"I am not an advocate of the use of the bicycle among women, when viewing it from the morality phase."

So wrote the Rev. W.W. Reynolds, pastor of the Brightwood Methodist Church of Indianapolis.

Women of refinement and exquisite moral training addicted to the use of the bicycle are not infrequently thrown among the uncultivated and degenerate element of both sexes, whose coarse, boisterous, and immoral gestures are heard and seen while speeding along our streets and boulevards.

Get a grip, Reynolds. He goes on about the "shorter dresses than the laws of morality and decency permit." Spare me. Women want to be mobile, and shorter dresses are a practical adaptation. Reynolds seems terribly concerned about morality, and well he should be, as his mind is apparently roiling with sexual feeling. Let him take care of that one way or the other. And let the women bicycle wherever they please, wearing whatever clothing is suitable for the healthy enterprise.

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1899.