The old lady then, her eyes beaming with intelligence and in the most natural and unassumed manner, voiced the following prophecies:
[Chapter II.]
The Prophecy.
Taking a note book from her bag, and adjusting her spectacles, the old lady began her remarkable relation of events to come ere the 21st century shall have rolled around:
“Of course,” she began, “I may not be able to tell you all that is in store for future generations, but I will say enough to interest everybody and to warn everybody who will care to heed my admonitions.
“The era of quick transit has already arrived and people love to travel fast, and opportunity will be given all who care to adopt this pastime. Very soon the locomotive and trolley car will be altogether too slow for travel and aerial voyages, both for pleasure and business will ensue. The force used for this purpose will be varied and may be electricity, gasoline, compressed air, or perhaps still another potent agent, at present undeveloped, which will usurp the place of all others, be cheaper, safer and more reliable than any known energy. The cars will be made entirely of steel bands and so constructed that but little damage may be apprehended from a collision with another flying machine. A parachute, arranged to work automatically will be the chief protector of this winged machine and this part of the apparatus will be so constructed as to render an accident almost an impossibility. Indeed, these carriers will be so made that a party soaring in the air at a height of 500 feet will look down and express a feeling of sympathy for those who must brave the dangers besetting life on the surface of this mundane sphere.
“These air carriers will be simple, and a good bright boy can manufacture his own vehicle to take him to and from school and at a less expense per day than is now paid for street car fare, and at a lesser risk to life and limb. The grocer will make his deliveries by his air machine. The butcher boy will abandon his automobile and bring his meat deliveries by the way the bird flies. As there can be no tracks laid in the air, no one will be pestering the City Commission for a franchise to run his company’s cars over a certain strata of air, but there will be cars for hire, just the same, and there will be, no doubt, long trains operated in the air not much unlike the system at present in vogue on the surface. The death dealing automobile will be a thing of the past and even the merry motor cycle will have gone the way of the equine. Railroads and railroad stocks will suffer and the roads will languish and die. Aerial locomotion will usurp the place of the steamer and the steamship, since it will be proven to be quicker, safer and less expensive. Country homes will be easy of access and, consequently, more popular and the suburbs will be peopled by an ever increasing number. There is no end to the advantages which the flying machine possesses over the present modes of locomotion and it is merely a question of solving the problem of entire safety, economy and simplicity of construction and operation, all of which will have been surmounted in A. D. 1999.
“Although the aerial navigation is itself an important feature of future progress, it is not at all the most prominent of innovations. I will tell you of the new era of building.
“Portland in 1913 was considered a beautiful city, but how much more beautiful does it look in 1999. I will endeavor to give you a little idea.