Long before newspapers (remember them) started being delivered by grizzled, cigarette smoking bald men hurling bagged papers out the windows of their muffler-less, rusted out Chevy Novas to help finance their overdue child support*, and well before Kevin Bacon created bike messenger chìc and ushered in a quinquennial wave of movies, documentaries and TV shows about the trade, there were newsboys.
Kids hawking newspapers for coin, many delivering stacks of papers via bicycles, all over cities and towns around the world. Like their great, great grandsons, some–like the lad above– apparently chose to smoke as well. Ah, what’s a lung or two, as long as you’re riding bikes.
In any event, they were much cooler than Quicksilver era Kevin Bacon, were surely in better shape than the Nova driving delivery person that you (but most likely your parents or grandparents) have, and no doubt dressed better than the bike messengers of today (no offense, but they dressed pretty bad ass for kids hawking papers, and from what I have seen, there wasn’t a pair of skinny jeans in sight).
Just like the various alley cat and courier championships of today, it seems the newsboys of yesteryear also had events to challenge their prowess on the bike, as seen in the video in the link below which shows a 1927 Newsboys’ Derby from Paris, France. Large crowds look on as the cyclists race over the cobbled streets of Paris streets, each with a stack of newspapers in tow. [click the pick for video]
I you can almost hear them yelling at each other “Fromage à la mode!! Fromage mode! Je m’appelle n’est-ce pas fromage!!” Which for you non-French speaking readers translates to “Bike! On your right!! Bicycle right! Hey, I’m on a bike!!!!“
Just when I think I’ve seen all the bike racing there is to see, I find a bit more. Viva la Newsboy! e m’appelle n’est-ce pas fromage!!
*I know that line about the newspaper deliver people makes me sound like a jerk. So be it, it’s just a blanket stereotype based on what I saw in my 16+ years in the newspaper industry.
Top photo: Step-in-Time-Stock
Video Still: taken from the britishpathe.com video.