Let us take a little look at Americans at home, and see if I was wrong in calling American life pure phantasmagoria.
We will begin by the private houses.
In a well-appointed house, you will find, in a little room on the ground-floor, a plaque fitted with several buttons. You touch the first, and immediately a cab drives up to your door.[13] You touch the second, and in a minute or two, there appears a messenger from the telegraph office to take your telegram or carry a parcel or message for you to any part of the city. You touch the third, and a policeman presents himself, as if by enchantment, to know if you suspect the presence of burglars. You touch the fourth, and heigh, presto! up dashes the fire brigade, with engine, fire-escape, and the rest of their life-saving apparatus, and this in about the length of time that it took Cinderella's godmother to turn the pumpkin into a coach.
Jonathan will not stop here. Before long we shall see the architects of all first-class houses laying on, not only gas, water, the telephone and the electric light, but the opera and church service.
Already the ladies of Chicago do their marketing at home. The housekeeper goes to her telephone and rings.
"Hello!" responds the central office.
"Put me in communication with 2438"—(her butcher's number).
In another instant the bell rings.
"Hello!"