An enthusiastic journalist who had been burning the candle at both ends betook himself to the wheel, and found it of so much service to body and mind that he straightway, in the columns of his newspaper, began to advise the whole world to learn the bicycle. He could hardly tell the difference it had made to his feelings and general health, and he knew of no exercise which brought so easily such a universal return in good health, good spirits, and amusement. Mr G. Lacy Hillier, of the Badminton volume on Cycling, confirms this. The cyclist seems to enter into the spirit of Emerson's saying as thoroughly as Thoreau might have done: 'Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of empires ridiculous.' Many overdo the exercise, then renounce it, or give it a bad name; others, by over-rapid riding in towns, make themselves public nuisances, and vastly increase the dangers of overcrowded streets. The sensible cyclist rides for health, increase of knowledge, and amusement. Though at one time Mr Ruskin was prepared to spend all his best bad language in abusing the wheel, the world has gone its own way, and the careering multitudes in Battersea Park and elsewhere, on country and suburban roads, in crowded towns, have been the means of creating new manufactures, which have vastly benefited our home industries. Mr H. J. Lawson, inventor of the rear-driving safety, lately estimated the annual output of cycles at over a million, and the money spent at over ten millions. But in the absence of statistics this is only guesswork. The periodical called _Invention_ has stated that in 1884 there were 8 bicycle factories, which turned out 6000 machines. In 1895 there were about 400 factories, with an estimated output of 650,000 bicycles. The bicycle tax in France is said to yield not less than £80,000 a year. In the United States, where cycling has become a greater craze than with us, two hundred and fifty thousand cycles at least were purchased in 1894; in 1895 more than four hundred thousand changed hands. When the proposal was made some time ago to impose a tax on cycles, it was calculated that there were at least eight hundred thousand riders in the United Kingdom. Now the number is estimated at over a million. The past few seasons have witnessed quite a 'boom' in cycling and a great increase in the number of riders. Ladies have taken more rapidly to the pastime in America and France than in England. The rubber and then the pneumatic or inflated tyre have wrought a marvellous revolution; the high 'ordinary,' the tricycle, and the heavy 'solid,' and even the 'cushion,' have in most cases been relegated to the home of old iron. The Pneumatic Tyre Company, with a capital of four millions sterling, when in full swing, turns out twenty-five thousand tyres per week. The profits of this concern in 1896 were at the rate of £432,000 a year. Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, London, and other towns, have largely benefited by the cycle trade.