them pay for it. The philanthropists that advocated the bill could not see that they, in reality, were the "free-lunchers"; for they were not so much interested in the encouragement of generosity as they were to profit from it after it had been encouraged. It was not "the kickers" that needed reformation—it was the reformers themselves.
What such excellent persons need most is not more knowledge, as many reformers suppose, but, as Mr. Spencer has often pointed out, a livelier imagination and keener sympathies. Had the training of these faculties been more perfect, the proposed tax would have called to mind the hundreds, if not thousands, of poor owners of bicycles that had been forced to practice the most rigid economy to buy them—the shop girls, the mechanics and laborers, the servant girls and messenger boys, and the impoverished invalids advised to take exercise to restore health shattered by long hours in shops or stores. There would have been the feeling that to these unfortunates a dollar was a considerable sum, and that if it could not be paid, as the bill required, the cost and annoyance of the legal proceedings authorized for its collection would be a serious hardship. The possible sufferings of unfortunate delinquents, rather than the advantage of paths and the suppression of "free-lunchers," would have filled the mirror of consciousness. With feelings stirred by pictures of injustice and suffering, not unworthy of the best days of a feudal despot, the benevolent advocates of the bill would have opposed it with even greater energy and skill than they defended it.
Another curious fact brought out was the ignorance of many of the petitioners as to the true character of the bill. Until the objections to it had been set forth in the newspapers, they did not realize what they had petitioned for. Even then it was impossible for some intelligent persons to comprehend that the bill was an outrage. I remember talking with two or three lawyers about it. Both from a legal and moral point of view they thought it an excellent measure. Another professional man, one of the brightest I ever knew, pronounced it the most just and practicable that could be proposed. But in spite of these perverted opinions, the discussion evoked such indignation and opposition that the bill was rejected by the mayor and common council, whose approval was required to make it law.
II.
Now that the bill had been defeated in accordance with the social philosophy of Mr. Spencer, what, in accordance with that philosophy, was the next thing to be done? Was the construction of side paths to be opposed altogether? Were bicyclists to be deprived of this means of pleasure and rapid communication between
