A gentleman at Coventry, a few years ago, conceived, and spent a small fortune upon, a plan for overcoming the dead centre in crank tricycles; his method was quite simple: he only had to turn an angle on the crank at the outer extremity like a letter L, so that when the straight or radial part, represented by the stem of the L with the axle through the upper end, stood vertical, the pedal, which is supposed to be attached to the tip of the horizontal extension, would have passed some two inches beyond the dead-centre point. This same inventor had an enormous steel spring ensconced beneath the seat of his machine, which he wound with his hands as he went along. Whenever the proprietor of the establishment where these experiments were being conducted ran short of work he invariably proposed to the inventor to “go out and try the tricycle.” The writer was a moderate hobbyist himself once, and has perhaps not yet entirely recovered from the spell. Below find a letter written some time ago, while the delusion was still upon him. “AN AMERICAN HOBBYIST. “+Trials and Tribulations of an American Abroad—How Pet Theories are received in the Bicycling Centre of the World.+ “+Editor Springfield Wheelmen’s Gazette+: “Some friend has kindly sent me a copy of the _Gazette_, and I make haste to remit you the amount of subscription. “I will not assume that the bicycling papers of the country of which I am now a guest are not good. In fact, to do so would libel my host; I simply say that, being an American, I like American papers. “In the letter I first wrote, of which this is in main a copy, I asserted that the papers here were too much taken up by race-course news, but even since then I have received a copy of an English periodical which I find is not open to the objection given; hence I will still speak cautiously, lest I do not know all yet. “I have no penchant for the race-course; in fact, I never ran but one race, and then I was left so far behind that I have never been interested in racing news since. In one respect my race was a success, for I was loudly cheered by the crowd opposite the starting-point, for by some fortunate error they got the idea that I had been handicapped half a lap, that being about my distance in the rear at the end of the first round. Since that time I have confined myself exclusively to touring, with which object my brother and I came to England this spring. “I have been admitted to membership in the Cyclists’ Touring Club, and must say it is a grand institution, and the official organ thereof is a valuable journal.