassless spaces of some city park, or amid the rubbish of a demolished building, they can roll themselves away, and sleep the sleep of the wild ranger of the gutters, to whqm repletion will bring no, night-mares, though his dreams may be of pumpkin-pies and other ambrosial viands of the ranoto possible. But in the inclement nights of winter the sufferings of the homeless little street Arabs are unspeakably severe. Then they huddle themselves together in doorways, at the risk of being spurned forth by some drunken lodger into the pelting sleet, or trodden upon by the late and- -reckless comers to and fro. The great iron boilers that stand out in front of the machine shops, in sqme quarters of fEo city, often afford lodgings for the night to these shivering little sprouts of humanity. Others may be seen emerging at early morning from the weather-beaten stalls that cling to the foot of some drowsy hid

market-building. To-day it is Indian summer. The sun shines genially through the warm November haze, and here, in a desolate park of the eastern district, of tho city many groups of small street children are seen at play. They are as oheerful as crickets, and as shrill. Several of the nights just passed away have been bitterly cold, and we have had ice on the pools in tho bleak mornings. Many of the children, as I am informed by a policeman, have passed these bitter nights in such places as 1 have just mentioned; but they have forgotten all their cares now m the glad sunshine, and it is quite likely that not one of them gives a thought as to how or where he is to lay down his unkempt head to-night. Here is one who is a wonder to contemplate, and ho may be

taken as a fair specimen of his kind, lie professes ignorance with regard to his age, but is adroit at catching copper coins that are jerked to him from a distance of two or three yards. Probably he is seven years old, but b|e is stunted and dwarfish for his age. As for clothes—well, the newly emerged chicken, with some pieces of the egg-shell sticking to it, 1s about as dressy as that small Arab. A boiler was bis bed last night. It has been his bed every night since the hard weather set in, and cold comfort must an iron boiler be when off the boil. He has a brother some years older than himself, and this brother does something for hhs living, and has a coat—a real-coat with sleeves aud a tail, and possibly a button or two with which to loop it close, —and he shares it with the smaller shreds of adversity, as they huddle themselves together with other boys in the metal cylinder.— Charles D. Shandy in the Atlantic Monthly for March.