The Bicycle Sulky

Wherever the trotter and pacer are raced and the struggle to send a horse in harness a mile in two minutes is on, the "bicycle sulky" is used. Three years ago the first ones vvere received wirh laughter, so odd did they look beside the oíd high-xyheeied hickory, weighing twice as much, saya Chicago Tribune. Few are iware that a Chicago newspaper man, William Welton by name, an admirer of the harness horse, and for many years a rider of the bicycle, failed to hear Dame Fortune when she tapped at his door with the patentable idea of the bicycle sulky in hpr hands. It came about in this way. He was at that time a reporter on a Detroit afternoon paper, whieh prints also a SundaV morning edition. He had been on the paper only a week and was anxious to turn over some good "Sunday stuff." It had occurred to him before thia that a sulky rigged with bicycle wheels, rubber tires, and, above all. ball bearines. would run many pounds eaeler to the mile than the old-style sufky, and it would make several seconds' difference in the struggle to have a norse trot i two minutes. So he wrote a "fake." It was in the form of an interview with Dr. Gibson, of Jackson, Mlch owner of Tremont, 2:284, sire of June mont, 2:14, and others. In the stor Gibson was credited with having sug gested the idea. The next fall the firs bicycle sulky appeared in Buffalo, and was made sport of, but the norse bea sne he apparently had no license to beat. To-day, not a driver goes into a race without one. The newspaper man, who never applied for a patent- in fact, never thought of it- who threw away bis chance to prove the invention in later years by giving all the credit to a third person, is still in the "grind." Millions have been made out of the rubber-tircd, ball-bearing wheel.