Need I explain I am alluding to the nowaday passion for propelling oneself at a severe speed by dint of unstable and most precarious machinery? It is now the exception which breaks the rule to take the air in the streets without being startled by the unseemly spectacles of go-ahead citizens straddled upon such revolutionary contrivances, threading their way with breakneck velocity under the very noses of omnibus and other horses, and ringing the shrill welkin of a tintinnabulating gong! Nay, even after the Curfew has taken its toll from the knell of parting day, and darkness reigns supreme, they will urge on their wild career, illuminated by the dim religious light of a small oil lamp! I possess no knack of medical knowledge, but I boldly state my opinion that such daredevilry must necessarily inflict a deleterious result to the nervous organisms of these riders; and, who knows, of their posterity? For no one can expect to have hairbreadth escapes from the running gauntlet continuously, without suffering a shattering internal panic, while catastrophes of fatal injury to life and limb have become _de rigueur_. _Experto crede_--for I can support my _obiter dictum_ by the crushing weight of personal experience. A few mornings since I had the honour to escort Miss JESSIMINA MANKLETOW and a middle-aged select female boarder into the interior of Hyde Park. The day was fine, though frigid, and I was wearing my fur-lined overcoat, with boots of patent Japan leather, and a Bombay gold-embroidered cap, so that I was a mould of form and the howling nob. Picture my amazement when, as I promenaded the path beside the waters of the Serpentine lake, I beheld a wheeled cavalcade of every conceivable age, sex, and appearance; senile gaffers and baby buntings; multitudinous women, some plump as a duckling, others thin as a paper-thread; aye, and even priests in sanctimonious black and milk-white cravats, rolling swiftly upon two wheels, and all agog to dash through thick and thin! On seeing which, the matured lady boarder did exclaim upon the difficulties of the performance, and the vast crowd that had collected to view such a _tour de force_, but I, perceiving that those seated upon the machines used no exorbitant exertions, and, indeed, appeared to be wholly engrossed in social intercourse, responded that no skill was required to circulate these bicycles, which, owing to being surrounded with air-cushions, would proceed _proprio motu_ and without meandering. Thereupon Miss MANKLETOW expressed an ardent desire to behold myself upon one of these same machines, and--as we were now close to the effigy of Hon'ble Duke of WELLINGTON disguised as an Achilles, near which were certain _bunniahs_ trafficking with bicycles--I, wishing to pleasure my fair companion, approached one of these contractors and bargained with him for the sole user of his vehicle for the space of one calendar hour, to which he consented at the _honorarium_ of one rupee four annas.