AIR SHIP MISSING.
The Pontiac Ten Days Overdue at Vera Cruz.
Washington, Mexico, Jan. 14. 1999.—The Transoceanic air-freighter Pontiac has been overdue at Vera Cruz for ten days. It is feared the ship has got snarled in the upper ether currents. As she has not been spoken by other air-ships it is probable she has drifted away from the influence of the earth’s gravitation, and drawn into the orbit of some neighboring planet. It may land in Mars.
Ærial navigation in 1999 was not merely confined to large express, passenger and Everybody in the Air. freight ships, but also came into general use by the public. The Ærocycle of the twentieth century was an ærial bicycle that skimmed through the air with admirable ease, being operated like the old-fashioned bicycles suffering mortals in 1899 used to jump over hills and rough roads, straining muscle and nerve to the utmost tension, and frightening horses with their “bicycle face.” Two or three of the bicycles of 1899 were kept as curiosities in a glass case in 1999 in the war department at Washington, Mexico. They were regarded as instruments of voluntary torture, relics of a species of refined barbarism. The invention of the Ærocycle sealed the doom of bicycles.
CHAPTER XVI.
The Age of Electricity.
Ærial navigation shunned by many people in 1999. The great Age of Electricity. The Passing of the Horse. The noble beast loses its fetters and becomes a Household Pet. Steam engines a relic of the past. No more smoke in railroad travel. Tunnels lighted bright as day and filled with pure air. Single-rail electric roads all the go.
It must not, however, be imagined that people in 1999 passed away their whole lives traveling in the air. Millions could not be induced under any consideration, to plant a foot in any ærial ship. They hugged old Mother Earth with a true devotion worthy of a better cause. Many people in the year 1899 were to be found who entertained strong antipathies against traveling on water, but in 1999 the opponents Old Earth Good Enough for Them. of ærial navigation outnumbered them one hundred to one. For this and other more important reasons, the genius of the twentieth century applied itself assiduously to the perfecting of electrical and compressed air machines of every conceivable character.
The twentieth century saw the coup-de-grâce, or death blow, given to sails for propelling ships, horses used for traction purposes and steam in mechanical engineering. Electricity, drawn directly from coal, as well as the air, was procurable in inexhaustible quantities. Electricity long before 1999 was stored with the utmost ease and economy, and shipped all over the world for lighting, heating and motive power. The partnership existing between the old-fashion steam engine and electric dynamos was dissolved forever in 1920. Electricity conducted the business alone and in its own name after steam and its clumsy accessories withdrew from the firm.
One of the first to feel the effects of the Good-bye Mr. Horse. change was that greatly admired and beloved creature, the horse. In 1999 plenty of horses were yet to be found in the haunts of civilization. They were generally kept as pets, gentle, graceful and docile creatures, reminders of past centuries in which their progenitors had so laboriously served the ends of man. Occasionally in 1999 some old-fashioned swell, who had been acquainted with horses and their ways in 1930, would occasionally harness up a pair to a curious looking vehicle with shafts and take a short drive, but in 1999 such antiquities were regarded with the same curiosity Noah might have experienced could he have seen an ærodrome circling around the ark. Out in the country, in remote districts and mountain regions, horses were occasionally seen doing farm work, but the sight was an unusual one, invariably attracting much attention. It was estimated in 1999 that in about one hundred more years the horse in cities and country towns would become as rare as the buffalo.
In 1930 when the horse had already ceased to be a beast of burden, epicures openly accepted its flesh as a highly esteemed dish. Indeed it became quite the fad for fast swells to dine on trotter steak. The dray and carriage horses were the first ones to disappear, but the racers held on pretty well. In 1942 the turf and paddock were still popular, though rapidly declining.
The competitors that drove the horse from its field of labor were the electric and compressed air horseless vehicles. As early as 1899 the horseless carriage was rapidly striding into popularity. In 1920 they were common sights everywhere. In 1950 they had crowded the horse to the wall and in 1999 horseless vehicles for business or pleasure were exclusively employed everywhere.
Horses in 1999 were no longer beasts of burden in the great American Republic. Emancipated by Electricity. They had been emancipated by electricity and compressed air. In remote sections of the American Republic, like the pampas of the State of Brazil and the mountain regions of the State of Peru, horses were frequently to be seen, but seldom employed as beasts of burden. It took many centuries to wipe the equine race from the face of the globe. The history and achievements of the noble brute had been for many centuries linked to that of man. In 1999 the Arab still loved his faithful charger, guarding it as the apple of his eye. The noble animal still shared his tent. In his estimation a wife or two were of little worth compared with the swift, graceful animal that so often carried him from danger and left his pursuers in the rear. It would have been sad indeed for the world, so early as 1999 to lose an animal endowed by nature with so much intelligence, an animal that again and again had decided a thousand fields of battle and had braved all dangers by land or sea. But from the thraldom of labor, the horse in 1999 had been emancipated and this tribute was one worthy of his peerless fame.
Even the reindeer of the Polar regions felt the touch of twentieth century genius. The Laplander had no further use for the dog-power of his ancestors. His sleds glided along the fields of ice, propelled by electricity, of which inexhaustible supplies were drawn from the aurora borealis.
In 1999 automobiles required only three days to traverse the distance from Montreal in the American State of East Canada to Washington, our national capital in the State of Mexico. The roads throughout the Americas had reached a high grade of perfection and travel on electric automobiles Good Roads Everywhere. became a pleasure even in all the Southern States of the American Union, such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Argentina. Uncle Sam’s farm in 1999 was a big one and was covered with good roads. Horses and steam engines were altogether too slow for the twentieth century.
The exclusion of steam from all railroads in 1999 proved a great boon to travel. Railroad smoke was a drawback to steam roads, while sparks, cinders and live coal were a constant danger to property. When a happy bride and groom took their departure on a train for their honeymoon in 1899 their friends pelted them with rice, while the old fashion steam engine attached to the train rounded the compliment by pelting the newly wedded pair with cinders and soot. Dense volumes of black smoke Delights of Steam Travel. poured into the railway coaches, filling every crevice and corner, rendering the human face unrecognizable. Travelers in these old-fashioned cars, clad in the bravery of fashion, in their silks and fine raiment, would journey only a short distance when they would become almost unrecognizable from the torrents of black soft-coal smoke that pierced their cuticle and darkened their lives. It was hard to determine at the end of a brief journey of a thousand miles whether the white man who bought a through ticket in New York was a Caucasian or an Ethiopian when he landed in Chicago, so dense was the smoke through which he had traveled.
The delightful atmosphere of a tunnel formed one of the great attractions of steam travel in the good old days of 1899. Our unhappy American travelers while journeying on these steam roads would suddenly be rushed into a black hole, the damp and foul air of which was enough to kill a salamander, filled with smoke and asphyxiating gases. The marvel is that one-half of the people ever pulled through a tunnel alive.
In 1999 these monstrosities of steam railroad The Single Rail is King. travel were entirely done away with. Not a steam engine was anywhere to be found. The single rail electric railroad was monarch of all it surveyed, and there were none to dispute its sway. It ruled the universe. The new-born electrical power drew its forces from the air. Electricity was greater than light itself. Its rule was felt by day as well as by night.
In 1999 when an electric train dashed through a tunnel, its arch was aglow with electric fire, rendering the passage light as at noon time in a blazing sun. A touch of the button turned on every light in the coaches. The air of the tunnel, instead of being black with smoke and noxious vapors, was pure as the open air. Travel was rendered delightful in these swift-speeding trains on the single-rail electric railroads, which easily maintained a speed of two miles per minute. In point of speed they were easily outwinged by the ærodromes, but for all that, grass did not have much time to grow under the gearing of any electric car in 1999.
These single-track electric railroads covered the Americas like a network of cob-webs. They were much safer than the two-track system of railroads peculiar to the old period of 1899, when steam engines, going around curves at two miles per minute, were liable to lose their heads and lay down in the ditch to try and figure out where they were at. The single rail upon which the electric car was balanced in 1999, was built about three feet above the track. The cars were so constructed that Two Miles per Minute. the wheels ran along their whole length, the sides of the car being built to a point about two feet below the rail. The trolley wire overhead gave more steadiness to the car. It could not upset.
Through lines from Chicago to Washington, in the State of Mexico, attained high speed, as well as the electric lines that crossed the isthmus from the State of Mexico to Rio Janeiro. It frequently happened that strawberries gathered at the base of Mt. Orizaba, in Mexico, were delivered in Chicago in season for supper the same day. Fish of highly esteemed flavor that were swimming in the bay of Vera Cruz at break of day were frequently placed on ice and reached Manhattan in time for dinner at seven p. m. the same day.
CHAPTER XVII.
Electrical Navigation.
Strange and novel uses to which electricity was applied in 1999. Hydrophobia banished from the earth. The relations of Creditor and Debtor greatly improved. Electrical ocean, river and lake navigation. The ocean ablaze with electric lights. Ships navigated by wireless telegraphy.
It has always been the conceit of every age that its own era is the most progressive and the most enlightened of all. In 1799 any man who could have stood on the deck of Nelson’s flagship “Victory” and informed that gallant sailor that in 1899 warships would navigate without sails; that powder would be used that made no smoke; that heavy rifles would hurl a ton shell fourteen miles, would have been dropped overboard as a monumental liar.
The age in which we live is always a conceited one; always ready to scoff at innovations. The Bump of The Age. Every age had a bump of its own. How these precious bumps are smoothed down one by one, is really interesting. The stage coach was king in its day. As men gazed upon the lumbering, six miles per hour coach, the bump of the period made them believe it was the swiftest and most luxurious mode of travel the world would ever see. Steam came and reduced the stage coach bump. When men saw steam locomotives drawing fast trains and covering the country with villainous smoke, they really believed it was the swiftest mode of travel the world ever would employ. Electricity then appeared and reduced the steam bump.
In 1999 electricity became a mighty monarch and an obedient slave. It ruled and A Lively Customer. it obeyed. This lively king of the twentieth century was a hustler. Sixteen distinct trips around the globe it could make in just one second’s time. Electric railroads and flying machines could not reasonably hope to make sixteen separate trips around the globe in one second’s time. The age of 1999 was a very rapid one, but its joints were too rheumatic to attempt any such gait. A traveler hustling around the world at the rate of sixteen times per second would hardly have time to visit and shake hands with friends.
In the twentieth century electricity, the servant-king of the world, was harnessed All Done by Electricity. to everything conceivable. Everything was done by merely pressing a button. Houses built in that period had no stairs. Every private house had its elevator. Press a button and up it went. Houses built in that period had no chimneys. All heating and every bit of the cooking was done by electricity. If you wanted heat, press a button; more heat wanted, press two. Locks and keys also became relics of a past age. No one in 1999 ever locked his house. Every house was provided with an electrical outfit. Those who desired to leave the house for a few hours attached the electric gongs and alarm bells. When connection was made no one could leave or enter the house without raising a pandemonium and sending an alarm to the central police station.
The uses of electricity in 1999 were carried to even absurd lengths. Man’s most faithful, but, alas, uncertain friend, the dog, was in evidence throughout the twentieth century. He wagged his tail vigorously as ever in token of kindnesses received. He was as ready as ever to sacrifice his life for that of his master, as well as to plant his teeth into the calf of his leg. The Hindoo charmer is never really safe until he has extracted the fangs of the reptile.
And so it was with the twentieth century dog. Nothing can be more violent than death by hydrophobia. The bite of the dog may prove more terrible than that of the cobra. This scourge was effectually removed. In 1999 dogs over one year old had their teeth removed by electricity. Their mouths were then fitted with a false set. During dog-days, while Sirius was in the ascendant, the false teeth were removed and all canines were kept on a vegetable diet. Hydrophobia became one of the lost arts.
Another peculiar method in which electricity was utilized in 1999 tended to rob Electrical Dentistry. dentistry of some of its terrors. There was one feature of dentistry in 1899 that often tested the best nerves, and that was the peculiar odor common to all dental chambers of horror. This peculiar odor settles like a cloud upon the stomach and seldom appeals in vain to one’s nerves for sympathy. For this reason an electrical machine was invented in 1999 which enabled the patient to remain at home while an offending tooth was tendering its resignation. The dentist, during the operation, remained in his den, enjoying a monopoly of its odors. If a tooth ached all one had to do was to call up a dentist, on the telephone, and ask to be placed on the line. The victim, in the seclusion of his back parlor, adjusted the electrical forceps and signalled to the dentist, five blocks away, to touch it off, then the festivities commenced. These private tooth extracting séances became very popular. No profane eyes were there to witness the agony of the victim, as in a public dental office. If he shouted loud enough to make a hole in the sky or tried to kick the plaster off the ceiling, no one was any the wiser for it. But in a public dental office (especially with ladies in the adjoining room), while the victim is being harpooned, his eloquent groans must be stifled and no attempt must be made by the victim to kick at the chandeliers. The new system of home electrical tooth extracting proved very popular. It was one of the things that had come to stay.
In 1999, through the medium of electricity, the relations existing between creditors and debtors became closer and more binding. Sure Cure for Dead Beats. In 1899, for some reason or other never fully explained, a debtor who had a long standing account, was liable to dodge into some nook, corner or side street, if he caught a glimpse of his creditor coming down the road. The relations existing between creditor and debtor in the nineteenth century were not as cordial as they should be. If the debt were of long standing there lacked a certain warmth in their greeting which was perhaps difficult to account for.
In 1930 creditors and debtors adjusted themselves in better harmony, at least they kept in closer electrical touch with one another. If the sum due was $50 or over and of long standing, the law allowed the creditor to connect his debtor with an electrical battery. The object of this wise law was to keep the creditor in constant touch with his debtor. If the debt was over three months due, the creditor was allowed to occasionally “touch up” his debtor without having to hunt him up and dun him. The creditor always had him “on the string” so to speak. It was further specified by law that creditors must employ only as many volts as there were dollars due on account in shocking a debtor. These electrical shocks were merely reminders, intended to refresh the memory of the debtor. A man owing $200 was liable to receive two hundred volts until the debt was satisfied.
This plan for the collection of bad debts worked very successfully. In 1999 no Worked Like a Charm. debtor could tell when his creditor might touch him up. The shock reminding him of his old debt might come during the night and disturb his pleasant dreams. Perhaps while seated at the family table, or perhaps even while engaged in family worship, an electric shock might come that would raise him three feet off the floor. Such little occurrences were rather embarrassing, especially if the debtor was talking at the time to some lady friend. A man owing $500 was in danger of his life. His creditor was liable to dun him by giving him a shock of five hundred volts. Such sensations, certainly, are not as pleasant as watching a yacht race, with your boat an easy winner.
A curious illustration of the operation of this new condition between creditors and bad debtors, by which the former had an electrical control of the latter, came to light in a parish church on the banks of the St. Lawrence. It appears that the village school teacher, who was also choir-master, was busy with a Saturday evening rehearsal. The members of the choir were in their places, while the professor stood near the communion-rail, facing the choir, with his back turned towards the empty pews. He was speaking, when suddenly his red hair stood on end, his whiskers straightened out at right angles, while his eyes looked big as door knobs. He then gave a leap in the air, turned a somersault backwards and cleared ten pews before landing again on his feet. It appears that he owed his landlord an old board bill of $120 and the latter had just given him an electrical dun. The choir was astounded at the professor’s performance. The latter excused himself and merely said it was a slight attack of grip.
In 1942 any one who used the word “steamship” was immediately rated a back number. A few of them, it is true, still fouled the ocean with their villainous smoke, but in 1999 the electrical ship ploughed the briny waters. It was a grand sight to see a magnificent ship nine hundred feet in length propelled through the waters at a Electrical Ocean Navigation. rate of thirty-five knots per hour by an invisible power, a mighty giant encased in the interior of the ship, a power that labored silently yet swiftly, with no perceptible vibration to the vessel and without emitting volumes of black smoke. These swiftly moving electrical ships were strange and striking in their appearance. Those constructed in 1975 by the Cramps had no masts, and they, of course, had no more use for funnels than a hen has for teeth. To the people of the old school of 1899, the ocean electrical ship looked strange indeed. The spectacle of a large steamship of 28,000 tons burden cleaving the ocean waves at the rate of forty knots per hour, with no masts and no smokestacks, looked strangely to men in 1975 who had been accustomed in their youth to old fashioned steamships like the City of New York, Campagnia, Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, Fürst Bismarck, Teutonic and others of that class. In 1975 the hull of the electrical ship retained practically the same old lines. An electrical ship, like the Great Republic, built in the year last named, plying between Manhattan and Liverpool, was a trifle over nine hundred feet long, with only eighty-two feet breadth of beam. From stem to stern was built a swell body roof which covered the entire deck of the vessel. This covering was supported by ornamental iron columns from the bulwarks and usually stood about twenty feet above the deck. The only object that arose above the deck-roof was the captain’s bridge, in which was stationed the steersman, who steered the leviathan by merely pressing electrical buttons on a small disc in front of him. With the masts and funnels removed from an electrical ocean ship, much valuable room was thus secured, adding greatly to the comfort of the passengers.
Electricity was pressed into every conceivable service. That wonderful element Lighting Up the Atlantic. was man’s best and most faithful servant. There was no duty in the twentieth century too menial for it to do. It transformed our ocean, lake and river craft into a blaze of light by night. Collisions after dark were unknown to navigation in 1975. At a distance of ten miles out at sea an electrical vessel looked like a solid mass of moving flame. Electricity drawn directly from the air and extracted from coal, costs practically nothing. The chief item of expenditure was to maintain the electrical machines in repair. In 1899 sailing ships moved along at a snail gait and during night time a small green and red lamp on the port and starboard sides of the ship was all that enabled other vessels to note their presence. It was always the marvel of that age that a hundred collisions did not take place every night on the Atlantic. But in 1999 not a sail or steamship was anywhere to be seen, on ocean, lake or river. Electricity was cheaper, swifter and more reliable.
In 1899 so backward was the age that small boats, called row-boats, were still propelled with oars. In that year those primitive people still employed the old methods of propelling a boat that were in vogue in the days of the Phoenicians and Vikings. They still rowed a boat in the manner of the Greek galley slaves. In 1930 seamen had no more use for oars than a sperm whale has for paddle-wheels. Everything that could float, from a wash-tub to a man-of-war, was propelled by electricity. Even toy boats, sold for $5, were propelled by electricity. The winds still raged in 1999. From zephyr to cyclone that element ruled over the surface of the globe, but man had little use for it. Even the staid Hollander harnessed the wind no more. His mills were run by electricity, while the same agency was continually at work pumping out his dykes.
Through the agency of electricity navigation in the twentieth century was rendered much safer. The ocean by night was dotted with electric buoys, which tossed and bowed with every wave. On these buoys signal-lights were placed, and passing vessels could read the latitude and longitude in which they were in at any time of the day. The figures were plainly marked on each buoy. By night the Atlantic ocean between Sandy Hook and Daunt’s Rock was dotted with bright electric arc lights of 8,000 c. p. The eye never wearied gazing upon the picturesque beauty of the scene.
The effect of these brilliant lights on the broad bosom of the ocean, especially during A Scene of Thrilling Beauty. a storm, was grand beyond the power of pen to describe. A distant wave could be clearly seen approaching one of these electric, mid-ocean buoys. On it sweeps, a tremendous current that no human power could stem. The rugged blue wall of the great wave glistens in the dazzling electric light as its huge side and foaming crest reaches the electric buoy. It seems as though the light and buoy must be swept to destruction and buried from sight. As the great wave sweeps over the light, all becomes dark for a few seconds, but when the mighty billow has swept on, the electric arc again blazes forth in the trough of the sea bidding defiance to Neptune’s frowns. These mighty mid-ocean scenes, viewed from the deck of an electric ocean greyhound, were thrilling in the extreme.
Along the great chain of coast-line of the United States of the Americas, from the State of Maine to the States of Venezuela, Brazil and Patagonia, also on the Pacific slope from the States of Chile, Peru and Colombia to the States of West Canada and Alaska, every rock or promontory dangerous to navigation, was ablaze with electric beacons. Electricity was common as air. Oceans and continents were made more habitable to man. It became in 1999 the world’s sun by night.
The perfect and absolute control of electricity by the scientists of the twentieth century benefited both ærial and ocean navigation, in furnishing the motive power. But these were benefited in another and hardly less remarkable manner by the perfected Marconi system of wireless telegraphy, which in the nineteenth century was comparatively unknown and in its early experimental stage. In ærial and ocean navigation wireless telegraphy proved an invaluable aid. The bright, young Italian inventor became a benefactor of the human race.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Wireless Telegraphy.
The great advantages of wireless telegraphy in navigation. Ships are enabled to communicate with shore during voyages. Messages received and sent at any time en route. Collisions at sea reported at once. Belated steamers cause no anxiety.
In the old-fashioned days of sails and steam, when a vessel left port and passed out of sight, she instantly became a whole world in herself. Communication had been severed with the outer world. The condition of a sailing vessel during a calm was a picture of helplessness. Steamships were more self-reliant—they at least controlled their own course. But both classes of ships, whether propelled by sail or steam, once out of sight of land, were temporarily shut out from the busy world.
During these enforced absences upon an ocean voyage, great events frequently happened of which passengers, officers and crews were necessarily ignorant of. At the Shut Out of the World. termination of a long or short voyage, the first news could only be obtained from the pilot-boat which met the approaching vessel far out at sea. War might be on the eve of declaration as the vessel left port, battles might be fought, the enemy might be vanquished and even peace declared and a knowledge of all these events would only reach the tardy mariner upon the arrival of the vessel at her port of destination.
Such a condition of affairs, often the cause of the deepest anxieties on the part of ocean travelers, might answer well enough for the days of the Crusaders, when kings of Great Britain went to Palestine to battle for the Cross, and never again heard from home in three or four years’ time. When Napoleon, that meteor of the nineteenth century, left the shores of la belle France for the rocky desolation of St. Helena, it was over a year before he received any news from Paris. The same conditions ruled in 1899. Steam had rendered ocean voyages shorter and more punctual. But the main difficulty still existed. Passengers on our ocean-liners during a voyage knew as little of occurrences at home as those who traveled in the days of the Vikings and Crusaders. In this respect (as in many others), the world in 1899 was no better off than in the days when the Roman legions landed on the shores of Britain. The nineteenth century and the centuries before Christ were upon equal footing in this respect.
Many splendidly equipped steamships, with colors flying and bands playing left port in the old days of sails and steam, with multitudes waving their adieux and heartily wishing them God-speed and were never again heard from. No communication was possible in those days between land and vessels at sea. Sometimes they were Into the Jaws of Death. doomed in the cold embrace of an iceberg; an occasional collision sent hundreds of souls to their final account; fire, always dreaded on the ocean, caused many to suffer the horrors of thirst and starvation; the ocean claimed its victims in many dreadful forms and no tidings ever reached home of the fate of loved ones, because communication between ship and shore in the “good old days” of 1899, was impossible. This supreme difficulty had not yet been overcome in 1899, and the defect was universally regarded as being a most deplorable one. The only communication ever maintained between vessels in mid-ocean and the main shore in the nineteenth century was done by cable-ships, while actually engaged in laying an ocean cable. The Great Eastern was the first steamship to lay claim to this distinction, when in 1867, her officers fished up and brought to the surface the broken Atlantic cable and the great news was flashed from ship to shore.
Vessels in these days of the nineteenth century only too often left port never again A Very Backward Age. to be seen by mortal man. Loved ones plunged into a watery grave, locked in each other’s embrace, and none survived to tell the fearful tale. Communication with shore was unknown in the vaunted civilization of the nineteenth century. The fate of the Naronic, of the White Star line, looms up in evidence. Not a whisper was again heard of her after she left port. The City of Glasgow in 1854 sank in Neptune’s pastures. Four hundred and eighty souls went down in that brave ship. No hint, however slight, was ever heard of her. The Ocean Monarch, the Pacific of the Collins line, and the ill-fated City of Boston, all suffered fates that none but the day of judgment can reveal.
This confession of weakness, this serious drawback of the nineteenth century, which added to the terrors of those “who go down into the great deep,” was fortunately not shared by the advanced sciences and arts of the twentieth century. Wireless telegraphy contributed almost as much to the comfort of ocean and ærial navigation as electricity. Telegraph poles that rendered hideous some of our most beautiful avenues and the antiquated ocean cables were entirely relegated into oblivion. The former went into the scrap heap, while the latter found their way into Davy Jones’ locker.
Long before 1999 wireless telegraphy was employed on all vessels on ocean, river and lake. Instant communication was at all times maintained between ship and shore. It Opened a New Era. War vessels at foreign stations made their daily reports in 1999 to the Navy Department in the State of Mexico. All other navies of the world enjoyed the same facilities. Relatives telegraphed to their families and friends from vessels in mid-ocean. It was quite common to receive a brief message from an Atlantic liner two thousand miles east of Sandy Hook, as follows:
| On board Electrical Ship Manhattan. |  |
| Latitude 50 N., long. 30W. |
Dear Henry:—Got over being seasick. Baby and nurse doing nicely. Had strawberries and cream for dinner. Dodged an iceberg and struck a whale, yesterday. Love to all. Will wireless from Paris.
Ethel.
Overdue vessels in 1999 gave no anxiety in that era of progress. If a shaft broke the home office was at once notified that the vessel would be several days behind her schedule time in arriving at her destination. If caught in a fog or obliged to move at half speed, the information was immediately lodged on shore. In fact it even became possible to navigate vessels from the shore.
In 1982 the strange experiment was made of navigating a large ocean electric ship Sailed his Ship from Land. from Manhattan (old N. Y.), to Queenstown. The name of the vessel was the City of Sidney. After the pilot had dropped off at the Hook, Captain Sherman, of the Electric Belt Line of vessels, remained in his private office in the forty-third story of Anti-Trust building on 59th street, Manhattan, and issued his commands by wireless telegraph to the first officer of the City of Sidney. Reports reached the captain every six hours, giving the exact latitude and longitude and the ship’s course was directed from the captain’s private office on 59th street in the city of Manhattan. In other words it was the city of Manhattan that kept the City of Sidney on the move, so to speak. The ship’s course, conduct of the crew, the health of the passengers, the reports of passing electrical vessels, the velocity of wind and other details of navigation, were communicated to Captain Sherman, whose orders were given and obeyed as readily as though issued from the bridge or deck of the City of Sidney. When that vessel arrived off Queenstown to land the U. S. of the A. mails, Capt. Sherman in 59th street ordered half speed and finally stopped the electric engines. Of course, while navigating his immense vessel across the ocean and remaining seated in his office at home, Captain Sherman could not assume his place in the saloon at the head of the table. Wireless telegraphy could not, with all its ingenuity, satisfy one’s appetite at the sumptuous dinners served on board the City of Sidney. But this demonstrated to the world in 1982 that with wireless telegraphy commanders could remain in their office on shore and sail their ships to foreign ports in perfect safety. This was done in 1982 just as easily as the old style train dispatcher controlled far away trains in 1899 while seated in his own office.
The Marconi system of wireless telegraphy, when perfected in 1920, employed the Hertzian magnetic waves, which are identical with the waves of light. Whenever an electric spark is made to leap from one electrode to another, one of these waves is created. The Marconi instruments for sending and receiving are tuned to each other and are then invulnerable to the attack of waves of different lengths.
These rays of electricity are reflected and directed in a given direction like rays of A Marvelous Invention. light. An electric circuit with a key, gives the basis of the Marconi system. This circuit runs through a spark coil with an oscillator to produce continuous electric sparking so long as the circuit is kept closed by the key—and from this the sparking wires run out of doors to the pole from which the messages are sent.
One end of the wire is placed in the earth and the other is elevated in the air. The height to which it is carried determines the distance to which the messages may be sent. The operator presses his key as in ordinary telegraphing, making his alphabet in dots and dashes. As the waves shoot out and reach the distant station, the filings in the tube cohere and the current passing through them draws up the armature of the relay magnet. This closes the circuit of the recording instrument. It is broken constantly by the tapper and instantly re-established by receiving waves.
The towers employed in 1920 for the transmission of wireless messages were very high. The manifest advantages of the system were apparent and long before 1930 wireless telegraphy came into general use. The new system proved the death-knell of telegraph poles, as well as ocean cables. Old telegraph stock faded in value like the morning mist. The supreme importance of communicating with vessels while at sea alone guaranteed the success of the wireless system.
Wireless telegraphy proved to be one of the crowning scientific achievements of the twentieth century, but the ambition of scientists Chatting with the Boys in Mars. in 1969 knew no bounds. In that year they were busy sending messages to Mars, utilizing starbeams for that purpose. For thirty long years they repeated the same messages or signals to Mars every night. In 1999 the canalers up in that bright Yankee planet had not yet responded but hope was still entertained that some sign of recognition might yet be secured from the Martians.
Telescopes in 1999 had been vastly improved. The network of canals in Mars became far more distinct to the human eye. The moon, our nearest neighbor, looked as though only one mile away. Neptune, the giant of the heavens, grew on more intimate terms with our mother Earth, but on Mars was centered the greatest attention. Fervent were the hopes that Martians would acknowledge the ceaseless signals sent from earth.
The growth of the electrical machine industry in 1999 was enormous. The United States of the Americas led the world in their manufacture. The dawn of this vast industry was already manifest, even in 1899. The capital invested in electrical industries in that year was as follows:
| Invested Capital. | |
| 928 electric railways, aggregating 14,850 miles, | $883,000,000 |
| 2,838 electric light central stations, | 335,486,518 |
| 25,000 private electric lighting plants, | 87,500,000 |
| Power transmission (750,000 motors in use), | 150,000,000 |
| Electrical apparatus in mining, | 125,000,000 |
| Telegraph, telephone, &c. | 600,000,000 |
| Total, | $2,180,986,518 |
In 1999 nearly a third of the entire capital of the vast American Republic was invested in electrical interests of some form or other. The export trade of American machines became stupendous. The world demanded only the American make; no substitutes would answer.
American pluck and brains proved the lever that Archimedes, the Greek mathematician, so long sighed for. American brains moved the world.
CHAPTER XIX.
Cremation Becomes a Law.
No more grave robberies in the twentieth century. The old style of burial becomes a back number. Popular errors about Cremation removed. Undertakers at a discount. Costly funerals discouraged. Funeral etiquette in 1999. No person buried alive in the twentieth century. Sacred memories of the dead still jealously treasured. “Rented graves” and other burial abominations of the nineteenth century are forever banished.
The great innovation of the twentieth century which long rankled within the human breast, but finally uprooted and conquered prejudice, was cremation. The No More “Earth to Earth.” old traditions and forms of Christian burial were difficult to eradicate, but reason and a general sense of public safety finally broke down the barriers and traditions of ages. Cremation for many years shocked public sensibilities. The terrors of the hidden grave, nameless and horrible, were eliminated by the new and only safe process of disposing of the dead. In the contention which prevailed during the first half of the twentieth century, many were reluctant to accept cremation as the true mode of burial. By degrees, however, public opinion settled down and adjusting itself to the new conditions, accepted the quicker and safer methods of burial.
Cremation in 1999 became the only legalized form of burial. Every cemetery was Cremation Became a Law. provided with a crematory long before 1950. Electricity was employed in reducing the body to ashes. Grave robberies that so often disgraced the nineteenth century, became impossible. A rich man was at least sure of a safe burial of his ashes after cremation, while the poor man’s body, which formerly was thrust into a Potter’s field, was safe at last from medical students and professional body-snatchers, who often robbed graves to Rich and Poor on Equal Footing. secure a skeleton. Millionaires in the twentieth century enjoyed after death the same degree of safety vouchsafed to the poor man. Their dust was on equal footing.
The old graves were left undisturbed in 1999. Graves in that year, in the manner of their occupants, gradually passed into decay. In the centre of every cemetery was constructed a fine mausoleum, a pantheon in which the ashes of the dead were carefully deposited in vaults or family receptacles. Cremation having become in 1999 the only mode of burial authorized by law, The State pays for All Burials. these mausoleums were built at the expense of the town. Each vault was owned by a family in perpetuity. Those who were too poor to purchase a vault had their ashes placed in a common burial plot in the ground.
These large mausoleums were built of white marble in a style of architecture appropriate to the solemnity of their purpose. The interior was well-lighted and ventilated and on the door of each vault was carved the family name. All mausoleums were built about on the same plan. From the centre of the structure arose a high dome of beautifully chiseled white marble, while light poured from the top into the circular floor of the structure. The vaults used as receptacles for the ashes were stationed about in a large circle, in several tiers, one above another. The ashes of the cremated body were deposited in a small metallic box, 9 ×18 inches, and four inches deep. On the cover was engraved the name, age, date of death and cremation of the deceased. Each family vault was capable of holding thirty metallic cases, or burials.
It was universally conceded that cremation was the only safe and proper mode of It Looked Heathenish to Them. disposing of the dead. In 1999 people wondered how the ancient form of burial had so long been practiced by civilized nations. When in 1999 cremation became the only legal form of burial, they looked with feelings of horror upon the ancient form of interment. How people could lay away their loved ones in the cold ground to remain for years the companion of the worm, could not be understood in the days of cremation. All arguments brought against burials in the ground were unanswerable. It was an offense against the laws of humanity, and the practice was maintained even as late as 1965, but public opinion became firm against it. The revolt against burials spread rapidly, once inaugurated.
In 1965 a family that consented to the burial of their dead was regarded not only Guarding the Bodies of Rich Men. as a back number but with feelings of aversion. The question arose in the minds of many if they really could love the memory of their departed one and place the body where it was liable to be stolen or desecrated; where it became the food of vermin. People in 1899 often had to even place strong guards over the tombs of rich relatives for fear that vandals might steal the body and retain it for ransom. Long after death bodies of men had been drawn from their tomb and hanged by a mob. When in 1899 Lord Kitchner, the Sidar of the British forces in Egypt, subdued and captured Khartoum, Nineteenth Century Practices. he permitted his men to violate the tomb of the Mahdi. The body of the Prophet was torn from its resting place and its head was decapitated. And this, note well, was done by British soldiers in 1899, to avenge the cruel death of Gen. Gordon.
In 1999 desecrations, robberies and violations of graves became impossible. The world was no longer shocked by such atrocities. Hyenas, both biped and quadruped, were thrown out of business. Cremation, the purest and swiftest mode of reducing the body to dust and ashes, was universally declared to be immeasurably better than the ancient mode of burial. The dead were not permitted to pollute the ground and to infuse germs of diseases, deadly microbes, into living springs of water. It matters Everything For and Nothing Against It. little, in 1999, whether the cemetery were situate on top of a hill, in a valley or in the midst of a crowded city. The ashes they contained could pollute neither water, earth nor air. A mausoleum or cemetery in 1999 was often built in the most crowded or most fashionable section of a city. Cremation was acknowledged to be a clean, wholesome method of burying the dead. Boys in 1999 were not under the painful necessity while walking past a cemetery at night to whistle to keep up their courage.
In 1899 the popular idea about cremation was erroneous and was largely the cause of prejudice against this method of disposing of the dead. A vast number of people believed in that year that bodies which were cremated were literally roasted or reduced to ashes over a fierce fire. When people, however, began to learn the truth of the matter, that cremated bodies were placed in the retort of a crematory and were reduced to ashes by an exceedingly high temperature and not touched in any manner by fire, then prejudice let down the bars and cremations soon became common.
As a result of cremation and the law of 1999 which compelled its adoption as the only legal method of burial, undertakers Undertakers Wear Long Faces. were deprived of large revenues they often derived from the sale of caskets. Caskets were no longer in demand because, as a wag in 1985 observed: “There is nobody to bury.” A seven foot casket of the 1899 pattern, however gorgeous, would have been absurdly too large and meaningless to enshrine the ashes of a departed relative. Such contrivances were good enough in the backward age of the nineteenth century. Burials in 1899 were made under ground, while in 1999 they were all made above ground. In 1899, immediately after death in a family one of the first duties was to purchase a casket and arrange with an undertaker for the funeral. In their unhappy frame of mind, with hearts bowed in grief, undertakers often made terms their own way with mourners. Few mourners are in a state of mind to drive a bargain in such moments, and they too often yield to the blandishments of the suave casket-broker accepting any terms he may offer. Cremation did away with this, and unscrupulous undertakers had to come off their perch.
Hearses were not abolished in the days of cremation. The style of the hearse entirely changed. In the place of the pompous affair of 1899, bedecked in its towering plumes, rich in silver appointments, massive The Twentieth Century Hearse. structures covered with plate glass, driven by an awe-inspiring individual perched on a high seat, the hearse of 1999 was a far less pretentious affair. It weighed no more than a light, racing sulky. It had four wheels. In the centre of the vehicle, which, of course, was propelled by electricity, was constructed a small platform about three feet square, the sides of which were elaborately trimmed in gold and silver ornaments. The platform was covered by an open canopy supported by four elaborate silver pillars. The metallic case containing the ashes of the deceased seldom exceeded 9 × 18 inches, 4 inches deep, and weighed about four pounds. These metallic cases were of exquisite designs, usually in highly burnished silver or gold. Those which contained the ashes of the wealthier classes were often covered with precious stones and brilliant gems, presenting a most artistic and attractive appearance. These burial cases looked like jewel-boxes of an elaborate pattern. In looking at them death was robbed of its terrors. A beautiful jewel-case, 9 × 18 inches, containing the ashes of some loved one did not strike one’s imagination with the horror of a long burial casket with its inanimate tenant.
There was everything about cremation to appeal to loftier ideals. The light, portable character of the little cremation cases became more popular than the heavy casket. The heart-rending accidents that too often occurred under the old system of burials, became impossible in the brighter and better days of cremation. In 1899 it sometimes happened that in lowering a body into the grave the bottom of the casket gave way. The rest can better be imagined than described. It sometimes happened that Sample Horrors of 1899. while a funeral procession was on its way to the cemetery, the hearse team got frightened. In the thrilling runaway that followed the casket fell out of the hearse and breaking open the corpse rolled out on the ground. The horror-stricken relatives and friends would remember the sad scene through life, mentioning it only in whispers.
These horrors of the old-style, so-called Christian burials, were rendered impossible in the cremation regime. Not that alone, but cremation removed from earth the most horrible experience that can be endured by mortal man and that is premature burial. The practice of burying bodies is a relic of barbarism. Its horrors and possibilities are without limit. No civilized community should tolerate it. Custom and tradition are the forces that maintain it. It does not possess a single point in its favor, while, on the other hand, there are scores of sound arguments against it.
No person who ever spent a minute in the fierce temperature of a crematory ever Can’t Bury them Alive. lived to tell the tale. The ancient method of burial is not so certain—many cases have come to light where people, supposed to be dead, revived after interment. Imagine the horror of the situation. Can any human experience be more dreadful than this one? Many cases have come to light in the nineteenth century proving beyond a shadow of doubt that unfortunate men and women had been buried alive. In graves opened many weeks after burial the scratched face, torn hair and imprint of terror upon the features told only too plainly what had happened and of the final anguish of the unfortunate one. Such horrors were not possible in the cremation process. If there is anything the world appreciates it’s a “sure thing”—and that salient feature of cremation did not escape its attention.
On the day following the death of a person, after the remains had been viewed for the last time by relatives and friends, the body was taken by night to the crematory where it was immediately reduced to ashes. These were carefully deposited in a small metallic burial case and returned to the No Hurry for the Funeral. mortuary residence. The date of the funeral was agreed upon and notices were sent out to the public. Sometimes it was deemed desirable to hold the funeral one or two months after death. In cremation funerals everything passed off in the most leisurely manner possible, accompanied with the highest effects of art. A funeral could be held a week, a month or a year after death. There was ample time to make arrangements, or to postpone a funeral on account of the weather. On the day of interment when the ashes were to be deposited in the family vault in the mausoleum, at the appointed hour, friends and relatives gathered at the mortuary residence. The small metallic casket containing the ashes of the deceased was usually placed in the centre of the room, resting upon a light bamboo stand, covered with black velvet. The stand was usually surrounded with choice flowers and floral designs. The tiniest caskets used in the old burial days were double in size of the beautiful silver and gold cases sometimes holding the ashes of a person who might have weighed, during life, over three hundred pounds. The absence of the large casket used in old burial days and the substitution in its place of a small jewel-size case containing the ashes was an agreeable innovation. Otherwise, all funeral services in 1999 were substantially the same as in 1899. Although the surroundings were far more pleasant, the grief of the stricken ones was none the less profound. When funerals in 1999 were held in a church, the exercises were about the same as in the days of the old burial system. Instead of six bearers, only one became necessary.
There was a marked contrast between the funeral processions of 1899 and those Funeral Procession in 1999. of 1999. The great, cumbersome hearse had disappeared, and in the line of carriages that followed the small, light electric hearse, no horses were to be seen. All mourners’ carriages were propelled by electricity. The automobile containing the minister, led the procession, then followed the hearse and carriages of the mourners. In 1999, when a funeral passed by, people on the streets at the time were always careful to remove their hats as a mark of respect to the ashes of the deceased. This was a concession to common decency almost wholly unknown in the days of burials. People living in 1899 should not be too severely criticised in their lack of respect for the dead in the matter of uncovering as a funeral procession passed by. The entire system was a relic of barbarism and people were hardly to blame for denying this mark of respect to such an objectionable mode of burial.
It was at first thought that cremation would destroy the sacred memories and observances Memorial Day in 1999. of Memorial or Decoration Day. In a few years, however, it was discovered that these fears were unfounded. People in 1999 were loyal to the sacred memory of departed ones, and on Memorial days the interior of the mausoleums and doors of the vaults were garlanded with flowers, presenting a most beautiful appearance. The old graves of the nineteenth and preceding centuries were still cared for by loving hands.
These were decorated as in the good old days of 1899 and were not in anywise neglected. Many families in the twentieth century took up the remains of their ancestors and caused them to be cremated in order that their ashes might rest in the same vault. It was conceded that the ashes could never perish in a vault and another supreme advantage in favor of the cremation system arose from the fact that they required no care.
The abominations of the old fashioned burials were apparently without limit. Under that barbaric system of the 19th century, it might truly be said that after death a man had no where to lay his head. Ejected for Non-Payment of Rent. One would think that after death a person had severed his connection with the living world. Such was not the case. It often happened that men were taken out of their graves for non-payment of rent. That is, the lease or care of the ground not having been satisfied or paid, the ground or cemetery lot reverts to the Association, who dislodge the body of the tenant and offer the cemetery lot for sale to other parties. In the 19th century, especially in European cities, it was a common practice to lease a grave for five years, at the expiration of which period the grave was opened and the skeletons deposited in underground catacombs or left to the tender mercies of medical students. The barbarity of such practices, sanctioned by the civilization of the 19th century, need not be dwelt upon. Cremation removed the stigma of such unholiness from civilized nations. The ashes of the dead required no material space and were easily disposed of. No grave rentals or purchases were required in their case.
Last but not the least of the advantages of cremation was the death blow it gave to Spoils the Ghost Business. the ghost industry. Superstition tottered when in 1999 graveyards had been abolished by law, as well as custom. The stately, white marble mausoleum which held the ashes of departed ones did not possess the gruesome appearance of the old fashioned cemeteries of 1899, with mounds and graves scattered in every direction, some of them in a condition of shameful neglect. There was something about a graveyard which was naturally repellent to the living. The ones who scoffed the loudest at ghosts, and were really very brave at noon time, were never favorably impressed with the idea of spending a few hours alone at night in a cemetery. When graveyards were abolished and bodies were promptly reduced to ashes after death, superstition began to weaken. Many people who would have been terrified at the suggestion of keeping a dead body in a house any unusual length of time, did not hesitate in many instances, to keep the ashes of several cremated members of the family for years, in their parlor. Cremation removed the sting of death, robbing it of its terrors. It was a blessing to the world and was thereafter ever sustained by enlightened ages.
CHAPTER XX.
Newspapers in 1999.
They are still progressive and enterprising as ever and constitute one of the bulwarks of American liberties. The Pneumatic tube postal service and swift delivery of mails. Four daily deliveries of mail between Manhattan and San Francisco. A Submarine Railway Accident. A Marine Spider Crippled. Returns to Babyhood. Buying up Titles.
It is the proud boast of America that as a nation it possesses a larger per centage of people who can read and write than any other nation on the habitable globe. Our excellent system of free schools and the avalanche of newspapers that find their way into every home, at a mere nominal cost, have vouchsafed a general diffusion of knowledge throughout our great Republic, filling every branch of art, industry, and every profession with men and women of brains and intelligence.
The force and power of the newspapers in America in 1899, the perfect liberty of Safeguards of Liberty. the press, were regarded in that year as guarantees of public safety, mighty levers in forming public opinion. In 1999 the newspapers of the period had lost none of the prestige and influence they enjoyed in the old days of sail boats and steam engines. They were still handled in many instances with consummate skill and wielded a power that built, as well as shattered, governments.
In current topics and in the chronicles of events, there existed a marked difference between the newspapers of 1899 and those of 1999. New elements and conditions had come into play which were unknown in the period of the nineteenth century, and as a natural result the newspaper of the twentieth century contained some curious and interesting articles.
In 1899 the daily that got out a morning and evening edition was regarded as an up to date affair in every sense of the term, but in 1999 the newspaper world moved much faster. In a large daily office four complete editions were issued every day or once every six hours. The news poured into these daily offices with marvelous speed. Wireless telegraphy and ærial navigation annihilated space. On the other hand, newspaper and letter mails in 1999 were conveyed through much swifter channels.
The postal pneumatic tube system constructed by the American government was Very Rapid Mail Deliveries. a marvel of the twentieth century. There extended from Washington, (Mexico), a network of underground and overground pneumatic tubes reaching throughout the Americas, penetrating all the Northern, Central and Southern States, from the State of Alaska to the State of Argentina. Mail deliveries made through these pneumatic tubes were exceedingly rapid. No electrical transit or any method of ærial navigation could equal the rapid delivery of the pneumatic tubes. The mail pouches were forced through these large tubes and delivered at all the principal cities in a very short space of time. Mails from Manhattan to Washington, the seat of the national government in the State of Mexico, traversed the distance in less than two hours. From Mexico to the State of Argentina, as well as the Southwestern American States of Peru and Chile, the mail transit in 1999 required but a few hours in delivery,—in 1899 it was a question of weeks. Even ærial navigation in 1999 was found too slow to convey and deliver the mails. The pneumatic tube system was even swifter, and with such facilities at hand it is not surprising that people in San Francisco received four daily editions of the Manhattan journals, although the distance between Sandy Hook and the Golden Gate is a matter of 3,600 miles.
The subjoined clippings from the Electrical Times, of Thursday, August 20, 1999, The Editorial Blades of 1999. will give the reader a general idea of the newspapers style and matter of that period. It will be observed that the noble race of beings known as editors and newspaper reporters was by no means extinct in 1999. The subtle art of telling wonderful stories and the science of making American newspapers the foremost in the world, had been inherited by the children of 1999 from their lively ancestors of 1899.
In 1899 Yankee genius and enterprise was conspicuous in the newspaper line. It led the world. The latest and the best always found their way into American print.