A.D. 2000 AND ITS WONDERS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 139, 16 June 1906, Page 4

A.D. 2000 AND ITS WONDERS.

FORECAST OF THE WORLD ONE HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW. What will tlio world be like a hundred years hence? It is a fascinating thought, which, it' pursued to its finality, leaves the thinker in a perfect maze of conjectural wonder. The reading world owes thanks to Mr T. Barron Russell for relieving it of the trouble of thinking for itself by " taking the lid off the stew-pot in which the mysteries of the year 2000 A.D. are in process of boiling." He calls his book "A Hundred Years Hence: The Expectations of an Optimist." Frankly, one is glad to live in thir; dismal age of ours it only a tithe of Mr Russell's prognostications are likely to come true. He would turn life into a whirling kaleidoscope filled with the strangest habits and ideas, masquerading under the cloak of pleasure; he would turn men and women into flabby automata. We arise in the morning, let us suppose, in April 2006. Our bedroom is a circular chamber, corners being obsolete because they harbour dust, and dust is the abomination of the new age. The housewife of 2006 will say that we, her ancestors, were a terribly dirty crew. In the room stands an apparatus which has supplied us with oxygen —fresh air—during the night. Press a button and your bath appears (servants being superfluous). You lave your body speedily with oxygenated water, delivered with a force that will render rubbing unnecessary, and beside it will stand the drying cupboard, lined with moving brushes and filled with dessicated air, from which in a moment you emerge with the skin dried and electrified. You put on your soft clothes—men and . women will dress almost alike, no stays, no tightlacing, no stiff collars, no bowler hats, no leather footwear. HYGIENIC FOOD. Then, after having turned on the automatic vacuum cleaner to brush your clothes, you descend the lift, since staircases are no more, and sit down to your mechanically served breakfast of lentils or beans or nuts. Coffee and tea are no longer taken; neither do you smoke. The breakfast is eaten to the accompaniment of the summary of the morning's news, whispered in your ear by a talking machine, which also reproduces the Avorld's doings in faithful illustration ! Is this the climax of hustling? Certainly; but it is done because you are anxious to reserve as much time as possible "for culture and for thought." Your house will bo a human rabbit warren of a hundred storeys. It will bo fitted with scientific appliances. There are, telephones, , telautoscopes, kinetoscopes, and all other sorts of " scopes " in every department. The few servants will be as good as their masters, because the State education has "formed their character." Out of doors you put a penny in the slot and jump into a waiting motorcar, which even babies in arms may apparently drive; or you may step on the moving platform, which is as clean as a whistle—vacuum cleaners at every corner—have yourself whirled to your work, transact your business by recording and illustrating telephone, or watch the machinery do the work of your trade, and, having done your State regulated hours, you devote the rest of the day to the study of pictures, statuary, or rare books. NO MORE VICES. Horse-racing, gambling, reading frivolous books, gossiping in clubs, spending your money on expensive luncheons or dinners have all-been relegated to the limbo of the forgotten past. You are simply a flabby-noodle, a superior hot-house plant, done up in Liberty clothes, with about as much physical courage, as we understand it in 1906, as a cod-fish. When a man has amassed a competency the State steps in, divorces him from his occuaption, and forces him into idleness, so that he may not become a Pierpont Morgan, and organise a Trust. What a reward for talent and ambition ! Every worker has a share in the business in which he is engaged ; wherefore there is an end to " ca canny " and strikes. Being temperate in drink and having discarded meat, enjoying the blessings of ozone in every bedroom and the benefits of superior science in medicine, the new world is healthy, with an almost total absence of disease. <Al--so, since race suicide is a crime, families will be enormous. Flying machines, built for one or two, will be popular for mountain-top, non-alcoholic picnics; ships driven by wireless force will cross the Atlantic in a day, so that you may breakfast at the Savoy, and dine at the WaldorfAstoria ; the ships will skim over the water and not plough through the waves; trains will go 200 miles an hour to the seemingly endless suburbs. NON-STOP TRAINS. The train's do not stop. No, all you do is to.step off your train at Little Puddlington Station oira moving platform, which will gradually slow down and then let you down easily; goods will be forwarded on moving platforms connecting the great centres of commerce ; book-keepers will disappear because their work is performed by combined adding machines and typewriters ; no more drains; garbage destroyers in every house: wireless electric lighting; wireless cooking; Canada the richest and most populous country in the world; coal dug from the ocean and the ocean levied upon for its water, which is to be turned into oxygen and hydrogen, and precious stones to be mined from the ocean bed; and Parliament will disappear! The Government of the country and the making of its laws will be in the hands of specialists. Lawyers, specialised lawyers, will make the laws, so that it will no longer be a joyful and immortal task for barristers to see how they can circumvent loosely drawn Acts of Parliament; lay juries will be non-existent; and—wonder of wonders !—successful litigants will have their costs paid by the State! Literature will be mountains " high," and there will be no chance for Kiplings or Doyles or Pembertons. Poetry, will flourish, and the small trader disappear. Provincial newspapers will have been dead for fifty years or more, and the Express will be illustrated from end to end with coloured photographs reproduced by some hocus-pocus of light cast on the paper; its advertisements will be written by great literary lights, and the circulation will be many millions of copies. Finally, women will vote.