The Revenge of the Methodist Bicycle Company: Sunday streetcars and municipal reform in Toronto, 1888-1897

Bribery! Corruption! Fist fights on the steps of City Hall. Thunderings from the pulpits! Mass meetings, petitions, rallies, unrest in the streets! The Revenge of the Methodist Bicycle Company is a lighthearted, impeccably researched excursion through the thickets of chicanery, hypocrisy and sanctimony that were the special marks of High Victorian Toronto. The story is simple: big-money interest who owned Toronto's street railways wanted to run streetcars on Sundays. They claimed this would be a boon to the working man on his day of rest, but it was clear that profit was their real motive. Respectable leaders of Toronto society were adamantly opposed; Sunday streetcars were a desecration of the Sabbath, the work of the Devil. But ultimately, the robber barons won and the cars ran on Sunday-just as the first great bicycle craze began. Everybody bought bikes-some of them from the Methodist Bicycle Company-and the Sunday streetcars were virtually empty. Revenge is a rollicking good story peopled by flamboyant characters with Good and Evil fighting it out in public view. Richly illustrated with cartoons and photographs from the period, it is an exuberant refutation of the notion that Canadian history is dull. With a new introduction by the authors, the attractive Wynford edition brings this award-winning classic to a new generation of readers.