weights he would require, and what amount of them. If Mr. Ward weighed twelve stones he would want about a quarter of a ton, with the forks of the proportions shown. In these circumstances it is difficult to know whom less to envy, Mr. Ward or any unlucky person he might run against.
The first tricycle ever made to the design of the Rev. Mr. Charsley, who has given great attention to designing tricycles for the use of the lame, was made in 1869, and was hand-driven by cranks. "He that is down need fear no fall," might have been Mr. Charsley's watchword in placing his rider. Still, quaint as the machine looks, it was the forerunner of the most successful hand-driven tricycle ever produced. It was steered by a movement of the back against the broad guard before the steering wheel.
Mey's machine.
Another American distinguished himself in 1870—Mr. Mey, of Buffalo. An idea of his invention is best conveyed by his own drawing. Here we see, doubtless, one of the original "Buffalo gals" in a smart trap, the motive power of which is a sort of magnified squirrel-cage, in which two wretched dogs are expected to gallop, and, in the inventor's words, "will impart motion to the wheel and to the vehicle, as will be clearly understood." Mr. Mey thoughtfully provides a whip, and marks it with a big, big D, although a means of reaching the dogs with it when they are encased in the wheel A B C must form the subject of another invention—and a clever one.
Croft's machine.
Still another American, a Mr. Croft, invented a fearful and wonderful engine in 1877. Really, it is not easy to believe that even a cycle inventor (and some of them are mad enough for anything) could perpetrate such a thing as late as 1877. The rider, as the gentle reader may see for himself, was to punt himself along with a pair of poles—literally to punt along the public highway, steering meanwhile by means of his feet in stirrups. An idea of the fiery pace of this contrivance is skilfully expressed by the fluttering beard in the inventor's picture; but, notwithstanding his liberal use of the alphabet in the diagram, we fear that Mr. Croft flatters himself. We would almost back the dogs against him, or M. Julien.
Lawson's safety machine (made for Viscount Sherbrooke.)
Soon the boneshaker became a bicycle with a tall front and a small back wheel, and the first effective attempt to cope with the danger from headers thereupon consequent was comprised in Singer's Safety, the invention of Mr. Lawson in 1878. The identical machine here represented was made for Viscount Sherbrooke—then Mr. Robert Lowe—who, as a rider of the
