The Man of the Future

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6852, 6 March 1929, Page 6

The Man of the Future

PROFESSOR A. M. LOW is a scientist with the prophetic instincr. ,and has a stimulating way of looking, as far as that may be possible, into the dim future. He may also be suspected of possessing a pleasing sense of humour. Returning, in a lecture before the Institute of Patentees and no doubt a very suitable audience, to the ever interesting subject of the man of the future, he envisages him as a creature who will dispense with regular meals, rely for sustenance upon tabloids, and undergo ray treatment during sleep. Whether or not the ray treatment is to compensate for the tabloids is not explained. The children of the future, runs the revelation, will be brought up from birth in a way that will fit them for their carceis. Gone will be the present thoughtless, happy days of childhood in which so many boys decide to become engine-drivers or something of Ihe kind, and man’s bleating progeny will be injected with serum, and fed with tablets that have no connection with railroads, in accordance with the profession or trade which the child is to embrace. A terrible state of affairs will be brought about if mistakes should be made over the serum or concerning the nature of the tablets, but that will be the anxiety and responsibility of posterity. Of the tabloid-eating man we have, of course, heard before. He has been coming for some time past, but, thanks be, he is still to come, for it is hard to believe that he will be' exactly ' human. Men arc not the eaters in the grand manner that their forefathers were in times when a banquet was a Gargantuan affair indeed, but they still do themselves tolerably in that line and have not altogether forgotten the art of dining. When they come finally to the tabloid stage and ray treatment during sleep—if Nature’s soft nurse be not an affrighted fugitive—pei'haps they will more or less resemble the creations of the exotic fancy of Mr. Wells, and be all forehead and no stomach. But it is still the age of the stomach and of the cook and of the resturant, and it is no doubt the happier on that account. So with equanimity we can leave the gastronomic future to the generations that are to come, wishing them joy of the tabloid and well in their search for the Elixir of Life and the Philosopher’s Stone.