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Title: Fifty years hence: or, What may be in 1943

Author: Robert Grimshaw

Release date: May 15, 2022 [eBook #68096]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Practical Publishing Company

Credits: Charlene Taylor, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTY YEARS HENCE: OR, WHAT MAY BE IN 1943 ***





  Fifty Years Hence:

  OR

  WHAT MAY BE IN 1943:

  A PROPHECY SUPPOSED TO BE BASED ON SCIENTIFIC
  DEDUCTIONS BY AN IMPROVED
  GRAPHICAL METHOD.

  BY
  ROBERT GRIMSHAW.

  NEW YORK
  PRACTICAL PUBLISHING CO.
  21 PARK ROW

  1892




  COPYRIGHT, 1892,
  BY
  ROBERT GRIMSHAW.




  _To_
  MY CHILDREN,

  _Who may perchance, fifty years hence, compare these
  prophecies with what has then come about_.




FIFTY YEARS HENCE.




FIFTY YEARS HENCE.

  “Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
  And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.”

                                                      --_Locksley Hall._


That portion of the public which honors me by perusing what I have been
fortunate enough to learn concerning the future of the inhabitants
of this planet, half a century from this Christmas of 1892, will
naturally, as my name is unknown to either fame or science, wonder on
what grounds I presume on so bold an undertaking; perhaps what manner
of man I might be.

But when I positively disclaim any merit or virtue as a prophet,
and state that I am merely by chance the medium by which a portion
of the veil is torn from the future, it is enough that I describe
myself, as referred to in sundry recitals, as Francis Ainsworth, of
the City and County of New York. Perhaps I might add that I am by
choice an electrician, by birth a Pennsylvanian, in age twenty-one,
and by no fault of my own still unmarried. For some years I have been
endeavoring to save enough to enable me to marry my lifelong friend
Estelle Morton, of Philadelphia; but as I have a family of small
sisters to support out of my salary and what I can earn by extra work,
the period of our engagement has been prolonged beyond the time of even
our least sanguine calculations. Nearly all my evenings are spent at
home, within the sound of the Jefferson Market clock; for I have chosen
the Ninth Ward because it is even yet an American stronghold, because
it is convenient to my place of business, and because it is better than
it looks, which is preferable to looking better than facts warrant.

Once a month, however, I am sure to be at the meeting of my Masonic
lodge in the Temple, at Twenty-third Street; for I feel that there I
am in contact with both the living present and the dead past; and the
Mystic Tie seems well worth critical study.

One evening as I was about to enter the side portal on the Avenue, a
ragged newsboy offered, at more than the regular price, some “extras”
containing an account of some great financial upheaval in Europe.
The man by my side objected to paying an exorbitant price for the
hastily-issued and noisily-cried sheet, saying to his companion: “Now,
if he would bring me to-morrow’s news, Trask, I wouldn’t mind paying a
good round sum for it.” The auburn-haired Past Master, who is seamed
with the scars of battle in “The Street,” replied, more in earnest than
in jest: “I would readily pay a thousand dollars for a knowledge for
what will happen to-morrow, and a million if it were exclusive.” “On
that basis,” said a man ahead, who was just stepping into the elevator,
“what would it be worth to know what is to happen fifty years hence?”
“Oh,” said Trask, “I suppose it would be reasonably safe to offer any
price at all for the performance of an impossibility; and for that
matter, any one impossibility is just as unreasonable to ask as any
other. It’s hard enough to be sure of what happened fifty years ago,
let alone diving into the news of fifty years hence.”

“It is not so impossible as you think,” quietly remarked a gentleman at
my side, who seemed a stranger to all of the rest. “It can be done, if
one has patience, judgment, time and means.”

As we meet all sorts of people in the world at large, it is not
unreasonable to expect a fair variety among Free Masons, who, while
held to a uniform belief in certain things, and to unvarying actions
in others, have the freest living, compatible with a charitable and
upright walk, in all others; consequently, even so radical a remark as
that, and even one so gravely uttered, exacted no comment, and scarcely
a glance from any, other than one of courteous recognition that the
speaker had addressed his companions.

He was a distinguished looking man, even in a Masonic temple, where
men of commanding presence, men of dignified bearing, men of venerable
appearance and men of philosophical habit, are by no means uncommon.
Although but of medium height, his carriage was such as to give him
the appearance of a tall man. His eyes were dark, full, luminous, and
wide apart; the nose strong, straight and with large nostrils; the
mouth small, firm and flexible. A still luxuriant head of wavy white
hair, long white mustaches, and beard falling full and untrimmed
upon his breast, imparted a distinguished and venerable appearance.
His erect form was slender although evidently well-muscled, even at
his age, which seemed seventy or thereabouts. His dress was neat and
inconspicuous; the materials evidently of excellent quality, although
of a fashion long gone out of date.

We entered the lodge-room almost together, and like myself, he took a
seat near the door.

       *       *       *       *       *

To the work for this evening there was lent unusual interest by the
presence of a Masonic celebrity, revered in two hemispheres, who had
been invited to give us the benefit of the stores of learning for the
possession of which he was noted, and of the wise counsel which he ever
gave to those younger and less well-informed in Masonic matters.

The eloquent speaker having held us spell-bound by his masterful
presentation of the teachings of symbolic Masonry, in a flight of
oratory carried us back to the days and works of Solomon the King, of
Hiram Abiff, and of that other Hiram, King of Tyre; and in the first
great Temple which those early Master Masons builded twenty-nine
centuries previously, traced for us, in form, size and position of
timber and metal--in tool, and time, and work, noble lessons of
manhood and virtue; of brotherhood and helpfulness; of contemplation
and self-restraint, until each one addressed felt that he, too, was
proud of being a Free and Accepted Master Mason, and emulous of being a
credit to his ancient craft.

In the building of that majestic, beauteous, mystic Temple,

      “No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung;
  Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung.
  Majestic silence!”

His descriptive powers, his witching imageries, held us spell-bound.
But at one point the speaker paused, saying that here there seemed to
be something well worth knowing, but which the centuries had hidden.
It was evidently replete with symbolism of highest order; but the key
to its mysteries was unfortunately lost. Some day, perhaps, the light
of investigation might penetrate the gloom in which the mystery was
enwrapped--if, indeed, those better versed in the craft had not already
solved the interesting problem.

The point referred to was one of those in which occult ratio and mystic
beauty of proportion unfold on every hand new virtuous teachings.
It was so rich in reminder and suggestion, no matter from what side
viewed, that its consideration roused the enthusiasm of all hearers.

When the speaker ceased, the quiet little gentleman next me seemed as
one filled with inspiration.

                        “... With grave
  Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed
  A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven
  Deliberation sat.”

In a well-modulated voice which had evidently been one of great power
and beauty, he asked permission to endeavor to cast some light, however
feeble, upon so interesting a subject. Something in the quiet dignity
of his bearing, in the classic precision of his diction, and the
graceful modulation of his voice, attracted all with more than usual
force to the new speaker.

                        “... his look
  Drew audience and attention still as night
  Or Summer’s noontide air.”

He said that in order to find the fullest measure of symbolism in this,
as in other Temple mysteries, we must go further than the Temple walls
and question the inner chambers of the pyramids--we must ask of the
Shepherd Kings what Solomon and the two Hirams told them not. The
point was beautifully elucidated both in itself and in its relation to
others, so that its increased richness of allusion and teaching became
at once surprisingly manifest.

Evidently all present felt that a master of the mysteries of the buried
centuries was among us--and in gesture and expression all asked “the
old man eloquent” to continue, and to give his views upon the work of
those Shepherd Kings to whom he had so appositely alluded.

So far as I can remember the facts which he laid before us, and fill up
gaps in my memory, by reference to standard authorities, he spoke as
follows:--

“The Hykshos or Shepherd Kings came suddenly into this land of mystery;
came with a purpose, which purpose accomplished, they departed
speedily. That purpose, for which they travelled so far, was to build
the great pyramid, a unique, symbolic, and prophetic structure,
‘star-y-pointing,’ raised on a site chosen from the whole surface of
the earth by reason of its unique, its solitary fitness. That building,
type of the ever-during gates of heaven, wonderfully symbolized the
mystic wisdom of its time; imperishably recorded the principal facts
in metrology, meteorology and astronomy, and prophetically embodied
the discoveries of ages then to come. Temple and town have gone to the
ground, but it has endured. It was the precursor of the great symbolic
Temple of Solomon, built by the descendants of those shepherd builders,
students of the heaven’s wide pathless way, and which although
destroyed, could be reconstructed by the measures and dimensions
familiar to our mystic craft, and recorded in that great book of
symbols, the Bible.

“Now, the dimensions and rhythmic proportions on which Solomon, on
which Hiram, King of Tyre, and on which Hiram Abiff builded the
wondrous Temple, were enshrined in the Great Pyramid just five hundred
years before.

“The Temple diagram, conceived under the starry cope of heaven, is made
by drawing on a diameter of 1,000 inches, a circle, about which and in
which is described a square, again a circle and a square circumscribed.
The areas of the various squares and circles here drawn, equal those
of the porch of Solomon’s Temple (125,000 square inches), of the holy
place (500,000 square inches) and the Holy of Holies; the latter of
which is encircled in a nest of circles and squares and the original
radius of which, five hundred inches, was the whole length of the Holy
of Holies itself.

“Now let us retrace our steps through five centuries and enter the
great monument of Chem, to obey the prophetic mandate of the angel to
the holy St. John, and ‘arise and measure the temple and its altar.’

“In the king’s chamber the volume of a certain portion of the room
equals fifty times that of the coffer--the relation of the ark to
the brazen sea in the Temple. Drawing the diagram of the pyramid to
a scale having as the height, the mean height of the king’s chamber
(232.52 inches), the magistral line is 412.13 inches, or the length
of the chambers. The base of the triangle is the number of days in a
year, 365.24 inches, and the radius of that circle having an area of
365.24 inches squared, is 206.06 inches, or the width of the chamber.
Constructing a pyramid triangle of height equal to the width of the
chamber, the magistral line of the completed pyramid is the year
number 365.24 inches--the perimeter of the base, double the two other
important chamber dimensions--the length, 412.13 inches, and the
second height, 235.24 inches. The entire pyramid design comports with
that of the chamber, and those of the coffer and of the ante-chamber,
which is in fact the ante-chamber to modern civilization.

“Leave the great step at the southern end of the Grand Gallery--a yard
high and a yard plus a cubit wide--and we find stretching across the
ante-chamber a granite leaf, of two blocks slid in vertical grooves.
On the upper of these blocks is the only ornament in the pyramid--a
boss, nearly semi-circular in face--exactly an inch high and an inch in
westerly displacement from the centre of the leaf. The cubic contents
of this inch-high boss are one pint. Its volume of water weighs just
one pound. The inch, the pint, the pound, so often changed, so often
lost; restored by one method and verified after such restoration,
by the boss on the leaf which bars the way in the ante-chamber! The
base of the boss is a chord of five inches or a span; its centre one
sacred cubit or five spans from the hidden end of the leaf. The top
block, apparently irregular in upper outline, is 41.2 inches long, 15.7
wide, and 48.57 in mean height, giving a contents in cubic inches of
31,415.9-၊-, which contains the relation between the diameter
and the circumference of a circle. The lower block has a contents of
exactly one-fourth of the coffer, or an Anglo-Saxon ‘quarter’. On this
leaf, by reference to the boss, we find also recorded or prophesied the
twenty-four inch gauge and the three-foot rule, as well as that sacred
cubit of twenty-five inches, which is commensurable with the polar
diameter of the earth.

“The base of the boss is five, the central one of the nine digits, a
number so hated by the Egyptians, even of the present day, as to be
marked by them with a 0 on their watches--but the sacred number of
the Shepherd Kings, who embodied it in the five-sided, five-angled,
five-proportioned monument which they came so far to build, and which
was the key to the proportions and dimensions of that Temple in which
the five books of Moses were sacred to a people who left the land of
their oppressors, five abreast, ‘with high hands,’ with outspread
fingers, flaunting their number in the faces of the Egyptians, to whom
it brought so much bad luck.

“From the Pentalpha or five-pointed star may be reproduced the pyramid
and the Temple proportions and those of the perfect human body--for
this being inscribed in a circle, the centre of the star and circle
being at the pubis, the arms and legs spread out easily just reach the
points of the star--the centre of the breast being midway from the
pubis to the crown of the head, and the base of the knee-cap midway
from the pubis to the sole of the foot. The pyramid diagram gives the
correct proportions of the human body with equal exactness and detail.”

I felt attracted to this man who drew so freely from an apparently
inexhaustible mental storehouse, and who so logically connected facts
as to weave from mere numbers so wondrous a fabric; but I dared not
intrude my callow personality upon one so well-rounded. As we went down
the smooth stone steps, his foot slipped, and he would have fallen
headlong had I not been fortunate enough to catch and support him.
Even as it was, he wrenched his foot, so that he gladly accepted my
proffered assistance to his car.

It turned out that he, too, went down town, although further than I;
and we entered the same surface car. He honored me by a request for
an exchange of cards; and on the one which he handed me I read the
name “Roger Brathwaite”; no address being given, although I learned
from him that he resided in one of those old wards, once fashionable,
where still a few old-fashioned people of means live in commodious old
dwellings, and refuse to be crowded out by factory and warehouse, be
they never so lofty and noisy by day, never so lonely and gloomy by
night.

Some three weeks later, I met Brathwaite in the street, and in walking
with him, for a few blocks, learned that he had been a friend of my
grandfather--whose name I bore in full. He told me that he had been
inquiring concerning me, of my employers, and of others; and that he
had had such good reports that he wished me to call upon him the next
afternoon, at the address which he now gave, and where, he remarked, he
wished to make a business proposition which might be to my advantage.

It is needless to say that before the hour appointed, I bent my steps
towards the place of meeting.

The house was one of those ugly comfortable-looking four-story and
basement brick structures, with generous doors and wide and abundant
windows, which the wealthy New Yorker of three generations ago, be he
merchant prince or landed proprietor, built for himself and intended
for his descendants, but which have been crowded out of notice by
towering factories, storehouses and tenement buildings. Its wide
granite steps and curiously-wrought iron railings, its great doorway,
upheld by pairs of fluted pillars enclosing narrow lights at each
side of the silver-handled single door, and capped by a semi-circular
transom, whispered of the quiet dignified early days of the century;
while the puffing of the exhaust steam across the way, and the snarling
and buzzing of the machinery in the piano factory next door, spoke of
its noisy and commonplace close.

Musk-rose and woodbine formerly luxuriated in its garden; star-proof
elms once threw blue-tinted moonlight shadows on its now-mellowing
walls; and high-bred dames once trod with dainty feet its smooth and
polished floors. The glory of the neighborhood, like that of Ichabod,
had departed--but the scrupulous neatness of the old mansion stood out
among the dirt and squalor of its surroundings.

In response to my ring, the door was opened by a grave and quiet
maid-servant of the olden school; capped, aproned and slippered, with
gray hairs thickly sprinkling the brown. On learning my name she
directed me to ascend to the study in the fourth story, where I would
have no difficulty in finding the master of the house.

As I passed up the wide staircase trod by so many feet now motionless,
I could see through the open doors, as well as in all the halls,
shelves upon shelves of closely-packed books, and long tables and racks
in great numbers, laden with what seemed maps and charts of nothing
in particular, or things in general. It was evident, however, that
whatever archives these were, they were numerous, well arranged, and of
great diversity of age and subject.

The fourth story reached, I found myself in a great loft-like
apartment, covering nearly the entire floor, and filled, like those
below it, with book-laden cases, and tables thickly strewn with charts
and great portfolios.

My host received me with the grave sweet courtesy which sat so well
upon him, and begged me to permit him for a few moments to put the
finishing touches upon a piece of work, before entering upon the matter
concerning which he had, as he put it, done himself the honor to ask me
to confer with him.

“While I complete my work,” said he, “look about you. Note well my
friends of all ages, in whose company I have passed many busy years.
They are ‘the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time.’ Around them,
with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, my pastime and my happiness
have grown. Milton said: ‘A good book is the precious life-blood of a
master spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond
life,’ and I have found it so. Browning wrote--and mark well that a
hidden import lies in his words:

              “‘Books are men of higher stature,
  And the only men who speak aloud for future times to hear.’”

I availed myself of the opportunity to look about me, and as the charts
seemed but a meaningless tangle of long and short lines of black and
the three primary colors, parallel and interlacing, I betook myself
to an inspection of the book-shelves, each plainly lettered with the
class of its contents. I could see that the works here were mainly
historical, and arranged in divisions corresponding to periods and
epochs in the world’s history.

Here for instance in the section of Modern History, and in that
division devoted to the Formation of Distinct Nationalities were
Longman’s “Lectures on English History,” Michelet’s “History of
France,” Brougham’s “England and France Under the House of Lancaster,”
Edgar’s “Wars of the Roses,” Kirk’s “Charles the Bold,” and scores of
other histories proper, to say nothing of Botta’s “Dante,” Campbell’s
“Life of Petrarch,” and similar works throwing light on men and manners
between 1300 and 1490 A. D. The shelves belonging to “The Age of the
Great Discoveries” were loaded with Major’s “Life of Prince Henry of
Portugal,” Irving’s “Life and Voyages of Columbus,” and “Voyages and
Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus,” Prescott’s “Ferdinand
and Isabella,” Ranke’s and D’Aubigné’s histories of the Reformation,
Prescott’s “Conquests of Mexico and Peru,” and all those other
standards which tell of men and events from 1490 to 1530. The system
was perfect; the manner in which it was carried out, wonderful.

I had no time to observe more, for Brathwaite having completed some
careful plotting upon a chart which covered a long table, rose and led
me to a seat near his desk, where, his earnest eyes gleaming with a
strange sense of power, his rich voice vibrant with magnetism, he thus
addressed me:--

“The other evening you heard the comments of our brethren as to the
great money value of a knowledge of the near future; but not one word
was said as to what an incalculable boon to the human race would be
the revelation of the general condition of men, morals, law, liberty,
and all things great and small, at each decade yet to come. You may
have heard me remark, almost unconsciously, that such knowledge
of the future was not so impossible as one might think; and the
exclamation may have impressed you, if at all, with an idea of the
mental irresponsibility of the one who uttered it. But I think that I
can convince you, who are the first to whom I have addressed myself
on the subject save my dear wife--now gone before me--that my remark
was not only compatible with the soundest mental powers, but warranted
by a degree of special study and training, a duration of special
application, far beyond the usual.

“I was long ago impressed with the idea that many of those long-past
occurrences about which learned historians disagree, could be cleared
up by the light of induction; that as like causes have ever produced
like effects, any causes, however remote in time, might be deduced
from their effects, if only the records were sufficiently full and
accurate, and the method sufficiently philosophical and thorough.
It seemed, for instance, unreasonable that so great discrepancies
should exist as to names and arrangements of rulers, and commencement
and duration of dynasties, of those very Hykshos, or Shepherd Kings,
of whom I spoke the other night in those sacred precincts. Manetho
(according to Josephus), states that they reigned five hundred and
eleven years, but cites only reigns amounting to two hundred and sixty
years; while Africanus makes the duration of those reigns two hundred
and eighty-four years, and Eusebius one hundred and three. Africanus
makes the Shepherds consist of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth
dynasties, and to have ruled nine hundred and fifty-three years, but
gives the names and reigns of only one, which he calls the fifteenth,
while Eusebius claims it to have been the seventeenth. Bronsen makes
their rule end 1639 B. C.; Lipsius, 1842 B. C.; yet if we place the
discovered date of Thothmes III. (1445 B. C.) in his sixteenth year,
the close of the Hykshos dominion must have been about 1500 B. C.

“In my early life I set about the task of reconciling these
discrepancies by converging lines of testimony; and so satisfactory
were the results, so unerringly was each cause deduced from its many
effects, that I conceived the idea of not only reconciling historical
discrepancies as to occurrences and motives, but reading the future
by continuing each chain of reasoning into the time to come. In
other words, if by my inductive method, more light is thrown on the
occurrences in Babylon, Media, Lydia, Egypt, twenty-five centuries ago,
than by the non-inductive method, upon those at Shiloh, but twenty-five
years past, it should be safer to predict by it the outcomings of the
next generation, than by the usual methods, those of the next spring
or summer. I deemed that ‘by labor and intent study (which I take to
be my portion in this life) joined with the strong propensity of
nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to after times,
that they should not willingly let it die.’ Each year that I continued
my studies, which embraced not only the collection and assimilation
of facts, but their classification and the formation of deductions
therefrom, the more firmly I become impressed with the idea of turning
the electric light of induction along the path of prophecy, rather than
merely illuminating therewith the fogs of history.

  “‘I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
  To closeness, and the bettering of my mind,’

set about this problem. Ample means, an excellent constitution, and
correct and regular habits, have enabled me to accomplish during the
past fifty years--for through so long a time have I been striving for
my object--much more than is given to most men to do, and more even
than I had given myself reason to expect or hope. We now stand in ‘this
narrow isthmus ’twixt two boundless seas, the past, the future, two
eternities.’ I HAVE EXPLORED THEM BOTH.

“But I detect in your manner an impatience which I cannot condemn, and
shall plunge at once into an explanation of my methods, leaving until
later a statement of what I have been able to accomplish thereby.

“It has long been the custom of professional engineers to represent
graphically on sheets of paper ruled in squares, various properties
of matter under regularly-varying conditions. For instance, to show
the electric conductivity of wire at various temperatures, horizontal
strips represent degrees of temperature, and vertical strips, degrees
of conductivity; and if a line connecting points corresponding to
conductivity at various temperatures be convexly curved above, it shows
that conductivity decreases more rapidly than temperature increases. If
the line be straight, it shows that conductivity decreases in the same
ratio as temperature increases. The use of several colored lines, or of
solid and of variously broken or dotted lines, permits comparison of
the conductivity of several metals or alloys.

“This, as a method of recording and comparing experiments, is quite
convenient; but it is even more useful. The location of from three
to ten points permits the experimenter to deduce accurately what
would have been the results of other accurately-performed experiments
under similar conditions. Whether the line is a straight one, or an
hyperbola, or one expressed by some algebraical equation, the mean can
be known from the extremes or one of the extremes deduced from the
other extreme and the mean. In other words, _in this principle lies the
key to prophecy_. For, given a mode of expressing social conditions,
legal enactments, human emotions, extending through a sufficient
period, and known with sufficient accuracy to be properly charted,
_the present may be made to throw light upon a past too dim, and past
and present point with unerring finger to the future, be it near or
distant_.

“When Byron wrote ‘The best of prophets of the future is the past,’ he
‘builded better than he knew.’

“But that the scientific seer may surely venture on the task of
piercing the fogs which screen the past from our curious eyes, or of
lifting the veils which hide the future from our anxious gaze, the
simple squares and lines of the engineer must be so developed and
supplemented as to represent more than two sets of conditions at once.
They must show simultaneously several influences which are silently
making history. It is to the enlarged application of the principle of
graphical representation, that the last ten years of a life, formerly
spent in the accumulation and classification of recorded knowledge,
have been devoted. How well I have succeeded, I shall shortly show you.
But first I must tell you by what means I have triumphed over oblivion
and set upon myself the crown of prophecy.

“In these charts and relief maps, horizontal distance represents time;
vertical distance, space, or sections of country. Red, yellow, blue and
black lines permit recording four social or other conditions at once,
while elevation and degree of roughness of surface add two more to the
number simultaneously expressible.

“As a simple instance, this chart is devoted to the Sacredness of
the Marriage Relation, from the year one of the Christian era to the
present day. The portions to the left indicate early periods, those in
the centre, present time; those at the right, time to come; each decade
being represented by one-half inch of length of the chart. The various
strips are devoted to different geographical divisions; that given to
our own country being sub-divided into strips corresponding to its
various States and Territories. The depth of red tint shows the degree
of respect or disrespect for woman; blue tints correspond to enactments
rendering marriage more sacred, divorce more difficult, the rights of
women more general and acknowledged. Thus we see in this blood-red
quarter to the left, an indication of promiscuity in the sexual
relation. The lighter red stands for polyandry, or that state in which
the woman has several husbands, living peacefully together. This is due
to a scarcity of women, owing to the female infants being exposed at
birth or sold as slaves.

“Note that in Great Britain, in the time of Julius Caesar, this
form prevailed; and that it continues up to the present day in the
Neilgherry Hills, India, and with the Herero tribe of South Africa. It
appears in greatest perfection in some tribes of Thibet, where all the
brothers of a family have but one wife in common.

“Here among the Eskimos, Aleutians, and Kolushes of the north and
northwest coasts of America, we have still a marked red stripe, due to
the fact that among these tribes a married woman is the wife of all the
married men of the tribe, and each married man is the husband of all
the married women--which does not, however, prevent the distinctions
between the married and unmarried being rigidly observed.

“This state is followed by polygamy, indicated by a lighter shade of
red, and which accounts for this local patch in the Utah strip, nearly
down to 1890.

“Monogamy is rare among the ruder races, but this strip of paler red in
Ceylon is to represent the Veddahs, where each male takes but one wife,
and is true to her alone until separated by death.

“Almost simultaneously with the fading in the red tint, which fading
represents increasing respect for women, we have a deepening of the
blue tint lines which stand for ecclesiastical and legal protection
of the marriage relation and of the rights of woman. Thus we see the
chart changing from deep red to reddish purple, from this through
purple to bluish purple; and the future shows deep blue as indicating
the absolute recognition, formal and social, of all woman’s claims to
honor, protection, and property. See now, from the year 400 A. D. on to
the right, a sudden deepening of the blue, indicating the canonical law
pronouncing a marriage indissoluble--as is still the law in the Roman
Catholic Church.

“Note here local differences of color due to the fact that among the
Shawnee Indians the women, while the only drudges, yet own all the
property; and that among the Osages of our Western plains the oldest
daughter on her marriage comes into possession of all the family
property.

“In our own country, see the extra blueness of South Carolina, which
has no divorce laws; of Georgia, in which absolute divorce is granted
only after the concurrent verdict of two juries, at different terms
of the court; and of New York, where it is accorded for but one cause
only--adultery. See how the blue is paled in the District of Columbia
and in Wisconsin, where the granting of divorce for any cause is
practically left to the discretion of the Court. See how feeble the
blue in Illinois and in Rhode Island, yet note how it is overwhelmed
by the other strips, so that it is safe to predict that by 1925 those
States will have been compelled by pressure of public opinion to enact
and enforce laws more thoroughly protecting women. This we must read
in connection with the chart showing centralization of government and
uniformity of legislation in America, and with that one showing the
increase of Roman Catholicism in the State of Illinois, and in its
neighbor Missouri.

“In the same way I here show graphically the evolution of recorded
speech, from thought-writing by pictures--as practised among the
American tribes, particularly those of Mexico and Central America, in
China and the valley of the Nile--to sound-writing as first done by
rebuses, and the cuneiform method of syllabic writing in the Valley
of Mesopotamia; then alphabets proper, first non-phonetic as adopted
by the Hebrews, Greeks and Romans, and by ourselves; then phonetic,
which the rapidly increasing rate of increase of the yellow lines
representing the phonetic principle shows will soon become universal.

“This method--scientific, accurate and complete, in conception and
execution--has enabled me to foretell accurately the condition of men,
manners and matter on this earth fifty, a hundred or a thousand years
from now.

“‘By this time, like one who had set out on his way by night, and
travelled through a region of smooth and idle dreams, our history now
arrives on the confines, where daylight and truth meet us with a clear
dawn, representing to our view, though at far distance, true colors and
shapes.’

“Although I am strong and lusty for my years, the span of my life is
drawing to a close, and I have so far been able only to record as a
test prophecy, the conditions which will prevail half a century from
now.

“With a portion of this history, impartially written in advance of the
events therein recorded, I now entrust you, that you may the better
enter into the spirit of my life-work. The roll which I here hand
you, contains a fragment of history which will be true when you have
attained my age of three score years and ten.

“I am desirous of a helper who shall not only aid me during my
lifetime, to record events, but carry on the wonderful work, when these
eyes shall long have been sightless, these hands but useless dust.
Should the concise prophetic record which I here give you attract your
interested attention, and the bold and original method by which it is
attained win your confidence, I should be glad to have you become at
once my assistant, and eventually my successor.

“The key to the method I have long ago reduced to writing, so that in
case of my death, before imparting all the details to any one, the
science and the art of scientific prophecy shall not die with me, but
shall live forever, like my own immortal soul.”

Taking the manuscript, with an eagerness which I could scarce conceal,
I expressed my appreciation of his confidence and good will, no less
than my admiration of the wonderful method by which mere dots and
lines, veriest material and mechanical exponents, should reveal the
secrets of things past and to come.

The venerable professor bowed me courteously from his presence, and
quitting the old mansion, depository of so much knowledge, of so many
hopes, I was soon within earshot of the rattle and roar of the great
city.

  “Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot,
  Which men call Earth,”

the glittering starlight beamed--but I heeded it not. A few minutes’
brisk walking brought me to my own door, my hand clutching, through the
thin cloth of my light overcoat, the precious roll which contained that
record, more precious than the chronicles of kings long since vanished
into thin air; for was it not the unrolling of the time to come--my
future, Estelle’s, and our children’s? What glass cases filled with
registers of dynasties of the long ago; what sarcophagi, enclosing
the mortal remains of monarchy and sages who swayed the earth’s
destinies when time was yet young; what crumbling rolls, or incised
cylinders, bearing enactments which shook nations to their foundations,
achievements which reduced whole peoples to abject slavery, so
interesting as these soft, closely-written pages, on which I--I alone
now of all mortals on earth--was privileged to hear the happenings of
the time to come? What treasury, with walls bursting under pressure
of silver bars and golden ingots, with cabinets enclosing priceless
jewels--so valuable as those squares of paper, from which those records
were compiled, yet which a vagrant spark could reduce to nothingness?

I sprang up the stairs, three at a time, with my brain on fire, my eyes
wide open, glistening; the blood throbbing in temples and tingling in
finger tips. Like Monte Cristo, I felt that the world was mine.

So eager was I to know with what the womb of the future was pregnant,
that I disregarded, in favor of my excited mind, the claims of my
wearied body; and forgetful of the fact that I had eaten nothing
since morn, I pondered far into the night over the revelations of the
wonderful manuscript entrusted to me by my wonderful new-found friend.

Omitting some introductory portions which consisted of practically the
same partial explanations as to methods, which Brathwaite had given me
orally, I give this manuscript entire.




“FIFTY YEARS HENCE.”

  WARWICK:--There is a history in all men’s lives
  Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
  The which observed, a man may prophesy
  With a near aim, of the main chance of things
  As yet not come to life; which in their seeds
  And weak beginnings lie intreasured.
  Such things become the hatch and brood of time:
  ...                _Henry IV., Part II, iii, 1._


With my feet planted on the one thousand eight hundred and ninety-third
step in that part of time’s imperishable edifice which has risen since
the birth of Jesus, the Blessed Nazarene, and my head above the clouds
of five decades which hover above it, I, Roger Brathwaite, read as upon
a printed scroll the yet-unwritten records of the year 1943. These I
have reduced to writing as an earnest of what may come when my system
of verifying and completing history and of anticipating the future
shall have been carried out as fully for five hundred years as for
fifty years to come.

I see around me the millions of this year 1943 as people of the
time in which I live--or rather find myself so transported mentally
that the events of fifty years from 1893 onwards are as of the past.
I see the households and the nations of 1943, and with them hold
plain converse in the universal tongue of the Electric Age; for the
language written, and to a great extent spoken all over the civilized
world, is everywhere the same; having been prepared by a committee
of philologists of all countries, and formally adopted at a congress
held in Paris in 1915. It combines the soft liquid beauty of the
Italian, the dignity of the Spanish, and the majesty of the Greek; the
adaptability to new ideas of the German, the delicate shadings of the
French, and the business-like exactness of the English. Its spelling is
phonetic; and phonetic printing is as common as phonographic writing.

The written language has been greatly enriched by characters to
represent signs which in the year 1900 could not be expressed in
writing or in printing; as, for instance, whistling, clucking and
kissing, barking, howling, groaning, laughter, etc. In fact, every
sound which can be imitated by the human voice may be so recorded upon
paper that it can be read and reproduced by any one (not dumb) who can
read and write.

The theatre is the great preservative of the purity of spoken language,
both in grammar and in pronunciation; each great actor being an
_arbiter elegantiarum_ in matters of speech. Censors hold all public
speakers to a high standard of pronunciation and diction; and the study
of grammar, while pursued by the more highly educated, has been largely
done away with by reason of purity of speech being attained by force of
example and criticism.

The use of the typewriting machine is universal, the machines
printing phonetic characters exactly the same as those used in book
and newspaper work, with variable spacing, and justifying perfectly.
These machines are so arranged that they may be connected with the
telegraphic system; so that a letter may be written in New York or in
Paris by a person in Chicago and Melbourne; and all books of record are
written in by machine only.

Writing is phonographic or phonetic, only; each word being composed of
as many characters as there are sounds therein; no two sounds having
the same character, and each sound having but one letter.

Printing has become one of the most noble of the fine arts. Photographs
in half tones are printed by every daily, and printing in natural
colors (for many years a common feature of the book trade), is
beginning to be adopted by the more enterprising. The boundaries
between lithographic and relief printing have been largely broken down
by zincographic and other processes; the speed of impression more than
quadrupled, while the sharpness of fine lines and the blackness of
masses are as perfect as formerly in etching and line engraving. In
these latter branches great progress has been made, both in speed of
production of the plate and in the rapidity of printing therefrom.

There is wonderful advancement in telegraphing, pictures and fac-simile
documents being sent over the wires, when wires are required; although
in most cases wires are not needed; and what few there are, lie hidden
from public view. There are, indeed, some inventors so expert that they
can telegraph pictures in natural colors, taking advantage of the great
improvements in photography, by which any object can, at one exposure,
be photographed permanently in its proper colors.

By the new system of telegraphic printing, news is set up in several
cities simultaneously, in column width, all ready to be worked off
on the great hourly papers, which with their beautiful colored
illustrations, are a marvel as well as a convenience.

A newly-discovered process transmits from the scene of any great event,
as a conflagration, convention, or battle, an accurate photograph in
colors, which is reproduced in one or a hundred cities, there to be
printed in the local journals, which latter have become, in fact,
hourly bulletins of the on-goings of the neighborhood and of the world
at large.

Telegraphic and telephonic communication with moving railway trains
has been for forty years an accomplished fact, so that the business
man, desiring to keep up his correspondence from and with his office,
while travelling, can readily do so; and may, in fact, from time to
time, talk with those at home; while a statesman may from his seat in
a pneumatic or electric railway car, address his fellow-legislators in
session assembled.

Vessels at sea may be communicated with by both telegraph and
telephone, no wire being employed. Soundings are automatically
indicated and recorded as the vessel moves along, so that the log not
only is made up as the voyage progresses, but serves as a chart to
guide the course.

In the homes of the masses as well as in those of the millionaires,
there is little of comfort or convenience to be desired. The luxuries
of 1893 are the necessities of 1943; while to these have been added
refinements undreamed of fifty years before.

Houses made of concrete in one piece, without joint, defy wind, storm
and the intrusion of “rats and mice and such small deer.”

In every house, there is a system of piping and wiring by which
heating-gas, lighting-gas and oxygen; hot and cold, salt and fresh
water, steam and electric lighting and telephone service are laid on;
while thorough ventilation is effected by a system of exhaust operated
from a central station. The sanitary appliances are under control of
the municipal authorities; and disinfecting solutions are as necessary
a part thereof, as the supply of fresh or salt water which flushes out
the waste-pipes.

The law, which is the conservator of health as well as of morals and of
peace, compels every house to have bathtubs in proportion to the number
of people living therein; and bathing is practically made compulsory.
Public baths in which, as in the days of the ancient Romans, men meet
for social converse and the transaction of business, are maintained in
every town of any importance; medicated and electrified plunges and
showers being under the management of experts in hydropathic sanitation.

In the houses of the wealthy, and in the clubs, the opera is “wired
on,” just as hot and cold water, warm and cold air, electricity,
and other conveniences are in the same way “laid on.” In fact, the
celebrated preachers are heard by those who prefer to stay at home;
every one may sit in his or her chair and get the utterances of the
most distinguished orators as well as of the most celebrated singers
and musicians.

As noted under another head, law-givers and public officials listen to
and address their confrères, their colleagues and their constituents,
at all times and in all places; from their homes, from public baths and
from public conveyances; so that the Senator from Oregon may address
at the same moment both Houses in the Capitol at Washington, while
preparing in the intervals of his private business and local political
matters, to make a campaign speech in the Mississippi Valley, without
leaving the shores of the Pacific.

All new houses are monolithic and must be built from plans approved
by the General Council of Architects. The law requires, under heavy
penalties, that every building shall have a liberal and specified
window-area, and be properly warmed and ventilated.

The new system of diffused daylight is by most preferred to
electricity. The panels with which the walls and ceilings are covered,
have a power of absorbing sunlight all day and giving it out at
night, thus making the rooms pleasantly bright by night. All beds are
enclosed in beautiful cabinets (connected with the general system
of ventilation), so that one steps from a bright chamber into his
comfortable sleeping-compartment, and there, lulled by sweet music, if
he so wish it, sleeps the sleep of the happy dweller of 1943.

The compartments are warmed, as the occupants prefer, by warm air from
the general supply, by electricity from the common central station,
or by heating-gas manufactured at a distance from the city, and pumped
through long miles of pipes to where it is needed.

The streets are lighted with a soft, well-diffused illumination,
bright enough to enable reading from ordinary print, at any point. The
electric wires which carry currents to supply the lamps, are invisible.
Each house contributes its quota to the illumination, by electric
glow-lamps over its doors and windows, so that the effect, upon a
moonless night, is fairy-like.

The sea-board cities have salt water “laid on” for bathing purposes,
street-washing and use at fires; although the methods of fire
extinguishment have greatly changed for the better. Few fires are
possible, and those are generally put out by chemical vapors,
automatically discharged from pipes placed in every room and passage.

The results of paternal oversight as carried out by republican
institutions, are most gratifying; the annual death-rate being reduced
to about 7 per thousand in sections favored by Nature, and never
exceeding 10, in the most crowded districts and those least blessed in
climate.

Medical science and art no longer work blindly; no longer act
hap-hazard.

The average life of man (largely, let it be said, due to the efforts
of the life insurance companies in enforcing sanitary improvements and
in fostering medical and surgical research), has been about doubled.
Surgical operations which fifty years before were deemed chimerical or
impossible are now, thanks to the improved anaesthetics and antiseptics
at command, performed most frequently; so that laparotomy, the
Caesarian operation, bone-grafting, removal of diseased portions of the
brain and extirpation of the kidneys, and their replacement by those of
the sheep or calf, are common and successful.

Acute disease is treated almost exclusively by heat, cold and
electricity. The subcutaneous injections discovered, or rather
foreshadowed, by Brown-Sequard, have been brought to such pitch of
perfection that by their use the vigor of forty is maintained until
eighty or even ninety years. The noble work of Koch in subjugating
pulmonary consumption has rendered that dread disease no longer
contagious, while brighter light upon the mode of living, and
improvements in comfort at home and when travelling, have made
safe for consumptives many climates in which formerly no one with
predisposition to lung trouble could live. The sanitary precautions
enforced by local and National bodies have completely stopped and
prevented the ravages of typhoid and other filth diseases; while the
terrible effects of such epidemics as the grippe are made impossible in
the face of the medical knowledge of the twentieth century.

Transfusion of blood is accomplished, in case of wounds by accident,
without inconvenience to the one supplying the life-fluid, or danger to
the recipient, while effective tonics bring about the rapid replacement
of the amount of blood abstracted in the emergency.

The triumphs of electricians in their wonderful science have caused the
twentieth century to be named the Age of Electricity.

The power of great rivers, such as Niagara, is utilized by being
converted into electricity and transmitted where desired; also stored
up at convenient distributing places, to be used when wanted. Wave
force has been taken hold of and similarly carried to great distances
and used in quantities, or at times, to suit.

The wind and the lightning are in the same way harnessed to do man’s
bidding; so that each storm contributes to public wealth to an extent
greater than the damage it works.

Lightning is no longer a source of danger. The electric and other
connections of the building render an injurious shock impossible;
and where it does strike any building in the protected circuit, the
charge is stored to be used for domestic purposes, such as driving the
passenger and goods elevators in the house, or furnishing light and
heat.

Welding is accomplished by electricity, on a large scale. Not only are
ordinary masses of steel so made one, but the hulls, masts and yards of
steel vessels are thus welded together electrically, so that there is
no possibility of a seam “giving,” nor of a leak taking place. Steel
bridge-members being similarly electrically welded together, the danger
from such bridges giving way is reduced to an insignificant minimum.

Primary batteries generate an electric current by chemical action upon
coal, without the production of heat or odor; so that the steam engine
is seldom needed, and, indeed, in many places as rarely seen as the
wind-mill was in 1893.

Horology, as of old, is one of the exact sciences; but we find upon
every street, electrically-driven clocks telling to the tenth of a
second the time of day or night; the twenty-four hour system having
come into general use about 1900, and London time being kept in every
city in the civilized world.

The central stations of the telephone and other conveniences are worked
by the subscribers themselves; the apparatus in each house enabling the
subscriber to ascertain whether or not the person with whom he wishes
to communicate is at liberty; and to connect with him if he is.

All cities on the Continent are connected in a universal telegraphic
and telephonic exchange, so that San Francisco can write, print or talk
in New Orleans or Montreal. The telephone is so improved that it can
be worked across the Atlantic, although the Pacific as yet defies all
attempts of inventors to produce a system that will work without fail
under all conditions. By this wonderful improvement Patti, from her
castle at Craig-y-Nos; Campanini, from his beloved Italy, and other
celebrated artists, could have delighted those who heard them in New
York, by taking part in a concert together; but those great artists are
but memories, and have been supplanted by others, with voices improved
by surgery and special nurture until their range, delicacy and power
have been brought to a degree of perfection of which the nineteenth
century never dreamed.

The chemists have not been far behind the electricians in their
triumphs and successes.

The subject of special plant foods has been, during the past forty
years, taken up by agricultural chemists with such results that not
only can any special plant be given its special food, but special
portions of it can be developed in disproportion to the rest; thus,
oranges and lemons can be grown without seeds, and dwarf wheat
practically without any straw. New varieties of food-plants have been
developed from wild plants, while fertilizers are employed to dissolve
the rocks that are in the soil and render them at once absorbable by
the plant roots.

In metallurgy, surprising progress has been made. Several new noble
metals have been discovered in the Ural Mountains and in Africa, giving
scientists and jewellers a variety in color, hardness and weight, as
surprising as pleasing. The manufacture of steel direct from the ore
has become _un fait accompli_. Iron is used for few purposes, steel
being cheaper and better. Aluminum, which is plentifully extracted from
common clay, has taken the place of steel and bronze for many uses, in
fact for all places where great mass is not practically a requisite.

The chemist is even more ingenious and more of a benefactor than his
predecessor of the nineteenth century. He has produced from coal oil,
in paying quantities, both sugar and vinegar; and has also solved the
problem of making sugar from starch.

The majority of fabrics are rendered, by chemical processes, proof
against fire and mildew; and the law renders the use of such fireproof
substances compulsory where wood, cloth or paper is used in building
construction.

Medical and chemical science has so far advanced that special foods are
devised for particular parts of the body. The man who uses his brain
employs certain condiments; he who gains his living by the sweat of his
brow others, and so on.

Foods are concentrated to a degree once deemed absolutely impossible.
A vessel can carry in a small chest, which two men can lift, a week’s
supply of nourishment for five hundred people.

Antiseptics of pleasant taste and non-poisonous character permit the
preservation to almost illimitable extent, of heretofore perishable
foods.

The profusion of new dyes is so great that industrial chemists have,
by common consent, restricted the output of shades to enable buyers
and manufacturers to keep up with the pace. The shades for each year
are announced in advance two to five years ahead. Among these dyes are
many which have a sheen truly metallic, thus producing effects never
before dreamed of outside of Nature’s laboratory. The butterfly and
the peacock are out-rivaled; the gorgeous beauties with which Brazil
abounded before her more complete settlement and civilization, cast
into the shade. Truly “Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like
unto one of these” might the on-looker say on beholding a bevy of young
girls, clad in the latest spring fashions.

There have been produced numberless new alkaloids having-medicinal
effects of character as various as the sources and methods of
production of the drugs themselves.

The four haloids, iodine, bromine, chlorine and fluorine, have long
been discovered to be allotropic forms of one and the same simple
element; and the relations between carbon and boron, and carbon and
silicon, have been traced to such a degree as to render possible the
production of new steels and other alloys, comprising a range of
properties undreamed of in 1893.

Diamonds are no longer precious stones, since they are electrically
deposited in great quantities at trifling expense; as are, of course,
all other stones once styled precious.

The dead are disposed of by cremation in gas furnaces, or by
dessication; and the establishments for performing these operations,
and for disposing of the remains, are under strictest governmental
supervision.

The use of explosives--confined to peaceful operations since war has
been voted too expensive--has largely increased; and there are numbers
of them which, while explosible only by electricity applied in a
particular way--thus preventing possibility of accident--have a force
which throws into the shade all the dynamite and other explosives of
the preceding century.

The clothing worn by men is very little changed from that of the
century previous, except in texture and materials. Numberless plants
of Mexican and African origin have been brought into use as bearing
textile fibres; and improvements in spinning and weaving have enabled
the production of fabrics of most surprising fineness and strength. The
silk hat, which was the pest of civilized men in the previous century,
has given place to a modification of what was once known as the Alpine,
save that the new head-covering is lighter and more graceful, and
those employed in winter are warmer than the others. In summer, straw
has been superseded by paper. The women have decided upon a dress in
external appearance not dissimilar to that which for so many centuries
made Japanese women so picturesque. Corsets have been abolished, and
pictures bearing date of the preceding century, in which the bustle is
a prominent feature, have been tabooed as suggestive if not indecent.

The manufacture of paper has so greatly been improved, that sheets are
now used of only one-half the thickness formerly rendered necessary for
any purpose; and of finish as marvellous as their strength. Leather
possesses a suppleness, a resistance to wear, and a beauty and variety
of grain, as surprising as desirable, while it is not only waterproof,
but permeable by the perspiration of the foot.

Iron and steel may be cast into the thinnest sections and the most
complicated forms.

Flour-making is accomplished by air blasts to perform the
disintegration of the wheat grains, with electrical separation of the
various useful by and waste products. But the new-process bread is
made directly from the decorticated wheat berry, without ever grinding
it into flour; the baker taking the wheat and doughing it up directly
without ferment.

Timber is dyed of any desired color before felling, and bent into any
shape by steaming, so that the most complex outlines may be given it
without weakening it.

Umbrella covers and other textile objects of irregular shape, formerly
made up of gored sections, are now woven in one piece and of any
desired fineness. Rugs and seamless carpets an inch thick and of
infinite variety in pattern are produced with any wished-for outline,
to fit the projections and recesses of the apartment for which they may
be ordered.

Flexible and malleable glass are no longer scientific curiosities;
and toughened glass bells break the night’s silence with their sweet
chiming of the hours as they fly.

In porcelain and other ceramic wares the long-lost arts of the ancients
have been rivalled or revived; and the most exquisite productions of
the Land of the Rising Sun duplicated or excelled.

In brewing and wine-making all hurtful compounds are eliminated, and
none but the health-giving and gladdening retained.

In mechanics an entirely new principle has been applied; the cold of
winter, as well as the heat of summer, being harnessed to do man’s
work. The scientific engineers of 1925 recognized the fact that in any
motor it was the difference between the initial and final temperatures
of the steam, gas, or other medium employed, that did the work; this
work being the utilizable percentage of that difference in temperature;
and acting upon this idea, by 1935 there were engines which ran by
cold as well as those driven by heat. The snow-fields of winter then,
as well as the great arid plains of summer, have for some time been
used to make and store up power, which is used only as wanted.

A striking landscape feature is the great number of windmills, stately,
picturesque and beautiful, which lazily flap their sails or merrily
spin with the brisk breeze, generating and storing up power for the
houses upon which they are perched. These mills are let run full speed
in the fiercest storms; the surplus of power going to the owner’s
storage system, to be used when wanted, or contributed to the common
stock in case of need.

Railway cars are made very largely of aluminum and paper, thus
possessing great stiffness, lightness and strength.

Many new varieties of steel have made their appearance; boron and
silicon being used indifferently with carbon in forming combinations
with iron, which possesses properties never before seen in steels of
any kind.

The hardening of copper has been rediscovered, and for twenty-five or
more years this metal has been tempered and worked just as steel was
in the century preceding.

The manufacture of anti-friction metals has been so far advanced that
the use of lubricants is rendered unnecessary.

Transportation of the person and of goods, large and small, is as
greatly advanced as that of ideas and images.

Steam is a crudity of the past century. Pneumatic and electric railways
carry people and freight with swiftness and safety, in all directions
and at trifling rates. To every house and from every store, of any
importance, pneumatic tubes radiate from central stations, so that
packages and messages can be sent from any dwelling or establishment in
the system to any other by simply having connection made through the
central office, as in the old-fashioned way of telephoning.

Great air-ships hover over city and country, and a weekly line of
dirigible balloons, under the auspices of the General Government, is in
preparation.

Ocean navigation is rendered both safe and swift. Great floating
palaces ply daily between Montauk Point and Bristol, making the
Atlantic transit in three days. Seasickness has been banished by
medical science, and indeed the motion of the great electrically-driven
argosies is so smooth that there would be little danger of sickness
even without the remedies. Storms are allayed by the use of oil
discharged from these vessels, which now ride the waves in defiance of
their strength.

New models of vessels, taken from the marine division of the animal
kingdom, have been introduced, and the rivalry between “deep-keel” and
“centreboard” vessels, which in the latter quarter of the nineteenth
century caused such absorbing discussion, is as nothing to the interest
manifested by the advocates of the various models--the “pike,” the
“swordfish,” and so on.

Across all great isthmuses there are canals and ship railways; and
projects are under way for a transcontinental ship railway from New
York to San Francisco.

The bottoms of all great rivers are paved smoothly and kept clean, so
that navigation is never interfered with by bars; and these rivers are
sources of health and strength rather than of danger to the cities
through or by which they flow.

In every great city there are upon all but the minor streets steel
plate-ways carrying electric currents, and upon which the ordinary
vehicles run without noise or jolting; although the excellent condition
of the pavements would seem to render this unnecessary.

The street paving is monolithic (that is, all in one piece), of
an artificial stone as hard as good limestone; giving a surface
sufficiently gritty to ensure good hold for the feet of the few horses
which are employed, and yet leaving the surface smooth, in order that
it may be kept clean and give good traction for the short space of time
in which vehicles (which ordinarily take the tracks on the plate-ways)
are running over it.

In New York City, Arcade railways, with various ramifications, extend
along the main arteries of travel, and give rapid transit to citizens
and visitors alike. Double tracks in each direction insure absolute
safety, while the express trains, stopping only at principal stations,
have their separate way; the local trains, stopping at every block,
taking the outer one of each pair of tracks. The motive power here
employed is electricity, partly brought on from Niagara and other
power-producing stations, and partly carried along the Jersey and Long
Island coasts, where the waves are busy night and day, doing the work
of New York and other cities.

The vehicles upon the street are driven by electric power, and the
same current which drives them affords light at night to occupant and
passer-by.

The plate-ways carry an electric current which may be taken off
by those vehicles provided with necessary motors and connecting
appliances; so that the horses have little traction to do; and in
fact some private vehicles, never going off the streets supplied with
plate-ways, have no horses at all.

Other private vehicles are supplied with motors deriving their current
from overhead wires, not through trollies as once done in electric
railways, but by induction.

Storage batteries that are light and compact have been invented and are
already in use for driving carriages along roads which have neither
plate-ways nor overhead conductors by which the current can be carried
by induction to the motors within the vehicles. The motors for such
private carriages are no larger than a man’s hat, and are turned out by
the thousand just as Waterbury watches were made in 1893.

In other divisions of the broad domain of science, than those referred
to in detail, the past fifty years have been laurel-crowned.

Astronomers have not been idle during the last sixty years or so. They
have reached out into space, and discovered enough asteroids to account
for the lost planet between Mars and Jupiter; and have supplied the
missing link between Mercury and the sun. With the spectroscope they
have found in the sun and various planets, several new metals, for
which, by analogy they have searched on earth, and many of which they
have found.

The geologists, delving into the crust of the earth, have mapped
out its entire surface, so that the location of every considerable
quantity of gold, silver, iron, copper, tin, coal, oil, etc., is known
and recorded, and useless prospecting done away with. The Arctic
and Antarctic zones have been thoroughly worked, the open Polar Sea
discovered and regularly traversed, and the mines of the Polar regions
worked regularly and with profit for metals and minerals used every day
in the world’s industrial pursuits.

Scarcity of rain in any one place is promptly counteracted by each
local government by consent of the others concerned; great fires being
started to attract the clouds, which will bring in their arms the
friendly drops.

The fine arts of 1943 have kept pace with other branches of culture.

Sculpture and painting, instead of having been thrown into the shade
by the wonderful achievements in photography and engraving, have
received a great impetus. Leading citizens vie with each other in
purchasing (sometimes even in making) statues to adorn their own homes
and gardens, and public streets and parks. In the same way painting
is taught as a science as well as an art; to be a fair painter being
more common than to be a fair performer upon the instrument once
known as “pianoforte.” The pipe organ has become the national musical
instrument, and its glorious tones are heard from houses of far less
than palatial pretensions.

The public buildings of this country, no longer laughing-stocks
for foreigners, are at once spacious, beautiful, substantial and
convenient. In them the new American style of architecture, in which
proportions are of more value than arrangement, finds fitting types on
every hand.

In every town of any magnitude or importance, are free museums of
science and art, visits to which are as common as to the beautiful
parks laid out as breathing places in the larger cities.

Color-masters vie with each other in great kaleidoscopic exhibitions,
which out-rival in beauty of rapid combinations and successions of
color, the most brilliant pyrotechnic displays of the generations past.

The art of perfumery has been carried to a point never even dreamed of
by those of the preceding century. The law steps in and prevents any
one from using, or permitting the use of, any odor (like musk) which
is prejudicial to health or general comfort. The gamut of odor has
been discovered, and harmonies of perfumes are made just like those of
colors, or of musical tones. Concerts are given at which, the great
perfume-masters of the day produce chords and pleasing successions of
odors, which draw great crowds of the most refined, fully appreciative
of the delights there offered.

Flower-culture is a national pastime. Where there are no large
gardens, small patches are devoted to floriculture; and in the most
crowded city, window-boxes hold the latest new hybrid plants and make
the most frequented thoroughfares a garden of beauty. Dwarfing and
aggrandizing plants, by electric currents passed around their roots,
has been practiced for twenty years upon a large scale; so that in the
great conservatories, one may find tiny plants grown from the cones of
the Yosemite great trees, and may also see what have sprung from tiny
fungi but are now as large as the old-fashioned cabbages of the days
of President Harrison. The dyeing of plants and of their flowers by
substances introduced in solution at their roots, is a fine art most
successful and pleasing in its application.

Banking is much more simple and much more safe, both for the banker
and for the dealer, than in the old risky days. Panics are impossible.
The wise action of the Bank of England, in connection with other
monetary institutions, in averting a financial crash in November,
1890, by coming to the rescue of Baring Brothers with $55,000,000,
began most auspiciously an eminently successful era of mutual help.
Every bank is guaranteed by Government, and the notes of any bank in
any one Government are good in any country on the globe; the various
Governments having treaties to the effect that each shall guarantee to
the common banking fund a certain percentage of its revenues, and the
amount of money issued in each country being in proportion to the net
revenue of the year preceding.

All currency is decimal, and uniform over the whole civilized globe,
greatly facilitating travel and commerce.

By an ingenious system the great clearing-houses of each country are
united in a National Clearing-house which serves weekly for all those
in each city the same purpose as the local establishments do daily for
the banks which are members thereof. Similarly, there is in London an
International Clearing-house through which the National Clearing-houses
all over the world effect monthly clearances. Each city bank takes an
equal quantity of certificates in its local clearing-house, so that
when aid is extended, no unfavorable inference is drawn; and the same
arrangement exists up to the International establishment in London.

The new noble metals Columbium, Africum, Asium and Australium furnish
coins ten times as light as those of fifty years previous, while
very far exceeding them in wearing power. The paper money extant
being of equal value with coin, is in universal circulation, while
its cleanliness and general good condition are insured by frequent
renewals; every bank of issue and deposit being compelled by law since
1910 to accept torn and soiled notes at par and replace them with
others, new, clean and whole.

In most mercantile and manufacturing establishments, profit-sharing is
the rule rather than the exception.

Naturally a country so blessed in material and moral wealth, would be
the objective point of the oppressed and unhappy from all over the
world; but there is in the immigration laws a strict clause, carried
out most rigidly, rendering the possession of a certain degree of
intelligence and education absolutely a _sine qua non_ for all who
wish to set foot upon our shores. The old law by which contracting for
labor abroad was a punishable offense has been so far changed that no
one is permitted to land unless possessed of means enough to support
him for three months without work, or having from a responsible party
a contract for his labor for half a year ahead. Thus no paupers are
thrown upon the community, to be supported by either the working or the
leisure class.

The Government takes it upon itself, first to prevent idleness, and
second to furnish work to the unemployed; so that there is no vagrancy.

In every city of importance, as well as in the minor towns, the
planting of trees on the streets is compulsory; and if a lot-holder
does not plant and maintain on his street line the kind and number of
trees for which the laws call, they are planted there by the local
authorities, at his charge.

Trial by jury was abolished in 1910 with scarcely a dissenting vote;
and instead of ignorant or prejudiced juries, learned judges, who
hold their office during life or until impeached by their peers,
decide questions of law and evidence. The statute law has been greatly
amended, and the common law superseded by principles of equity.

The enactments concerning marriage and divorce are the same in all
civilized nations, and their enforcement most strict.

Only the physically perfect are permitted to marry, and stirpiculture
is made a common and honored study. The local government being
responsible for the maintenance of cripples and others physically
as well as mentally ill, keeps strict watch over health and morals.
Surgical and other hospitals are kept up at great expense, and any one
meeting with an accident, or becoming ill, is treated at the hospital
instead of at home.

Elections are held in a quiet and orderly manner; and the cumulative
system having been universally adopted in 1904, the minority has a
voice in proceedings of local, as well as National bodies.

Female suffrage has taken the place of female suffering. The education
of the young is largely confided to the direction of intelligent and
refined ladies, who consider their educational duties as on a par with
those which they owe to religion proper.

The new generations, better educated and better looked after than those
which preceded them, find at once fewer inducements to crime, and more
reasons for not committing it; so that imprisonment is not so common as
formerly, and execution is far more rare. Asphyxiation by carbonic acid
gas is the kindly and unrevolting method chosen.

Trades unions flourish, but their basis is most praiseworthy. The
cardinal quality which every member must possess is competence in his
trade. No one is admitted to membership in any “degree” of the guild,
unless he has been properly instructed and proved capable and competent
to do what is called for by that degree of advancement in his craft;
and those of the highest proficiency receive pay according to the value
of their services. Thus there is confidence in and respect for the
trade organizations; and their members have some inducement to excel in
their chosen crafts.

In religion, there has been a fusion of the various sects into a vast
Church in which Charity in its broadest sense is the leading principle,
and the golden rule inscribed upon the mental tablets of all good
people. A man’s religion is deemed as of his inmost private life; as
bearing upon his confidential personal relations with his God, and no
more to be inquired into nor discussed than his most sacred domestic
life. Rancor and hatred engendered by religious differences are of
the unregretted past, and mission-work, begun at home, and thoroughly
prosecuted with a view to physical improvement and mental advancement,
as well as spiritual enlightenment, is carried to the heathen on the
wings of mercy and healing.

In these blessed days of 1943 each dweller in a progressive
community recognizes his duties towards himself, his fellows and his
Maker--acknowledges his obligation to be charitable and to contribute
to the advancement of all about him. They are halcyon days; they
have brought man nearer to himself, to his brethren--who are all the
world--and to his Maker, who is everywhere and forever. They point,
they surely point, to further steps; to onward steps, to upward
steps; to steps which through swift-succeeding centuries shall bring
mankind nearer and still nearer to divine knowledge, and make him in
each generation more and more nearly the worthy, perfect image of an
all-wise and beneficent God.
                                                       ROGER BRATHWAITE.

I read this prophecy through without stopping; then gave myself up to
the idea of the great possibilities about to present themselves to me.
To be sole heir and executor of a property so valuable as this arduous
life-work must be, should elate any struggling youth of twenty-two; but
to be the mouthpiece of prophecies more wonderful, more far-reaching,
more detailed, yet more universal, than any ever before given to the
world, be they inspired or uninspired, was enough to turn his head
completely. I drew mental pictures, far into the night, limning myself
as famous and rich; and incidentally, the husband of Estelle; the
father of her children; the founder of a family which should be known
throughout the world as that of him who unlocked the gates of time to
come; who pierced the depths of futurity; who controlled that knowledge
for the right to purchase which the kings of finance jostled each other.

I am ashamed to say that gratitude to Brathwaite, and thorough
appreciation of the fact that he was the first to conceive and the
first to carry out, even in part, the idea of scientific prophecy
through graphical construction, took in my mind second place to the
ideas of that fame and fortune which were to be mine through his
industry and generosity.

  “Midnight brought on the dusky hour
  Friendliest to sleep and silence,”

but still I thought on, thought on. At last, tired Nature asserted
herself; I fell asleep in the big chair from which I had in imagination
seen the magnates of the monetary world feverishly awaiting, in my
ante-room, my pleasure as to how much information I would accord them,
on my own terms. I slept, to dream of dictatorship of two continents,
compelled by my exclusive knowledge of the things to come; but while
I ruled as with a rod of iron the doings and the comings and goings
of both hemispheres, it seemed as though war’s alarms sounded in my
ears--the rebellion of a nation from tyranny, be it ever so mild, from
dictation, be it ever so wise. The clang of the multitude seeking
relief from the oppression of ignorance by knowledge, rang in my
ears; I started to my feet to wake and find the fire-brigade jangling
and rumbling past my dwelling--the sparks from the steamer’s stack
streaming upwards and backwards in the black night as the great engine
thundered by.

To the west, a ruddy glow extended up through the murky midnight sky,
while lurid flashes rose and fell in horrid alternation. From time to
time an angry flame arose, while the harsh clangor of more engines
speeding through the almost deserted streets, gave greater terror to
the scene.

Fear filled my mind--I knew not why--lest that awful holocaust should
be the pyre of my hopes and fortunes. Rushing from my room, and spurred
by anxious fears, I soon traversed the distance between my home and
the quiet street in which for so many years Brathwaite had labored in
the accomplishment of his end and aim--and for my great and ultimate
benefit. Hot though the pace, my heart thumped high and hard against
my chest, less from the unwonted exercise than from anxiety lest the
cup of prosperity had been dashed from my lips before I had tasted its
contents.

My fears were but too well grounded. Tearing past the blue-coated
guardian of the peace who sought to restrain me, I rushed to a spot
where without actual danger, I could best see the ruin which the
fire-fiend was working to me--and of course to Brathwaite--but how
can man, born of woman, feel more for his fellows than for himself?
Why affect a nobility not of the nineteenth century? Why lay claim to
emotions which may belong to those to come--which may have belonged
to those gone by--but not of the genius of this eager, selfish
present? True, I felt for Brathwaite; but for Ainsworth--for Ainsworth
again--and for Ainsworth still again, the pity, the regret, the mad
sense of baffled ambition, rose ever up and obscured the finer feelings.

The fire had gained the mastery over the great building, before my
arrival, and the principal efforts of the firemen were directed to
saving the piano factory, with its stock of kiln-dried lumber, of
costly veneers, and of inflammable varnishes. From that repository of
so many almost priceless volumes, so many absolutely priceless charts,
and of that Key which should enable the possessor to avail himself of
half a century’s work by another--great sheets of flame arose from beds
of fire. Red sullen gusts, “fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,”
bore on their hurtling wings the treasures of a lifetime--bright,
upward-pouring golden torrents, wasting mind and matter at furious rate.

Fierce though the heat, which seemed to crisp my skin even at the
distance at which I was stationed, it was nothing to the hot welling
passions which assailed my inner self and drove me to despair. That
fury of a woman scorned, than which hell no greater hath indeed, was as
nothing to a man so baffled in ambition, which

            “hath one heel nail’d in hell,
  Though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.”

Demoniac rage possessed my soul--I was frenzied to the verge of
insanity, and as the crash of that roof-tree which had shielded the
light of prophecy and covered my hopes, if but for so short a time,
sent scintillations up and out, far and wide, I rushed from the excited
scene, I knew not whither.

       *       *       *       *       *

When I next recognized my surroundings, I found myself in a small,
neat room, white-walled and curtained--and Estelle’s anxious face was
bending over me. I had been ill a month, and my gaunt limbs and haggard
features, which I insisted on seeing in a mirror, gave no reminiscence
of my once plump face and rounded form. My voice, the mere ghost of a
sound, was hardly the semblance of its former resonant self.

At first I was not permitted to excite myself by too eager inquiry,
but as I gained strength, those about me, who of course had known
nothing about my intended collaboration with Brathwaite, set to work
to ascertain something concerning the events of that September night
in which I had been so swiftly snatched up to the seventh heaven of
expectancy, and as suddenly dropped to earth again.

There was nothing reassuring in the tidings of a month ago. The
enthusiast, roused from slumber by the shrill cry of fire, sought to
save his papers rather than his person; traversed passage after passage
claimed by the invading flames; and bore treasure after treasure to the
lower hall. But in penetrating to some distant stairway, which gave
way under his daring footsteps, he inhaled flame, and although rescued
by the bravery of the firemen, was borne from the seething, roaring
furnace--only to die.

So, then, the manuscript which the noble soul had entrusted to me,
as an earnest of what was to come, was all that remained of a life of
work, a fortune of expenditure.

  “Then black despair,
  The shadow of a starless night was thrown
  Over the world in which I moved alone”--

I could without a sigh “let the dead past bury its dead,” but the
future which promised so much for me and mine--how could I bear to give
it up?

The attending physician, who gathered that I had met with some sudden
business reverse, said soothingly: “Remember this line of Shakespeare:

  “‘Sweet are the uses of adversity,’

and this which Beaumont and Fletcher borrowed from Seneca:

  “‘Calamity is man’s true touchstone.’

This trouble, great though it be, may be like the heating in molten
lead and quenching in cold brine which gives to steel its greatest
hardness and most exquisite temper. Everything is for the best.”

With this I could not agree. I am not sure that I agree with it yet. I
replied, peevishly: “It is very easy for you to console me; to patch
grief with proverbs. But I can quote you Shakespeare against himself:

  “‘’Tis all men’s office to speak patience
  To those that wring under the load of sorrow,
  But no man’s virtue, nor sufficiency,
  To be so moral when he shall endure
  The like himself.’”

Pope says, ‘I never knew any man in my life who could not bear
another’s misfortunes like a Christian.’ While I do believe that I
should make the best of everything, I do not believe that everything is
for the best.

  “‘Yet I argue not
  Against Heaven’s hand or will, nor bate a jot
  Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
  Right onward.’”

Estelle said, half-reprovingly, “‘If thou faint in the day of
adversity, thy faith is small.’”

“I never pretended to have faith. I never thought that I had any,
except perhaps when none was needed. Faith is like courage; it must be
born in one, or be cultivated by contact with danger. When there is no
danger to test one’s faith, there is no means of knowing whether or not
any has been born with one. Then when faith is most needed, it may be
found entirely lacking.”

With such thoughts and words our conversation continued until the
physician, mindful of his patient’s physical welfare, signed to Estelle
to leave me--which she did, pressing on my pallid forehead a soft,
tender kiss that meant hope and love, confidence and reassurance.

A soothing draught composed me to dreamless sleep, and when again I
woke it was to see the love-light in my dear one’s eyes, patiently
watching my restful slumber and awaiting my return to consciousness.

Her gentle ministrations, as much as the doctor’s skill, restored
health and strength to my enfeebled mind and body. We tacitly avoided
the subject of my so-suddenly blasted ambitions, and talked of love
and happy life together, in a pleasant uneventful future, such as had
often engrossed our conversation before my eyes had seen from afar that
promised land which I was never to enter.

With returning vigor, I renewed my former plans for my future and
Estelle’s; but as my steps increased in firmness, my thoughts still
reverted to Brathwaite’s wonderful prophetic manuscript, some of the
details of which I set about to make realities of the present, rather
than of a generation hence. The hope of realizing for myself and
Estelle an early return from my mental labors in their development and
embodiment, lent new strength, suppleness and deftness to my touch, and
seemed to make my insight keener, my inventive powers more fertile,
more promptly responsive to the demands upon them. _Festina lente_
became my motto. I doubted as I hoped; I criticised relentlessly as I
solved method after method, and produced result after result. At each
new step I felt the ground firmly before trusting to it; I looked at
each production as though it were that of some hated rival whom I had
in my power to thrust down, keep down, by savage search for faults
and merciless exposure of each weakness in design, construction or
operation.

The news of the dramatic death of Brathwaite and some inkling of the
fact that he had for so many years been engaged in scientific research,
every vestige of result from which was believed to have perished
with “the old Professor”--as the journals of the day styled him--had
startled the city; and gave three-column stories, spread headed,
sub-headed and padded _ad nauseam_; no two agreeing, save that in all
“the fire-fiend” was rampant; “holocaust” and “pyre,” “cremation” and
“conflagration,” vied with each other in harrowing up the reader’s
nerves. The suburban press took up the strain in more subdued tones
and in less space, although no more grammatically--while the far-away
sheets of Boom City or Dead Man’s Gulch paragraphed it as the shocking
self-destruction of Robert Batterman, an eccentric metropolitan hermit
who had a mania for collecting old almanacs and back numbers of
periodicals. “Such is fame,” said Byron, “to have one’s name misspelled
in the ‘Gazette.’”

The Masonic body of which Brathwaite had been for so many years
an unobtrusive member announced a Lodge of Sorrow in memory of
the deceased brother; and most imposing were the ceremonies, most
impressive were the addresses upon that occasion. From the pamphlet
account of this function, printed by resolution of the Lodge, I excerpt
the remarks of M. W. Past Master Ashley, as showing in some degree the
respect in which Brathwaite was held by those who knew him, and the
veneration which his upright life, his charitable although retiring
disposition, and his many and varied accomplishments, inspired.




EULOGIA.


“My Brethren:--

“‘Dear beauteous death, the jewel of the just,’ has been laid upon the
breast of him who was and is in the Mystic Tie your brother and mine;
in every sense, the brother of all mankind.

“I have known him longer than the span of most men’s lives, and though
our paths have been apart for many years, I have ever been interested
to know that his industrious life has been kept unspotted from the
world, and that a heart large enough to include all who suffered or
were in want, a soul as white as heaven, have ever been the tenants of
his earthly habitation. In youth pure and amiable, in vigorous manhood
wise, and steady, and just, a serene and bright old age, lovely as a
Lapland night, has rounded out the earthly stay of Roger Brathwaite.
With him, high-erected thoughts, seated in the heart of courtesy, were
ever present. While even in boyhood his thoughts and studies were what
are called philosophical, he never sought to help knowledge overthrow
faith, weaken hope, or lessen charity. His youth was chaste and
uneventful. That future then dawning and which has become of the silent
past, was one of opportunities of many kinds for him, favored as he was
in health, in mind, in personal appearance, in social position, and in
this world’s goods. He could have had a career in which he would have
been known and honored of the multitude; but he preferred seclusion
and mental improvement to publicity and social advancement. Yet at no
time was his retirement so complete as to shut out from him a knowledge
of the world’s on-goings and of the sufferings and needs of his
fellow-men; never did his absorbing occupations close his ears to the
cry of the fatherless, or his purse against the appeal of the widowed
and forsaken. He craved knowledge as the poet, the artist, crave fame;
yet the rich storehouses of his mind were ever open to the inquiry of
any earnest seeker after truth.

“He loved mystery only that he might throw its portals open to the
light of day. ‘A gentleman well-bred and of good name,’ honor sat upon
him as the sun in the gray vault of heaven. He sought hidden knowledge
that he might use it for the good of men, and eventually make it free
as the wind. No covert enmity made him a target; he had no foe but
death, to whom he has rendered quittance. He died in full puissance of
mind and body. The rude imperious surge has carried him from us, but
his bright and shining memory remains. Could I but wish him no better
than he wished his fellow-men of all degree, I would breathe naught but
blessings and good will.

“What the exact import of his life-work, so suddenly, so unfortunately
swept away by the rude flood of fire, I know not; no one seems to know.
This only we do know, that he culled from every flower of fact some
virtuous sweets of knowledge which he laid up for mankind’s good use.

“He leaves no kindred, save that all men are alike his kith and kin. No
widow’s tears bedew, no orphan’s sighs bemoan, his honored grave; yet
there is no lack of tears or sighs, for strong men full of years must
mourn his death, whose life was all so full of tenderness and good.”

       *       *       *       *       *

On a grassy sun-kissed slope overlooking the beautiful harbor of New
York, a massive granite cube bearing his name, and the dates of his
birth and death, covers the silent tomb of Roger Brathwaite. Peace to
his ashes no less than to his daring spirit, which laid bare the inmost
heart of the dead past, and would have wrested its every secret from
all time to come.


THE END.




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J. A. Fay & Co. (Cincinnati), Asselin Frères (Paris and St. Denis,
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  “The peculiar hold which the Grimshaw ‘Practical Catechisms’ have on
  the constituency for which they are intended is due to these facts:
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  engine that the author could think of or had ever had asked him; are
  absolutely scientifically correct; practically useful; written in a
  clear, plain, popular style; up to date; free from hard words and
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  in full by itself, thus saving the reader the necessity of wading
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NOTES ON NEW AND PATENTED INVENTIONS.


In the great struggle after new methods, processes and implements that
characterizes our day, and which is a principal factor in our material
progress, there is a constant rule of the “survival of the fittest.”
Opposed to this is the claim, sometimes put forward, that the value of
a patented invention is not so much in its intrinsic worth as in the
method of presenting and introducing it to the world, or to a market.
Both propositions are in a sense true, but with this qualification,
that “permanent” success always depends upon intrinsic worth, and while
a short success may be attained by a plausible but faulty invention,
the future is sure to regulate it to the place it belongs. It is
perhaps unnecessary to argue this. Everyone’s observation will prove it.

=CASSIER’S MAGAZINE=, an engineering publication, gotten up in the
same style and equal in every respect to Harpers’, The Century, and
Scribners’, has begun a series of articles about “New and Patented
Inventions.” Many important things are to be considered in these
articles, among them that of “added detail.” This might properly
come under the head of “operative conditions,” because it involves
maintenance and attendance, but may be made more plain by quoting a
remark once made in England by an experienced designer and constructor
of machinery. He said: “The great art of designing machinery consists
in leaving out parts and pieces.”

The articles will be written by John Richards, in a popular style such
as the ordinary inventor and the busy business man can have time to
read and understand.

Mr. Richards is President of the Technical Society of the Pacific
Coast, and editor of the journal “Industry.” There are probably few
engineers so well known, or so capable of expressing an intelligent
opinion on the various classes of engineering matters, as is Mr.
Richards. He has had many years of active and practical experience in
the manufacture of machinery, and as a technical writer, and he is
known throughout the world by engineers and manufacturers as a man
from whom an honest, conscientious, as well as capable opinion can be
obtained.

=CASSIER’S MAGAZINE=--cost, $3.00 per year, 25 cents a copy--can be
obtained from newsdealers, or from the publishers, THE CASSIER’S
MAGAZINE CO., Potter Building, New York.




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized or underlined text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.



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