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 The Glenn Negley Collection 
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Fifty Years Hence: 
 
 OR 
 
 WHAT MAY BE IN 1943: 
 
 A Prophecy supposed to be based on Scientific 
 
 Deductions by an Improved 
 
 Graphical Method. 
 
 by 
 
 ROBERT GRIMSHAW. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 PRACTICAL PUBLISHING CO. 
 21 Park Row 
 
 1392 
 
Copyright, 1892, 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT GRIMSHAW. 
 
R/2rR 
 
 5 8%s"> 
 
 To 
 
 MY CHILDREN, 
 Who may perchance, fifty years hence t compare these 
 prophecies with what hoe tfu n <ome about. 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/fiftyyearshenceoOOgrim 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 **Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing 
 purpose runs, 
 
 And the thoughts of men are widened with the pro- 
 cess of the suns." — Locksley Hall. 
 
 That portion of the public which honors me by 
 perusing what I have been fortunate enough to 
 learn concerning the future of the inhabitants of 
 this planet, half a century from this Christmas 
 of 1892, will naturally, ais my name is unknown 
 to either fame or science, wonder on what 
 grounds I presume on so bold an undertaking; 
 perhaps what manner of man I might be. 
 
 But when I positively disclaim any merit or 
 virtue as ! a prophet, and state that I am merely 
 by chance the medium by which a portion of the 
 veil is torn from the future, it is enough that I 
 describe myself, as referred to in sundry recit- 
 als as Francis Ainsworth, of the City and 
 County of New York. Perhaps 1 might add that 
 I am by choice an electrician, by birth a Penn- 
 sylvania!}, in age twenty-one, and by no fault of 
 
S FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 my own still unmarried. For some years I have 
 been endeavoring to save enough to enable me to 
 marry my lifelong friend Estelle Morton, of Phil- 
 adelphia; but as I have a family of small sisters 
 to support out of my salary and what I can earn 
 by extra work, the period of our engagement has 
 been prolonged beyond the time of even our least 
 sanguine calculations. Nearly all my evenings 
 are spent at home, within the sound of the Jef- 
 ferson Market clock; for I have chosen the Ninth 
 Ward because it is even yet an American strong- 
 hold, because it is convenient to my place of busi- 
 ness, and because it is better than it looks, which 
 is preferable to looking better than facts war- 
 rant. 
 
 Once a month, however, I am sure to be at the 
 meeting of my Masonic lodge in the Temple, at 
 Twenty-third Street; for I feel that there I am in 
 contact with both the living present and the 
 dead past; and the Mystic Tie seems well worth 
 critical study. 
 
 One evening as I was about to enter the side 
 portal on the Avenue, a ragged newsboy offered, 
 at more than the regular price, some "extras" 
 containing an account of some great financial 
 upheaval in Europe. The man by my side ob- 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 9 
 
 jected to paying an exorbitant price for the 
 hastily-issued and noisily-cried sheet, saying to 
 his companion : kk Now, if he would bring me to- 
 morrow's news, Trask, I wouldn't mind paying a 
 good round sum for it." The auburn-haired Past 
 Master, who is seamed with the scars of battle in 
 "The Street," replied, more in earnest than in 
 jest: "I would readily pay a thousand dollars 
 for a knowledge for what will happen to-mor- 
 row, and a million if it were exclusive." "On 
 that basis," said a man ahead, who was just step- 
 ping into the elevator, " what would it be worth 
 to know what is to happen fifty years hence?" 
 "Oh," said Trask, "I suppose it would be rea- 
 sonably safe to offer any price at all for the per- 
 formance of an impossibility; and for that mat- 
 ter, any one impossibility is just as unreasonable 
 to ask as any other. It's hard enough to be 
 sure of what happened fifty years ago, let 
 alone diving into the news of fifty years hence." 
 
 "It is not so impossible as you think," quietlv 
 remarked a gentleman at my side, who seemed 
 a stranger to all of the rest. "It can be done, 
 if one has patience, judgment, time and 
 means." 
 
 As we meet all sorts of people in the world 
 
10 FIFTY VKAKS HENCE. 
 
 njt large, it is not unreasonable to expect a fair 
 Variety among Free Masons, who, while held 
 to a uniform belief in certain things, and bo un- 
 varying actions in others, have the freest living, 
 compatible with a charitable ami upright walk, 
 in all others; consequently, even so radical a re- 
 mark as that, and even one so gravely uttered, 
 exacted no comment, ami scarce^ a glance 
 from any, other than one of courteous recog- 
 nition that the speaker had addressed his com- 
 panions. 
 
 He was a distinguished looking man, even in 
 a Masonic temple, where men of commanding 
 presence, men of dignified bearing, men of ven- 
 erable appearance and men of philosophical 
 habit, are by no means uncommon. Al- 
 though but of medium height, his carriage was 
 such as to give him the appearance of a tall 
 man. His eyes were dark, full, luminous, and 
 wide apart; the nose strong, straight and with 
 large nostrils; the mouth small, firm and flex- 
 ible. A still luxuriant head of wavy white hair, 
 long white mustaches, and beard falling full 
 and untrimmed upon his breast, imparted a dis- 
 tinguished and venerable appearance. His 
 erect form was slender although evidently well- 
 
FIFTY YEAES HENCE. H 
 
 muscled, even at his age, which seemed seventy 
 or thereabouts. His dress was neat and in- 
 conspicuous; the materials evidently of excel- 
 lent quality, although of a fashion long gone 
 out of date. 
 We entered the lodge-room almost together, 
 
 and like myself, he took a seat near the door. 
 ****** * 
 
 To the work for this evening there was lent 
 unusual interest by the presence of a Masonic 
 celebrity, revered in two hemispheres, who had 
 been invited to give us the benefit of the stores 
 of learning for the possession of which he was 
 noted, and of the wise counsel which he ever 
 gave to those younger and less well-informed in 
 Masonic matters. 
 
 The eloquent speaker having held us spell- 
 bound by his masterful presentation of the 
 teachings of symbolic Masonry, in a flight of 
 oratory carried us back to the days and works 
 of Solomon the King, of Hiram Abiff, and of 
 that other Hiram, King of Tyre; and in the first 
 great Temple which those early Master Masons 
 builded twenty-nine centuries previously, traced 
 for us, in form, size and position of timber and 
 metal — in tool, and time, and work, noble les- 
 
12 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 sons of manhood and virtue; of brotherhood 
 and helpfulness; of contemplation and self- 
 restraint, until each one addressed felt that he, 
 too, was proud of being a Free and Accepted 
 .Master Mason, and emulous of being a credit to 
 his ancient craft. 
 
 In the building of that majestic, beauteous, 
 mystic Temple, 
 
 " No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung ; 
 Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung. 
 Majestic silence !" 
 
 His descriptive powers, his witching imager- 
 ies, held us spell-bound. But at one point the 
 speaker paused, saying that here there seemed 
 to be something well worth knowing, but which 
 the centuries had hidden. It was evidently re- 
 jdete with symbolism of highest order; but the 
 key to its mysteries was unfortunately lost. 
 Some day, perhaps, the light of investigation 
 might penetrate the gloom in wdiich the mys- 
 tery was enwrapped — if, indeed, those better 
 versed in the craft had not already solved the 
 interesting problem. 
 
 The point referred to was one of those in 
 which occult ratio and mystic beauty of propor- 
 tion unfold on every hand new 7 virtuous teach- 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 13 
 
 ings. It was so rich in reminder and sugges- 
 tion, no matter from what side viewed, that ita 
 consideration roused the enthusiasm of all hear- 
 ers. 
 
 When the speaker ceased, the quiet little gen- 
 tleman next me seemed as one filled with in- 
 spiration. 
 
 ' "'.. . . With grave 
 
 Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed 
 A pillar of state : deep on his front en graven 
 Deliberation sat." 
 
 In a well-modulated voice which had evi- 
 dently been one of great power and beauty, he 
 asked permission to endeavor to cast some light, 
 however feeble, upon so interesting a subject. 
 Something in the quiet dignity of his bearing, 
 in the classic precision of his diction, and the 
 graceful modulation of his voice, attracted all 
 with more than usual force to the new speaker. 
 
 his look 
 Drew audience and attention still a< night 
 Or Summer's noontide air." 
 
 He said that in order to find the fullest meas- 
 ure of symbolism in this, as in other Temple 
 mysteries, we must go further than the Temple 
 walls and question the inner chambers of the 
 pyramids— we must ask of the Shepherd Kings 
 
14 FIFTY YEAKS HENCE. 
 
 "what Solomon and the two Hirams told them 
 not. The point was beautifully elucidated both 
 in itself and in its relation to others, so that its 
 increased richness of allusion and teaching be- 
 came at once surprisingly manifest. 
 
 Evidently all present felt that a master of the 
 mysteries of the buried centuries was among us 
 — and in gesture and expression all asked "the 
 old man eloquent" to continue, and to give his 
 views upon the work of those Shepherd Kings 
 to whom he had so appositely alluded. 
 
 So far as I can remember the facts which he 
 laid before us, and fill up gaps in my memory, 
 by reference to standard authorities, he spoke 
 as follows : — 
 
 "The Hykshos or Shepherd Kings came sud- 
 denly into this land of mystery; came with a 
 purpose, which purpose accomplished, they de- 
 parted speedily. That purpose, for which they 
 travelled so far, was to build the great pyramid, 
 a unique, symbolic, and prophetic structure, 
 'stary-pointing,' raised on a site chosen from the 
 whole surface of the earth by reason of its 
 unique, its solitary fitness. That building, type 
 of the ever-during gates of heaven, wonderfully 
 symbolized the mystic wisdom of its time; im- 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 15 
 
 perishably recorded the principal facts in me- 
 trology, meteorology and astronomy, and pro- 
 phetically embodied the discoveries of ages then 
 to come. Temple and town have gone to the 
 ground, but it has endured. It was the pre- 
 cursor of the great symbolic Temple of Solomon, 
 built by the descendants of those shepherd 
 builders, students of the heaven's wide path- 
 less way, an 1 which although destroyed, could 
 be reconstructed by the measures and dimen- 
 sions familiar to our mystic craft, and recorded 
 in that great book of symbols, the Bible. 
 
 "Now, the dimensions and rhythmic propor- 
 tions on which Solomon, on which Hiram, King 
 of Tyre, and on which Hiram Abiff builded the 
 wondrous Temple, were enshrined in the Great 
 Pyramid just five hundred years before. 
 
 "The Temple diagram, conceived under the 
 starry cope of heaven, is made by drawing on 
 a diameter of 1,000 inches, a circle, about which 
 and in which is described a square, again a 
 circle and a square circumscribed. The areas 
 of the various squares and circles here drawn, 
 equal those of the porch of Solomon's Temple 
 ( 1 25,000 square inches), of the holy place (500,. 
 000 square inches) and the Holy of Holies; the 
 
16 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 latter of which is encircled in a nest of circles 
 and squares and the original radius of which, five 
 hundred inches, was the whole length of the 
 Holy of Holies itself. 
 
 "Now let us retrace our steps through five 
 centuries and enter the great monument of Chem, 
 to obey the prophetic mandate of the angel to 
 the holy St. John, and 'arise and measure the 
 temple and its altar.' 
 
 "In the king's chamber the volume of a certain 
 portion of the room equals fifty times that of 
 the coffer — the relation of the ark to the brazen 
 sea in the Temple. Drawing the diagram of 
 the pyramid to a scale having as the height, the 
 mean height of the .king's chamber (232.53 
 inches), the magistral line is 412.13 inches, or 
 the length of the chambers. The base of the 
 triangle is the number of days in a year, 305.24 
 inches, and the radius of that circle having an 
 area of 365.24 inches squared, is 206.00 inches, 
 or the width of the chamber. Constructing a 
 pyramid triangle of height equal to the width 
 of the chamber, the magistral line of the com- 
 pleted pyramid is the year number 365.24 inches 
 — the perimeter of the base, double the two 
 other important chamber dimensions — the 
 
FIFTY YEAUS HENCE. 17 
 
 length, 412.13 inches, and the second height, 
 235.24 inches. The entire pyramid design com- 
 ports with that of the chamber, and those of the 
 coffer and of the ante-chamber, which is in fact 
 the ante-chamber to modern civilization. 
 
 "Leave the great step at the southern end of 
 the Grand Gallery — a yard high and a yard 
 plus a cubit wide — and we find stretching 
 across the antechamber a granite leaf, of two 
 blocks slid in vertical grooves. On the upper 
 of these blocks is the only ornament in the py- 
 ramid — a boss, nearly semicircular in face — ex- 
 actly an inch high and an inch in westerly dis- 
 placement from the centre of the leaf. The 
 cubic contents of this inch-high boss are one 
 pint. Its volume of water weighs just one pound. 
 The \inch, the pint, the pound, so often changed, 
 so often lost; restored by one method ami veri- 
 fied after such restoration, by the boss on the 
 leaf which bars the w T ay in the ante-chamber ! 
 The base of the boss is a chord of five inches or 
 a span ; its centre one sacred cubit or five spans 
 from the hidden end of the leaf. The top 
 block, apparently irregular in upper outline, is 
 41.2 inches long, 15.7 wide, and 48.57 in mean 
 height, giving a contents in cubic inches ojf 
 
18 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 31,415.9-1-, which contains the relation between 
 the diameter and the circumference of a circle. 
 The lower block has a contents of exactly one- 
 fourth of the coffer, or an Anglo-Saxon 'quarter'. 
 On this leaf, by reference to the boss, we find 
 also recorded or prophesied the twenty-four 
 inch gauge and the three-foot rule, as well as 
 that sacred cubit of twenty -five inches, which 
 is commensurable with the polar diameter of the 
 earth. 
 
 " The base of the boss is five, the central one 
 of the nine digits, a number so hated by the 
 Egyptians, even of the present day, as to be 
 marked by them with a on their watches — but 
 the sacred number of the Shepherd Kings, who 
 embodied it in the five-sided, five-angled, five- 
 proportioned monument which they came so 
 far to build, and which was the key to the pro- 
 portions and dimensions of that Temple in 
 which the five books of Moses were sacred to a 
 people who left the land of their oppressors, 
 five abreast, 'with high hands/ with outspread 
 fingers, flaunting their number in the faces of 
 the Egyptians, to whom it brought so much bad 
 luck. 
 
 "From the Pentalpha or five-pointed star may 
 
FIFTY YEAES HENCE. 1^ 
 
 be reproduced the pyramid and the Temple pro- 
 portions and those of the perfect human body — 
 for this being inscribed in a circle, the centre of 
 the star .and circle being at the pubis, the arms 
 and legs spread out easily just reach the points 
 of the star — the centre of the breast being mid- 
 way from the pubis to the crown of the head, 
 and the base of the knee-cap midway from the 
 pubis to the sole of the foot. The pyramid 
 diagram gives the correct proportions of the 
 human body with equal exactness and detail.'' 
 I felt attracted to this man who drew so 
 freely from an apparently inexhaustible mental 
 storehouse, and who so logically connected facts 
 as to weave from mere numbers so wondrous a 
 fabric; but I dared not intrude my callow per- 
 sonality -upon one so well-rounded. As we 
 went down the smooth stone steps, his foot 
 slipped, and he would have fallen headlong had 
 I not been fortunate enough to catch and sup- 
 port him. Even as it was, he wrenched his 
 foot, so that he gladly accepted my proffered as- 
 sistance to his car. 
 
 It turned out that he, too, went down town, al- 
 though further than I; and we entered the same 
 surface car. He honored me by a request for 
 
20 FIFTY YEAKS HENCE. 
 
 an exchange of cards; and on the one which he 
 handed me I read the name "Koger Brath- 
 waite"; no address being given, although I 
 learned from him that he resided in one of those 
 old wards, once fashionable, where still a few 
 old-fashioned people of means live in commodi- 
 ous old dwellings, and refuse to be crowded out 
 by factory and warehouse, be they never so 
 lofty and noisy by day, never so lonely and 
 gloomy by night. 
 
 Some three weeks later, I met Brathwaite in 
 the street, and in walking with him, for a few 
 blocks, learned that he had been a friend of my 
 grandfather — whose name I bore in full. He 
 told me that he had been inquiring concerning 
 me, of my employers, and of others; and that 
 he had had such good reports that he wished 
 me to call upon him the next afternoon, at the 
 address which lie now gave, and where, he re- 
 marked, he wished to »nake a business propo- 
 sition which might be to my advantage. 
 
 It is needless to say that before the hour ap- 
 pointed, I bent my steps towards the place of 
 meeting. 
 
 The house was one of those ugly comfortable- 
 looking four-story and basement brick struct- 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 21 
 
 ures, with generous doors and wide and abund- 
 ant windows, which the wealthy New Yorker 
 of three generations ago, be he merchant prince 
 or landed proprietor, built for himself and in- 
 tended for his descendants, but which have 
 been crowded out of notice by towering fac- 
 tories, storehouses and tenement buildings. Its 
 wide granite steps and curiously- wrought iron 
 railings, its great doorway, upheld by pairs of 
 fluted pillars enclosing narrow lights at each 
 side of the silver-handled single door, and 
 capped by a semi-circular transom, whispered of 
 the quiet dignified early days of the century; 
 while the puffing of the exhaust steam across 
 the way, and the snarling and buzzing of the 
 machinery in the piano factory next door, spoke 
 of its noisy and commonplace close. 
 
 Musk-rose and woodbine formerly luxuriated 
 in its garden; star-proof elms once threw blue- 
 tinted moonlight shadows on its now-mellowing 
 walls; and high-bred dames once trod with 
 dainty feet its smooth and polished floors. The 
 glory of the neighborhood, like that of Ichabod, 
 had departed — but the scrupulous neatness of 
 the old mansion stood out among the dirt and 
 squalor of its surroundings. 
 
22 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 In response to my ring, the door was opened 
 by a grave and quiet maid-servant of the olden 
 school; capped, aproned and slippered, with 
 gray hairs thickly sprinkling the brown. On 
 learning my name she directed me to ascend to 
 the study in the fourth story, where I would 
 have no difficulty in finding the master of the 
 house. 
 
 As I passed up the wide staircase trod by so 
 many feet now motionless, I could see through 
 tue open doors, as well as in all the halls,, 
 shelves upon shelves of closely-packel books, 
 and long tables and racks in great numbers, 
 laden with what seemed maps and charts of 
 nothing in particular, or things in general. It 
 Avas evident, however, that whatever archives 
 these were, they were numerous, well arranged^ 
 and of great diversity of age aind subject. 
 
 The fourth story reached, I found myself in a 
 great loft like apartment, covering nearly the 
 entire floor, and filled, like those below it, with 
 book-laden cases, and tables thickly strewn with 
 charts and great portfolios. 
 
 My host received me with the grave sweet 
 courtesy which sat so well upon him, and 
 begged me to permit him for a few moments to 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 23 
 
 put the finishing touches upon a piece of work, 
 before entering upon the matter concerning 
 which he had, as he put it, done himself the 
 honor to ask me to confer with him. 
 
 "While I complete my work,'' said he, ''look 
 about you. Note well my friends of all ages, in 
 whose company I have passed many busy years. 
 They are 'the abstracts and brief chronicles of 
 the time.' Around them, with tendrils strong as 
 flesh and blood, my pastime and my happiness 
 have groAvn. Milton said : 'A good book is the 
 precious life-blood of a master spirit embalmed 
 and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond 
 life,' and I have found it so. Browning wrote — 
 and mark well that a hidden import lies in his 
 words: 
 
 " ' Books are men of higher stature, 
 And the only men who speak aloud for future times 
 to hear.' " 
 
 I availed myself of the opportunity to look 
 about me, and as the charts seemed but a mean- 
 ingless tangle of long and short lines of black 
 and the three primary colors, parallel and inter- 
 lacing, I betook myself to an inspection of the 
 book-shelves, each plainly lettered with the 
 class of its contents. I could see that the works 
 
24 FIFTY YEARS HE^sTE. 
 
 here were mainly historical, and arranged in 
 divisions corresponding' to periods and epochs 
 in the world's history. 
 
 Here for instance in the section of Modern 
 History, and in that division devoted to the 
 Formation of Distinct Nationalities were Long- 
 man's "Lectures on English History," Michelet's 
 "History of France," Brougham's "England and 
 Framce Under the House of Lancaster," Edgar's 
 "Wars of the Roses," Kirk's " Charles the Bold," 
 and scores of other histories proper, to say noth- 
 ing of Botta's " Dante," Campbell's "Life of Pe- 
 trarch," and similar works throwing light on 
 men and manners between 1300 and 1490 A. D. 
 The shelves, belonging to "The Age of the Great 
 Discoveries" were loaded with Major's "Life 
 of Prince Henry of Portugal," Irving's "Life and 
 Voyages of Columbus," and " Voyages and Dis- 
 coveries of the Companions of Columbus," Pres- 
 cott's "Ferdinand and Isabella," Ranke's and 
 D , Aubigne*'s histories of the Reformation, Fres- 
 co tt's "Conquests of Mexico and Peru," and all 
 those other standards which tell of men and 
 events from 1490 to 1530. The system was 
 perfect; the manner in which it was carried out, 
 wonderful. 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 25 
 
 I had no time to observe more, for Brathwaite 
 having completed some careful plotting upon a 
 chart which covered a long table, rose and led 
 me to a seat near his desk, where, his earnest 
 eyes gleaming with a strange sense of power, his 
 rich voice vibrant with magnetism, he thus ad- 
 dressed me: — 
 
 41 The other evening you heard the comments 
 of our brethren as to the great money value of 
 a knowledge of the near future; but not one 
 word was said as to what an incalculable boon 
 to the human race would be the revelation of 
 the general condition of men, morals, law, lib- 
 erty, and all things great and small, at each 
 decade yet to come. You may have heard me 
 remark, almost unconsciously, that such knowl- 
 edge of the future was not so impossible as one 
 might think; and the exclamation may have 
 impressed you, if at all, with an idea of the 
 mental irresponsibility of the one who uttered it. 
 But I think that I can convince you, who ar<* 
 the first to whom I have addressed myself on 
 the subject save my dear wife — now gone be 
 fore me — that my remark was not only compat- 
 ible with the soundest mental powers, but war- 
 ranted by a degree of special study and training, 
 
20 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 a duration of special application, far beyond the 
 usual. 
 
 "I was long ago impressed with the idea that 
 many of those long-past occurrences about 
 which learned historians disagree, could be 
 cleared up by the light of induction; that as 
 like causes have ever produced like effects, any 
 causes, however remote in time, might be de- 
 duced from their effects, if only the records were 
 sufficiently full and accurate, and the method 
 sufficiently philosophical and thorough. It 
 seemed, for instance, unreasonable that so great 
 discrepancies should exist as to names and ar- 
 rangements of rulers, and commencement and 
 duration of dynasties, of those very Hykshos, or 
 Shepherd Kings, of whom I spoke tjhe other 
 night in those sacred precincts. Manetho (ac- 
 cording to Josephus), states that they reigned 
 five hundred and eleven years, but cites only 
 reigns amounting to two hundred and sixty 
 years; while Africanus makes the duration of 
 those reigns two hundred and eighty -four years, 
 and Eusebius one hundred and three. Afri- 
 canus makes the Shepherds consist of the fif- 
 teenth, sixteenth and seventeenth dynasties, and 
 to have ruled nine hundred and fifty-three years, 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 27 
 
 but gives the names and reigns of only one, 
 which he calls the fifteenth, while Eusebius 
 claims it to have been the seventeenth. Bron- 
 sen makes their rule end 1639 B. C; Lipsius, 
 1842 B. C. ; yet if we place the discovered date 
 of Thothmes III. (1445 B. C.) in his sixteenth 
 year, the close of the Hykshos dominion must 
 have been about 1500 B. C. 
 
 " In my early life I set about the task of rec- 
 onciling these discrepancies by converging lines 
 Of testimony; and so satisfactory were the re- 
 sults, so unerringly was each cause deduced 
 from its many effects, that I conceived the idea 
 of not only reconciling historical discrepancies 
 as to occurrences and motives, but reading the 
 future by continuing each chain of reasoning 
 into the time to come. In other words, if by 
 my inductive method, more light is thrown on 
 the occurrences in Babylon, Media, Lydia, 
 Egypt, twenty-five centuries ago, than by the 
 non-inductive method, upon those at Shiloh, but 
 twenty-five years past, it should be safer to pre- 
 dict by it the outcomings of the next generation, 
 than by the usual methods, those of the next 
 spring or summer. I deemed that 'by labor and 
 intent study (which I take to be my portion in 
 
1*8 FIFTY' YEARS HENCE. 
 
 this life) joined with the strong propensity of 
 nature, I might perhaps leave something so 
 written to after times, that they should not will- 
 ingly let it die.' Each year that I continued 
 my studies, which embraced not only the collec- 
 tion and assimilation of facts, but their classifi- 
 cation and the formation of deductions there- 
 from, the more firmly I become impressed vnth 
 the idea of turning the electric light of induction 
 along the path of prophecy, rather than merely 
 illuminating therewith the fogs of history. 
 
 " 'I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated 
 To closeness, and the bettering of my mind,' 
 
 set about this problem. Ample means, an ex- 
 cellent constitution, and correct and regular 
 habits, have enabled me to accomplish during 
 the past fifty years — for through so long a 
 time have I been striving for my object — much 
 more than is given to most men to do, and more 
 even than I had given myself reason to expect 
 or hope. We now stand in 'this narrow isthmus 
 'twixt two boundless seas, the past, the future, 
 two eternities.' I have explored them both. 
 "But I detect in your manner an impatience 
 which I cannot condemn, and shall plunge at 
 once into an explanation of my methods, leav- 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCfc. 2<) 
 
 ing until later a statement of what I have been 
 able to accomplish thereby. 
 
 "It has long been the custom of professional 
 engineers to represent graphically on sheets of 
 paper ruled in squares, various properties of 
 matter under regularly-varying conditions. For 
 instance, to show the electric conductivity of 
 wire at various temperatures, horizontal strips 
 represent degrees of temperature, and vertical 
 strips, degrees of conductivity; and if a line 
 connecting points corresponding to conductivity 
 at various temperatures be convexly curved 
 above, it shows that conductivity decreases 
 more rapidly than temperature increases. If 
 the line be straight, it shows that conductivity 
 decreases in the same ratio as temperature in- 
 creases. The use of several colored lines, or of 
 solid and of variously broken or dotted lines, 
 permits comparison of the conductivity of sev- 
 eral metals or alloys. 
 
 "This, as a method of recording and compar- 
 ing experiments, is quite convenient; but it is 
 even more useful. The location of from three 
 to ten points permits the experimenter to deduce 
 accurately what would have been the results of 
 other accurately-performed experiments under 
 
30 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 similar conditions. Whether the line is a 
 straight one, or an hyperbola, or one expressed 
 by some algebraical equation, the mean can be 
 known from the extremes or one of the extremes 
 deduced from the other extreme and the mean. 
 In other words, in this principle lies the key to 
 prophecy. For, given a mode of expressing 
 
 social conditions, legal enactments, human emo- 
 tions, extending through a sufficient period, and 
 known with sufficient accuracy to be properly 
 charted, the present may be made to throw 
 light upon a past too dim, and past and present 
 point with unerring finger to the future, be it near 
 or distant. 
 
 "When Byron wrote The best of prophets of 
 the future is the past,' he 'builded better than he 
 knew.' 
 
 " But that the scientific seer may surely vent- 
 ure on the task of piercing the fogs which screen 
 the past from our curious eyes, or of lifting the 
 veils which hide the future from our anxious 
 gaze, the simple squares and lines of the engi- 
 neer must be so developed and supplemented as 
 to represent more than two sets of conditions at 
 once. They must show simultaneously several 
 influences which are silently making history. 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 31 
 
 It is to the enlarged application of the prin- 
 ciple of graphical representation, that the last 
 ten years of a life, formerly spent in the accu- 
 mulation and classification of recorded knowl- 
 edge, have been devoted. How well 1 have suc- 
 ceeded, I shall shortly show you. But first I 
 must tell you by what means I have triumphed 
 over oblivion and set upon myself the crown of 
 prophecy. 
 "In these charts and relief maps, horizontal 
 
 distance represents time; vertical distance, 
 space, or sections of country. Red, yellow r , bine 
 and black lines permit recording four social or 
 other conditions at once, while elevation and 
 degree of roughness of surface add two more to 
 the number simultaneously expressible. 
 
 "As a simple instance, this chart is devoted 
 to the Sacredness of the Marriage Relation, 
 from the year one of the Christian era to the 
 present day. The portions to the left indicate 
 early periods, those in the centre, present time ; 
 those at the right, time to come; each decade 
 being represented by one-half inch of length of 
 the chart. The various strips are devoted to 
 different geographical divisions; that given to 
 
32 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 our own country being sub-divided into strips 
 corresponding to its various States and Ter- 
 ritories. The depth of red tint shows the de- 
 gree of respect or disrespect for woman; blue 
 tints correspond to enactments rendering mar- 
 riage more sacred, divorce more difficult, the 
 rights of women more general and acknowl- 
 edged. Thus we see in this blood-red quarter 
 to the left, an indication of promiscuity in the 
 sexual relation. The lighter red stands for 
 polyandry, or that state in which the woman 
 has several husbands, living peacefully together. 
 This is due to a scarcity of women, owing to the 
 female infants being exposed at birth or sold as 
 slaves. 
 
 "Note that in Great Britain, in the time of 
 Julius Caesar, this form prevailed; and that 
 it continues up to the present day in the Neilr 
 gherry Hills, India, and with the Herero tribe 
 of South Africa. It appears in greatest per- 
 fection in some tribes of Thibet, where all 
 the brothers of a family have but one wife in 
 common. 
 
 " Here among the Eskimos, Aleutians, and 
 Kolushes of the north and northwest coasts 
 of America, we have still a marked red 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 33 
 
 stripe, due to the fact that among these tribes 
 a married woman is the wife of all the married 
 men of the tribe, and each married man is the 
 husband of all the married women — which does 
 not, however, prevent the distinctions between 
 
 the married and unmarried being rigidly ob- 
 served. 
 
 "This state is followed by polygamy, indicated 
 by a lighter shade of red, and which accounts 
 for this local patch in the Utah strip, nearly 
 down to 1890. 
 
 " Monogamy is rare among the ruder races, but 
 this strip of paler red in Ceylon is to represent 
 the Veddahs, where each male takes but one 
 wife, and is true to her alone until separated 
 by death. 
 
 "Almost simultaneously with the fading in 
 the red tint, which fading represents increasing- 
 respect for women, we have a deepening of the 
 blue tint lines which stand for ecclesiastical 
 and legal protection of the marriage relation 
 and of the rights of woman. Thus we see the 
 chart changing from deep red to reddish purple, 
 from this through purple to bluish purple; and 
 the future shows deep blue as indicating the 
 absolute recognition, formal and social, of all 
 
34 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 woman's claims to honor, protection, and prop- 
 erty. See now, from the year 400 A. D. on to 
 the right, a sudden deepening of the blue, indi- 
 cating the canonical law pronouncing a mar- 
 riage indissoluble — as is still the law in the 
 Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 " Note here local differences of color due to the 
 fact that among the Shawnee Indians the 
 women, while the only drudges, yet own all 
 the property ; and that among the Osages of our 
 Western plains the oldest daughter on her mar- 
 riage comes into possession of all the family 
 property. 
 
 "In our own country, see the extra blueness of 
 South Carolina, .which has no divorce laws; of 
 Georgia, in which absolute divorce is granted 
 only after the concurrent verdict of two juries, 
 at different terms of the court; and of New 
 York, where it is accorded for but one cause 
 only — adultery. See how the blue is paled in 
 the District of Columbia and in Wisconsin, 
 where the granting of divorce for any cause is 
 practically left to the discretion of the Court. 
 See how feeble the blue in Illinois and in Rhode 
 Island, yet note how it is overwhelmed by the 
 other strips, so that it is safe to predict that by 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 35 
 
 1925 those States will have been compelled by 
 pressure of public opinion to enact and enforce 
 laws more thoroughly protecting women. This 
 we must read in connection with the chart 
 showing centralization of government and uni- 
 formity of legislation in America, and with that 
 one showing the increase of Roman Catholicism 
 in the State of Illinois, and in its neighbor 
 Missouri. 
 
 " In the same way I here show graphically the 
 evolution of recorded speech, from thought- 
 writing by pictures — as practised among the 
 American tribes, particularly those of Mexico 
 and Central America, in China and the valley 
 of the Nile — to sound-writing as first done by 
 rebuses, and the cuneiform method of syllabic 
 writing in the Valley of Mesopotamia; then 
 alphabets proper, first non-phonetic as adopted 
 by the Hebrews, Greeks and Romans, and by 
 ourselves; then phonetic, which the rapidly in- 
 creasing rate of increase of the yellow lines rep- 
 resenting the phonetic principle shows will 
 soon become universal. 
 
 "This method — scientific, accurate and com- 
 plete, in conception and execution — has en- 
 abled me to foretell accurately the condition of 
 
30 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 men, manners and matter on this earth fifty, a 
 hundred or a thousand years from now. 
 
 " k By this time, like one who had set out on 
 his way by night, and travelled through a region 
 of smooth and idle dreams, our history now ar- 
 rives on the confines, where daylight and truth 
 meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our 
 view, though at far distance, true colors and 
 shapes.' 
 
 "Although I am strong and lusty for my years, 
 the span of my life is drawing to a close, and I 
 have so far been able only to record as a test 
 prophecy, the conditions which will prevail half 
 a century from now. 
 
 "With a portion of this history, impartially 
 written in advance of the events therein re- 
 corded, I now entrust you, that you niav the 
 better enter into the spirit of my life work. 
 The roll which I here hand you, contains a 
 fragment of history which will be true when 
 you have attained my age of three score years 
 and ten. 
 
 " I am desirous of a helper who shall not 
 only aid me during my lifetime, to record events, 
 but carry on the wonderful work, when these 
 eyes shall long have been sightless, these hands 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 37 
 
 but useless dust. Should the concise prophetic 
 record which I here give you attract your inter- 
 ested attention, and the bold and original 
 method by which it is attained win your confi- 
 dence, I should be glad to have you become at 
 once my assistant, and eventually my successor. 
 
 "The key to the method I have long ago reduced 
 to writing, so that in case of my death, before 
 imparting all the details to any one, the 
 science and the art of scientific prophecy shall 
 not die with me, but shall live forever, like my 
 own immortal soul." 
 
 Taking the manuscript, with an eagerness 
 which I could scarce conceal, I expressed my 
 appreciation of his confidence and good will, 
 no less than my admiration of the wonderful 
 method by which mere dots and lines, veriest 
 material and mechanical exponents, should re- 
 veal the secrets of things past and to come. 
 
 The venerable professor bowed me courte- 
 ously from his presence, and quitting the old 
 mansion, depository of so much knowledge, of 
 so many hopes, I was soon within earshot of the 
 rattle and roar of the great city. 
 
 "Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, 
 Which men call Earth," 
 
38 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 the glittering starlight beamed — but I heede<I 
 it not. A few minutes' brisk walking brought 
 me to my own door, my hand clutching, through 
 the thin cloth of my light overcoat, the precious 
 roll which contained that record, more precious 
 than the chronicles of kings long since vanished 
 into thin air; for was it not the unrolling of the 
 time to come — my future, Estelle's, and our 
 children's? What glass cases filled with regis- 
 ters of dynasties of the long ago; what sar- 
 cophagi, enclosing the mortal remains of mon- 
 archs and sages who swayed the earth's des- 
 tinies when time was yet young; what crumb- 
 ling rolls, or incised cylinders, bearing enact- 
 ments which shook nations to their foundations, 
 achievements which reduced whole peoples to 
 abject slavery, so interesting as these soft, 
 closely-written pages, on which I — I alone now 
 of all mortals on earth — was privileged to hear 
 the happenings of the time to come? What 
 treasury, with walls bursting under pressure of 
 silver bars and golden ingots, with cabinets en- 
 closing priceless jewels — so valuable as those 
 squares of paper, from which those records were 
 compiled, yet which a vagrant spark could re- 
 duce to nothingness? 
 
FIFTY YEAES HENCE. 39 
 
 I sprang up the stairs, three at a time, with 
 my brain on fire, my eyes wide open, glistening ; 
 the blood throbbing in temples and tingling in 
 finger tips. Like Monte Cristo, I felt that the 
 world was mine. 
 
 So eager was I to know with what the womb 
 of the future was pregnant, that I disregarded, 
 in favor of my excited mind, the claims of my 
 wearied body; and forgetful of the fact that I 
 had eaten nothing since morn, I pondered far 
 into the night over the revelations of the won- 
 derful manuscript entrusted to me by my won- 
 derful new-found friend. 
 
 Omitting some introductory portions which 
 consisted of practically the same partial ex- 
 planations as to methods, w T hich Brathwaite had 
 given me orally, I give this manuscript entire. 
 
'FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 Warwick :— There is a history in all men's lives 
 Figuring the nature of the times deceased ; 
 The which observed, a man may prophesy 
 With a near aim, of the main chance of things 
 As yet not come to life : which in their seeds 
 And weak beginnings lie intreasured. 
 Such things become the hatch and brood of time : 
 
 Henry IV., Part II, in, 1. 
 
 With my feet planted on the one thousand 
 eight hundred and ninet3 r -third step in that 
 part of time's imperishable edifice w T hich has 
 risen since the birth of Jesus, the Blessed Naza- 
 rene, and my head above the clouds of five de- 
 cades which hover above it, I, Roger Brath- 
 waite, read as upon a printed scroll the yet-un- 
 written records of the year 1943. These I have 
 reduced to w r riting as an earnest of what may 
 come when my system of verifying and com- 
 pleting history and of anticipating the future 
 shall have been carried out as fully for five hun- 
 dred years as for fifty years to come. 
 
 I see around me the millions of this year 1943 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 41 
 
 as people of the time in which I live — or rather 
 find myself so transported mentally that the 
 events of fifty years from 1893 onwards are as 
 of the past. I see the households and the na- 
 tions of 1943, and with them hold plain converse 
 in the universal tongue of the Electric Age; for 
 the language written, and to a great extent 
 spoken all over the civilized world, is every- 
 where the same; having been prepared by a 
 committee of philologists of all countries, and 
 formally adopted at a congress held in Paris 
 in 1915. It combines the soft liquid beauty 
 of the* Italian, the dignity of the Spanish, and 
 the majesty of the Greek; the adaptability to 
 new ideas of the German, the delicate shadings 
 of the French, and the business-like exactness 
 of the English. Its spelling is phonetic; and 
 phonetic printing is as common as phonographic 
 writing. 
 
 The written language has been greatly en- 
 riched by characters to represent signs which in 
 the year 1900 could not be expressed in writing 
 or in printing; as, for instance, whistling, 
 clucking and kissing, barking, howling, groan- 
 ing, laughter, etc. In fact, every sound which 
 can be imitated by the human voice may be so 
 
42 FIFTY YEAKS HENCE. 
 
 recorded upon paper that it can be read and re- 
 produced by any one (not dumb) who can lead 
 and write. 
 
 The theatre is the great preservative of the 
 purity of spoken language, both in grammar 
 and in pronunciation ; each great actor being an 
 arbiter elegantiarum in matters of speech. Cen- 
 sors hold all public speakers to a high stand- 
 ard of pronunciation and diction ; and the study 
 of grammar, while pursued by the more highly 
 educated, has been largely done away with by 
 reason of purity of speech being attained by 
 force of example and criticism. 
 
 The use of the typewriting machine is uni- 
 versal, the machines printing phonetic charac- 
 ters exactly the same as those used in book and 
 newspaper work, with variable spacing, and jus- 
 tifying perfectly. These machines are so ar- 
 ranged that they niay be connected with the 
 telegraphic system; so that a letter may be 
 written in New York or in Paris by a person 
 in Chicago and Melbourne; and all books of 
 record are written in by machine only. 
 
 Writing is phonographic or phonetic, only; 
 each word being composed of as many charac- 
 ters as there are sounds therein; no two sounds 
 
FIFTY YEAES HENCE. 43 
 
 having the same character, and each sound 
 having but one letter. 
 
 Printing has become one of the most noble 
 of the fine arts. Photographs in half tones are 
 printed by every daily, and printing in natural 
 colors (for many years a common feature of the 
 book trade), is beginning to be adopted by the 
 more enterprising. The boundaries between 
 lithographic and relief printing have been large- 
 ly broken down by zincographic and other pro- 
 cesses; the speed of impression more than 
 quadrupled, while the sharpness of fine lines 
 and the blackness of masses are as perfect as 
 formerly in etching and line engraving. In 
 these latter branches great progress has been 
 made, both in speed of production of the plate 
 and in the rapidity of printing therefrom. 
 
 There is wonderful advancement in telegraph- 
 ing, pictures and fac-simile documents being 
 sent over the wires, when wires are required; 
 although in most cases wires are not needed; 
 and what few there are, lie hidden from public 
 view. There are, indeed, seme inventors so 
 expert that they can telegraph pictures in nat- 
 ural colors, taking advantage of the great im- 
 provements in photography, by which any object 
 
44 FIFTY YEAKS HENCE. 
 
 can, at one exposure, be photographed perma- 
 nently in its proper colors. 
 
 By the new system of telegraphic printing, 
 news is set up in several cities simultaneously, 
 
 in column width, all ready to be worked off 
 on the great hourly papers, which with their 
 beautiful colored illustrations, are a marvel as 
 well as a convenience. 
 
 A newly-discovered process transmits from 
 the scene of any great event, as a conflagration, 
 convention, or battle, an accurate photograph 
 in colors, which is reproduced in one or a hun- 
 dred cities, there to be printed in the local 
 journals, which latter have become, in fact, 
 hourly bulletins of the ongoings of the neigh- 
 borhood and of the world at large. 
 
 Telegraphic and telephonic communication 
 with moving railway trains has been for forty 
 years an accomplished fact, so that the business 
 man, desiring to keep up his correspondence 
 from and with his office, while travelling, can 
 readily do so; and may, in fact, from time to 
 time, talk with those at home; while a states- 
 man may from his seat in a pneumatic or electric 
 railway car, address his fellow-legislators in ses- 
 sion assembled. 
 
FIFTY YEAKS HENCE. 45 
 
 Vessels at sea may be communicated with by 
 both telegraph and telephone, no wire being em- 
 ployed. Soundings are automatically indicated 
 and recorded as the vessel moves along, so that 
 the log not only is made up as the voyage pro- 
 gresses, but serves as a chart to guide the course. 
 
 In the homes of the masses as well as in those 
 of the millionaires, there is little of comfort or 
 convenience to be desired. The luxuries of 
 1893 are the necessities of 1943 ; while to these 
 have been added refinements undreamed of fifty 
 years before. 
 
 Houses made of concrete in one piece, with- 
 out joint, defy wind, storm and the intrusion of 
 "rats and mice and such small deer." 
 
 In every house, there is a system of piping 
 and wiring by which heating-gas, lighting-gas 
 and oxygen ; hot and cold, salt and fresh water, 
 steam and electric lighting and telephone ser- 
 vice are laid on; while thorough ventilation is 
 effected by a system of exhaust operated from a 
 central station. The sanitary appliances are 
 under control of the municipal authorities ; and 
 disinfecting solutions are as necessary a part 
 thereof, as the supply of fresh or salt water 
 which flushes out the waste-pipes. 
 
46 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 The law, which is the conservator of health as 
 well as of morals and of peace, compels every 
 house to have bathtubs in proportion to the 
 number of people living therein; and bathing is 
 practically made compulsory. Public baths in 
 which, as in the days of the ancient Romans, 
 men meet for social converse and the transac- 
 tion of business, are 'maintained in every town 
 of any importance; medicated and electrified 
 plunges and showers being under the manage- 
 ment of experts in hydropathic sanitation. 
 
 In the houses of the wealthy, and in the clubs, 
 the opera is "wired on," just as hot and cold 
 water, warm and cold air, electricity, and other 
 conveniences are in the same way "laid on." In 
 fact, the celebrated preachers are heard by 
 those who prefer to stay at home; every one 
 may sit in his or her chair and get the utterances 
 of the most distinguished orators as well as of 
 the most celebrated singers and musicians. 
 
 As noted under another head, lawgivers and 
 public officials listen to and address their con- 
 freres, their colleagues and their constituents, 
 at all times and in all places; from their homes, 
 from public baths and from public conveyances ; 
 is|o that the Senator from Oregon may address at 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 47 
 
 the same moment both Houses in the Capitol at 
 Washington, while preparing in the intervals of 
 his private business and local political matters, 
 to make a campaign speech in the Mississippi 
 Valley, without leaving the shores of the Pa- 
 cific. 
 
 All new houses are monolithic and must be 
 built from plans approved by the General Coun- 
 cil of Architects. The law requires, under 
 heavy penalties, that every building shall have 
 a liberal and specified window-area, and be 
 properly warmed and ventilated. 
 
 The new system of diffused daylight is by most 
 preferred to electricity. The panels with which 
 the walls and ceilings are covered, have a power 
 of absorbing sunlight all day and giving it out 
 at night, thus making the rooms pleasantly 
 bright by night. All beds are enclosed in beau- 
 tiful cabinets (connected with the general sys- 
 tem of ventilation), so that one steps from a 
 bright chamber into his comfortable sleeping- 
 compartment, and there, lulled by sweet music, 
 if he so wish it, sleeps the sleep of the happy 
 dweller of 1943. 
 
 The compartments are warmed, as the occu- 
 pants prefer, by warm air from the general sup- 
 
48 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 ply, by electricity from the common central sta- 
 tion, or by heating-gas manufactured at a 
 distance from the city, and pumped through 
 long miles of pipes to where it is needed. 
 
 The streets are lighted with a soft, well dif- 
 fused illumination, bright enough to enable 
 reading from ordinary print, at any point. The 
 electric wires which carry currents to supply 
 the lamps, are invisible. Each house con- 
 tributes its quota to the illumination, by electric 
 glow-lamps over its doors and windows, so that 
 the effect, upon a moonless night, is fairy -like. 
 
 The sea-board cities have salt water "laid on" 
 for bathing purposes, street-washing and use at 
 fires; although the methods of fire extinguish- 
 ment have greatly changed for the better. Few 
 fires are possible, and those are generally put 
 out by chemical vapors, automatically dis- 
 charged from pipes placed in every room and 
 passage. 
 
 The results of paternal oversight as earned 
 out by republican institutions, are most grati- 
 fying; the annual death-rate being reduced to 
 about 7 per thousand in sections favored by Na- 
 ture, and never exceeding 10, in the most crowd- 
 ed districts and those least blessed in climate. 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 49 
 
 Medical science and art no longer work blind- 
 ly; no longer act haphazard. 
 
 The average life of man (largely, let it be said, 
 due to the efforts of the life insurance companies 
 in enforcing sanitary improvements and in fos- 
 tering medical and surgical research), has been 
 about doubled. Surgical operations which 
 fifty years before were deemed chimerical or 
 impossible are now, thanks to the improved an- 
 aesthetics and antiseptics at command, per- 
 formed most frequently; so that laparotomy, 
 the Caesarian operation, bone-grafting, removal 
 of diseased portions of the brain and extirpation 
 of the kidneys, and their replacement by those 
 of the sheep or calf, are common and successful. 
 Acute disease is treated almost exclusively by 
 heat, cold and electricity. The subcutaneous 
 injections discovered, or rather foreshadowed, by 
 Brown-Sequard, have been brought to such pitch 
 of perfection that by their use the vigor of forty 
 is maintained until eighty or even ninety years. 
 The noble work of Koch in subjugating pul- 
 monary consumption has rendered that dread 
 disease no longer contagious, while brighter light 
 upon the mode of living, and improvements in 
 
50 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 comfort at home and when travelling, have 
 made safe for consumptives many climates in 
 which formerly no one with predisposition to 
 lung trouble could live. The sanitary precau- 
 tions enforced by local and National bodies have 
 completely stopped and prevented the ravages of 
 typhoid and other filth diseases; while the ter- 
 rible effects of such epidemics as the grippe are 
 made impossible in the face of the medical 
 knowledge of the twentieth century. 
 
 Transfusion of blood is accomplished, in case 
 of wounds by accident, without inconvenience 
 to the one supplying the life-fluid, or danger to 
 the recipient, while effective tonics bring about 
 the rapid replacement of the amount of blood 
 abstracted in the emergency. 
 
 The triumphs of electricians in their wonder- 
 ful science have caused the twentieth century 
 to be named the Age of Electricity. 
 
 The power of great rivers, such as Niagara, is 
 utilized by being converted into electricity and 
 transmitted where desired; also stored up at 
 convenient distributing places, to be used wdien 
 wanted. Wave force has been taken hold of 
 and similarly carried to great distances and used 
 in quantities, or at times, to suit. 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 51 
 
 The wind and the lightning are in the same 
 way harnessed to do man's bidding; so that 
 each storm contributes to public wealth to an 
 extent greater than the damage it works. 
 
 Lightning is no longer a source of danger. The 
 electric and other connections of the building 
 render an injurious shock impossible ; and where 
 it does strike any building in the protected cir- 
 cuit, the charge is stored to be used for domestic 
 purposes, such as driving the passenger and 
 goods elevators in the house, or furnishing light 
 and heat. 
 
 Welding is accomplished by electricity, on a 
 large scale. Not only are ordinary masses of 
 steel so made one, but the hulls, masts and yards 
 of steel vessels are thus welded together electric- 
 ally, so that there is no possibility of a seam 
 "giving," nor of a leak taking place. Steel 
 bridge-members being similarly electrically 
 welded together, the danger from such bridges 
 giving way is reduced to an insignificant mini- 
 mum. 
 
 Primary batteries generate an electric current 
 by chemical action upon coal, without the pro- 
 duction of heat or odor ; so that the steam-engine 
 is seldom needed, and, indeed, in many places as 
 
r>L' FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 rarely seen as the wind-mill was in 1893. 
 
 Horology, as of old, is one of the exact sci- 
 ences ; but we find upon every street, electrical- 
 ly-driven clocks telling to the tenth of a second 
 the time of day or night; the twenty four hour 
 system having come into general use about 1900, 
 and London time being kept in every city in the 
 civilized world. 
 
 The central stations of the telephone and other 
 conveniences are worked by the subscribers 
 themselves; the apparatus in each house en- 
 abling the subscriber to ascertain whether or 
 not the person with whom he wishes to com- 
 municate is at liberty; and to connect with him 
 if he is. 
 
 All cities on the Continent are connected in a 
 universal telegraphic and telephonic exchange, 
 so that San Francisco can write, print or talk in 
 New Orleans or Montreal. The telephone is so 
 -improved that it can be worked across the At- 
 lantic, although the Pacific as yet defies all at- 
 tempts of inventors to produce a system that 
 will work without fail under all conditions. By 
 this wonderful improvement Patti, from her 
 castle at Craig-y-Nos; Campanini, from his be- 
 loved Italy, and other celebrated artists, could 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 53 
 
 have delighted those who heard them in New 
 York, by taking part in a concert together; but 
 those great artists are but memories, and have 
 been supplanted by others, with voices im- 
 proved by surgery and special nurture until 
 their range, delicacy and power have been 
 brought to a degree of perfection of which the 
 , nineteenth century never dreamed. 
 
 The chemists have not been far behind the 
 electricians in their triumphs and successes. 
 
 The subject of special plant foods has been, 
 during the past forty years, taken up by agri- 
 cultural chemists with such results that not 
 only can any special plant be given its. special 
 food, but special portions of it can be developed 
 in disproportion to the rest; thus, oranges and 
 lemons can be grown without seeds, and dwarf 
 wheat practically without any straw. New va- 
 rieties of food-plants have been developed from 
 wild plants, while fertilizers are employed to 
 dissolve the rocks that are in the soil and ren- 
 der them at once absorbable by the plant roots. 
 
 In metallurgy, surprising progress has been 
 made. Several new noble metals have been 
 discovered in the Ural Mountains and in Africa* 
 giving scientists and jewellers a variety in color, 
 
54 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 hardness and weight, as surprising as pleasing. 
 The manufacture of steel direct from the ore has 
 become un fait accompli. Iron is used for 
 few purposes, steel being cheaper and better. 
 Aluminum, which is plentifully extracted from 
 common clay, has taken the place of steel and 
 bronze for many uses, in fact for all places 
 where great mass is not practically a requisite. 
 
 The chemist is even more ingenious and more 
 of a benefactor than his predecessor of the nine- 
 teenth century. He has produced from coal oil, 
 in paying quantities, both sugar and vinegar; 
 and has also solved the problem of making 
 sugar from starch. 
 
 The majority of fabrics are rendered, by 
 chemical processes, proof against fire and mil- 
 dew; and the law renders the use of such fire- 
 proof substances compulsory where wood, cloth 
 or paper is used in building construction. 
 
 Medical and chemical science has so far ad- 
 vanced that special foods are devised for par- 
 ticular parts of the body. The man who uses 
 his brain employs certain condiments; he who 
 gains Ids living by the sweat of his brow others, 
 and so on. 
 
 Foods are concentrated to a degree once 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 55 
 
 deemed absolutely impossible. A vessel can 
 carry in a small chest, which two men can lift, 
 a week's supply of nourishment for five hundred 
 
 people. 
 
 Antiseptics of pleasant taste and non-poison- 
 ous character permit the preservation to almost 
 illimitable extent, of heretofore perishable 
 foods. 
 
 The profusion of new dyes is so great that in- 
 dustrial chemists have, by common consent, re- 
 stricted the output of shades to enable buyers 
 and manufacturers to keep up with the pace. 
 The shades for each year are announced in 
 advance two to five years ahead. Among these 
 dyes are many which have a sheen truly me- 
 tallic, thus producing effects never before 
 dreamed of outside of Nature's laboratory. The 
 butterfly and the peacock are out-rivaled; the 
 gorgeous beauties with which Brazil abounded 
 before her more complete settlement and civili- 
 zation, cast into the shade. Truly " Solomon, in 
 all his glory, was not arrayed like unto one of 
 these " might the on-looker say on beholding a 
 bevy of young girls, clad in the latest spring 
 fashions. 
 
 There have been produced numberless new 
 
56 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 alkaloids having- medicinal effects of character 
 as various as the sources and methods of produc- 
 tion of the drugs themselves. 
 
 The four haloids, iodine, bromine, chlorine and 
 fluorine, have long been discovered to be aUo- 
 tropic forms of one and the same simple ele- 
 ment; and the relations between carbon and 
 boron, and carbon and silicon, have been traced 
 to such a degree as to render possible the pro- 
 duction of new steels and other alloys, compris- 
 ing a range of properties undreamed of in 
 1893. 
 
 Diamonds are no longer precious stones, since 
 they are electrically deposited in great quanti- 
 ties at trifling expense; as are, of course, all 
 other stones once styled precious. 
 
 The dead are disposed of by cremation in gas 
 furnaces, or by dessication ; and the establish- 
 ments for performing these operations, and for 
 disposing of the remains, are under strictest gov- 
 ernmental supervision. 
 
 The use of explosives — confined to peaceful 
 operations since war has been voted too expen- 
 sive^ — has largely increased; and there are num- 
 bers of them which, while explosible only by 
 electricity applied in a particular way — thus 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 57 
 
 preventing possibility of accident — have a force 
 which throws into the shade all the dynamite 
 and other explosives of the preceding century. 
 
 The clothing worn by men is very little 
 changed from that of the century previous, ex- 
 cept in texture and materials. Numberless 
 plants of Mexican and African origin have been 
 brought into nse as bearing textile fibres; and 
 improvements in spinning and weaving have en- 
 abled the production of fabrics of most surpris- 
 ing fineness and strength. The silk hat, which 
 was the pest of civilized men in the previous 
 century, has given place to a modification of 
 what was once known as the Alpine, save that 
 the new head-covering is lighter ami more 
 graceful, and those employed in winter are 
 warmer than the others. In summer, straw has 
 been superseded by paper. The women have 
 decided upon a dress in external appearance not 
 dissimilar to that which for so many centuries 
 made Japanese women so picturesque. Corsets 
 have been abolished, and pictures bearing date 
 of the preceding century, in which the bustle 
 is a prominent feature, have been tabooed as 
 suggestive if not indecent. 
 
 The manufacture of paper has so greatly been 
 
58 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 improved, that sheets are now used of only 
 one-half the thickness formerly rendered nec- 
 essary for any purpose; and of finish as mar- 
 vellous as their strength. Leather possesses a 
 suppleness, a resistance to wear, and a beauty 
 and variety of grain, as surprising as desirable, 
 while it is not only waterproof, but permeable 
 by the perspiration of the foot. 
 
 Iron and steel may be cast into the thinnest 
 sections and the most complicated forms. 
 
 Flour-making is accomplished by air blasts to 
 perform the disintegration of the wheat grains, 
 with electrical separation of the various useful 
 by and waste products. But the new-process 
 bread is made directly from the decorticated 
 wheat berry, without ever grinding it into flour; 
 the baker taking the wheat and doughing it up 
 directly without ferment. 
 
 Timber is dyed of any desired color before fell- 
 ing, and bent into any shape by steaming, so that 
 Hie most complex outlines may be given it with- 
 out weakening it. 
 
 Umbrella covers and other textile objects of 
 irregular shape, formerly made up of gored sec- 
 tions, are now woven in one piece and of any de- 
 sired fineness. Rugs and seamless carpets an 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 59 
 
 inch thick and of infinite variety in pattern are 
 produced with any wished-for outline, to fit the 
 projections and recesses of the apartment for 
 which they may be ordered. 
 
 Flexible and malleable glass are no longer sci- 
 entific curiosities; and toughened glass bells 
 break the night's silence with their sweet chim- 
 ing of the hours as they fly. 
 
 In porcelain and other ceramic wares the long- 
 lost arts of the ancients have been rivalled or 
 revived; and the most exquisite productions of 
 the Land of the Rising Sun duplicated or ex- 
 celled. 
 
 In brewing and wine-making all hurtful com- 
 pounds are eliminated, and none but the health- 
 giving and gladdening retained. 
 
 In mechanics an entirely new principle has 
 been applied; the cold of winter, as well as the 
 heat of summer, being hra-nessed to do man's 
 work. The scientific engineers of 1925 recog- 
 nized the fact that in any motor it was the dif- 
 ference between the initial and final tempera- 
 tures of the steam, gas, or other medium 
 employed, that did the work; this work being 
 the utilizable percentage of that difference in 
 temperature; and acting upon this idea, by 1935 
 
<)0 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 there were engines which ran by cold as well as 
 those driven by heat. The snow-fields of winter 
 then, as well as the great arid plains of summer, 
 have for some time been used to make and store 
 up power, which is used only as wanted. 
 
 A striking landscape feature is the great 
 number of windmills, stately, picturesque and 
 beautiful, which lazily flap their sails or merrily 
 spin with the brisk breeze, generating and stor- 
 ing up power for the houses upon which they are 
 perched. These mills are let run full speed in 
 the fiercest storms; the surplus of power going 
 to the owner's storage system, to be used when 
 wanted, or contributed to the common stock in 
 case of need. 
 
 Railway cars are made very largely of alumi- 
 num and paper, thus possessing great stiffness, 
 lightness and strength. 
 
 Many new varieties of steel have made their 
 appearance; boron and silicon being used indif- 
 ferently with carbon in forming combinations 
 with iron, which possesses properties never be- 
 fore seen in steels of any kind. 
 
 The hardening of copper has been rediscov- 
 ered, and for twenty-five or more years this 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 61 
 
 metal has been tempered and worked just as steel 
 was in the century preceding. 
 
 The manufacture of anti-friction metals has 
 been so far advanced that the use of lubricants 
 is rendered unnecessary. 
 
 Transportation of the person and of goods, 
 large and small, is as greatly advanced as that 
 of ideas and images. 
 
 Steam is a crudity of the past century. Pneu- 
 matic and electric railways carry people and 
 freight with swiftness and safety, in all direc- 
 tions and at trifling rates. To every house and 
 from every store, of any importance, pneumatic 
 tubes radiate from central stations, so that pack- 
 ages and messages can be sent from any dwell- 
 ing or establishment in the system to any other 
 by simply having connection made through the 
 central office, as in the old-fashioned way of 
 telephoning. 
 
 Great air-ships hover over city and country, 
 and a weekly line of dirigible balloons, under 
 the auspices of the General Government, is in 
 preparation. 
 
 Ocean navigation is rendered both safe and 
 swift. Great floating palaces ply daily between 
 Montauk Point and Bristol, making the Atlan- 
 
(>2 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 tic transit in three days. Seasickness has been 
 banished by medical science, and indeed the mo- 
 tion of the great electricaUy-driven argosies is so 
 smooth that there would be little danger of sick- 
 ness even without the remedies. Storms are al- 
 layed by the use of oil discharged from these 
 vessels, which now ride the waves in defiance of 
 their strength. 
 
 New models of vessels, taken from the marine 
 division of the animal kingdom, have been in- 
 troduced, and the rivalry between "deep-keel 1 ' 
 and "centreboard" vessels, which in the latter 
 quarter of the nineteenth century caused such 
 absorbing discussion, is as nothing to the inter- 
 est manifested by the advocates of the various 
 models — the "pike," the "swordfish," and so on. 
 
 Across all great isthmuses there are canals and 
 ship railways; and projects are under way for a 
 transcontinental ship railway from New York 
 to San Francisco. 
 
 The bottoms of all great rivers are paved 
 smoothly and kept clean, so that navigation is 
 never interfered with by bars; and these rivers 
 are sources of health and strength rather than 
 erf danger to the cities through or by which they 
 flow. 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 03 
 
 In every great city there are upon all but the 
 minor streets steel plate-ways carrying electric 
 currents, and upon which the ordinary vehicles 
 run without noise or jolting; although the ex- 
 cellent condition of the pavements would seem 
 to render this unnecessary. 
 
 The street paving is monolithic (that is, all in 
 one piece), of an artificial stone as hard as good 
 limestone; giving a surface sufficiently gritty to 
 ensure good hold for the feet of the few horses 
 which are employed, and yet leaving the surface 
 smooth, in order that it may be kept clean and 
 give good traction for the short space of time in 
 Which vehicles (which ordinarily take the tracks 
 on the plate-ways) are running over it. 
 
 In New York City, Arcade railways, with va- 
 rious ramifications, extend along the main art- 
 eries of travel, and give rapid transit to citizens 
 and visitors alike. Double tracks in each di- 
 rection insure absolute safety, while the express 
 trains, stopping only at principal stations, have 
 their separate way; the local trains, stopping at 
 every block, taking the outer one of each pair 
 of tracks. The motive power here employed 
 is electricity, partly brought on from Niagara 
 and other power-producing stations, and partly 
 
64 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 carried along the Jersey and Long Island 
 coasts, where the waves are busy night and day, 
 doing the work of New York and other cities. 
 
 The vehicles upon the street are driven by 
 electric power, and the same current which 
 drives them affords light at night to occupant 
 and passer-by. 
 
 The plate-ways carry au electric current 
 which may be taken off by those vehicles pro- 
 vided with necessary motors and connecting 
 appliances; so that the horses have little trac- 
 tion to do; and in fact some private vehicles, 
 never going off the streets supplied with plate- 
 ways, have no horses at all. 
 
 Other private vehicles are supplied with mo- 
 tors deriving their current from overhead wires, 
 not through trollies as once done in electric 
 railways, but by induction. 
 
 Storage batteries that are light and compact 
 have been invented and are already in use for 
 driving carriages along roads which have 
 neither plate- ways nor overhead conductors by 
 which the current can be carried by induction 
 to the motors within the vehicles. The motors 
 for such private carriages are no larger than 
 a man's hat, and are turned out bv the thousand 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 65 
 
 just as Waterbury watches were made in 1893. 
 
 In other divisions of the broad domain of sci- 
 ence, than those referred to in detail, the past 
 fifty years have been laurel-crowned. 
 
 Astronomers have not been idle during the 
 last sixty years or so. They have reached out 
 into space, and discovered enough asteroids to 
 account for the lost planet between Mars and 
 Jupiter; and have supplied the missing link be- 
 tween Mercury and the sun. With the spec- 
 troscope they have found in the sun and various 
 planets, several new metals, for which, by an- 
 alogy they have searched on earth, and many 
 of which they have found. 
 
 The geologists, delving into the crust of the 
 earth, have mapped out its entire surface, so 
 that the location of every considerable quantity 
 of gold, silver, iron, copper, tin, coal, oil, etc., 
 is known and recorded, and useless prospecting 
 done away with. The Arctic and Antarctic 
 zones have been thoroughly worked, the open 
 Polar Sea discovered and regularly traversed, 
 and the mines of the Polar regions worked reg- 
 ularly and with profit for metals and minerals 
 used every day in the world's industrial pur- 
 suits. 
 
66 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 Scarcity of rain in any one place is promptly 
 counteracted by each local government by con- 
 sent of the others concerned; great fires being- 
 started to attract the clouds, which will bring in 
 their arms the friendly drops. 
 
 The fine arts of 1043 have kept pace with 
 other branches of culture. 
 
 Sculpture and painting, instead of having 
 been thrown into the shade by the wonderful 
 achievements in photography and engraving, 
 have received a great impetus. Leading citi- 
 zens vie with each other in purchasing (some- 
 times even in making), statues to adorn their 
 own homes and gardens, and public streets and 
 parks. In the same way painting is taught as 
 a science as well as an art; to be a fair painter 
 being more common than to be a fair performer 
 upon the instrument once known as "piano- 
 forte." The pipe organ has become the na- 
 tional musical instrument, and its glorious tones 
 are heard from houses of far less than palatial 
 pretensions. 
 
 The public buildings of this country, no longer 
 laughing-stocks for foreigners, are at once spac- 
 ious, beautiful, substantial and convenient. In 
 them the new American style of architecture, 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 67 
 
 in which, proportions are of more value than 
 arrangement, finds fitting types on every hand. 
 
 In every town of any magnitude or import- 
 ance, are free museums of science and art, visits 
 to which are as common as to the beautiful 
 parks laid out as breathing places in the larger 
 cities. 
 
 Color-masters vie with each other in great 
 kaleidoscopic exhibitions, which out-rival in 
 beauty of rapid combinations and successions of 
 color, the most brilliant pyrotechnic displays of 
 the generations past. 
 
 The art of ]>erfumery has been carried to a 
 point never even dreamed of by those of the 
 preceding century. The law steps in and pre- 
 vents any one from using, or permitting the 
 use of, any odor (like musk) which is prejudicial 
 to health or general comfort. The gamut of 
 odor has been discovered, and harmonies of per- 
 fumes are made just like those of colors, or of 
 musical tones. Concerts are given at which, 
 the great perfume-masters of the day produce 
 chords and pleasing successions of odors, which 
 draw great crowds of the most refined, fully ap- 
 preciative of the delights there offered. 
 
 Flower-culture is a national pastime. Where 
 
68 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 there are no large gardens, small patches are 
 <levoted to floriculture; and in the most crowded 
 city, window-boxes hold the latest new hybrid 
 plants and make the most frequented thorough- 
 fares a garden of beauty. Dwarfing and ag- 
 grandizing plants, by electric currents passed 
 around their roots, has been practiced for twen- 
 ty years upon a large scale ; so that in the great 
 conservatories, one may find tin}' plants grown 
 from the cones of the Yosemite great trees, and 
 may also see what have sprung from tiny fungi 
 but are now as large as the old-fashioned cab- 
 bages of the days of President Harrison. The 
 dyeing of plants and of their flowers by sub 
 stances introduced in solution at their roots, is 
 a fine art most successful and pleasing in its 
 application, 
 
 Banking is much more simple and much more 
 safe, both for the banker and for the dealer, 
 than in the old risky days. Panics are impos- 
 sible. The wise action of the Bank of England, 
 in connection with other monetary institutions, 
 in averting a financial crash in November, 1890, 
 by coming to the rescue of Baring Brothers with 
 155,000,000, began most auspiciously an emi- 
 nently successful era of mutual help. Every 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 69 
 
 bank is guaranteed by Government, and the 
 notes of any bank in any one Government are 
 good in any country on the globe; the various 
 Governments having treaties to the effect that 
 each shall guarantee to the common banking 
 fund a certain percentage of its revenues, and 
 the amount of money issued in each country 
 being in proportion to the net revenue of the 
 year preceding. 
 
 All currency is decimal, and uniform over the 
 whole civilized globe, greatly facilitating travel 
 and commerce. 
 
 By an ingenious system the great clearing- 
 hjouses of each country are united in a National 
 Clearing-house which serves weekly for all 
 those in each city the same purpose as the local 
 establishments do daily for the banks which are 
 members thereof. Similarly, there is in Lon- 
 don an International Clearing-house through 
 which the National Clearing-houses all over the 
 world effect monthly clearances. Each city 
 bank takes an equal quantity of certificates in 
 its local clearing-house, so that when aid is ex- 
 tended, no unfavorable inference is drawn; and 
 the same arrangement exists up to the Interna- 
 tional establishment in London. 
 
TO FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 The new noble metals Columbium, Africum, 
 Asium and Australium furnish coins ten times 
 as light as those of fifty years previous, while 
 very far exceeding them in wearing power. The 
 paper money extant being of equal value with 
 coin, is in universal circulation, while its cleanli- 
 ness and general good condition are insured by 
 frequent renewals; every bank of issue and de- 
 posit being compelled by law since 1910 to ac- 
 cept torn and soiled notes at par and replace 
 them with others, new, clean and whole. 
 
 In most mercantile and manufacturing estab- 
 lishments, profit-sharing is the rule rather than 
 the exception. 
 
 Naturally a country so blessed in material and 
 moral wealth, would be the objective point of 
 the oppressed and unhappy from all over the 
 world; but there is in the immigration laws a 
 strict clause, carried out most rigidly, rendering 
 the possession of a certain degree of intelligence 
 and education absolutely a sine qua non for all 
 "who wish to set foot upon our shores. The old 
 law by which contracting for labor abroad 
 was a punishable offense has been so far 
 changed that no one is permitted to land unless 
 
FIFTY" YEARS HENCE. 71 
 
 possessed of means enough to support him for 
 
 three months without work, or having from a 
 responsible party a contract for his labor for 
 half a year ahead. Thus no paupers are thrown 
 upon the community, to be supported by either 
 the working or the leisure class. 
 
 The Government takes it upon itself, first to 
 prevent idleness, and second to furnish work to 
 the unemployed ; so that there is no vagrancy. 
 
 In every city of importance, as well as in the 
 minor towns, the planting of trees on the streets 
 is compulsory; and if a lot-holder does not 
 plant and maintain on his street line the kind 
 and number of trees for which the laws call, 
 they are planted there by the local authorities, 
 at his charge. 
 
 Trial by jury was abolished in 1910 with 
 scarcely a dissenting vote; and instead of 
 ignorant or prejudiced juries, learned judges, 
 who hold their office during life or until im- 
 peached by their peers, decide questions of law 
 and evidence. The statute- Law has been 
 greatly amended, and the common law super- 
 seded by principles of equity. 
 
 The enactments concerning marriage and di- 
 
72 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 vorce are the sarnie in all civilized nations, and 
 their enforcement most strict. 
 
 Only the physically perfect are permitted to 
 marry, and stirpiculture is made a common and 
 honored study. The local government being 
 responsible for the maintenance of cripples and 
 others physically as well as mentally ill, keeps 
 strict watch over health and morals. Surgical 
 and other hospitals are kept up at great expense, 
 and any one meeting with an accident, or be- 
 coming ill, is treated at the hospital instead of 
 at home. 
 
 Elections are held in a quiet and orderly 
 manner; and the cumulative system having been 
 universally adopted in 1904, the minority has a 
 voice in proceedings of local as well as National 
 bodies. 
 
 Female suffrage has taken the place of female 
 suffering. The education of the young is largely 
 confided to the direction of intelligent and re- 
 fined ladies, who consider their educational 
 duties as on a par with those which they owe 
 to religion proper. 
 
 The new generations, better educated and 
 better looked after than those which preceded 
 them, find at once fewer inducements to crime, 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 73 
 
 and more reasons for not committing it; so that 
 imprisonment is not so common as formerly, and 
 execution is far more rare. Asphyxiation by 
 carbonic acid gas is the kindly and unrevoking 
 method chosen. 
 
 Trades unions flourish, but their basis is most 
 praiseworthy. The cardinal quality which 
 every member must possess is competence in his- 
 trade. No one is admitted to membership in 
 any "degree" of the guild, unless he has been 
 properly instructed and proved capable and 
 competent to do what is called for by that de- 
 gree of advancement in his craft; and those of 
 the highest proficiency receive pay according to 
 the value of their services. Thus there is con- 
 fidence in and respect for the trade organiza- 
 tions; and their members have some inducement 
 to excel in their chosen crafts. 
 
 In religion, there has been a fusion of the va- 
 rious sects into a vast Church in which Charity 
 in its broadest sense is the leading principle, 
 and the golden rule inscribed upon the mental 
 tablets of all good people. A man's religion is- 
 deemed as of his inmost private life; as bearing 
 upon his confidential personal relations with his 
 God, and no more to be inquired into nor dis- 
 
1 4 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 cussed than his most sacred domestic life. 
 Rancor and hatred engendered by religious dif- 
 ferences are of the unregretted past, and 
 mission-work, begun at home, and thoroughly 
 prosecuted with a view to physical improvement 
 and mental advancement, as well as spiritual 
 enlightenment, is carried to the heathen on the 
 wings of mercy and healing. 
 
 In these blessed days of 1943 each dweller in 
 a progressive community recognizes his duties 
 towards himself, his fellows and his Maker — 
 acknowledges, his obligation to be charitable and 
 to contribute to the advancement of all about 
 him. They are halcyon days; they have 
 brought man nearer to himself, to his brethren 
 — who are all the world — and to his Maker, who 
 is everywhere and forever. They point, they 
 surely point, to further steps; to onward steps, 
 to upward steps; to steps which through swift- 
 succeeding centuries shall bring mankind nearer 
 and still nearer to divine knowledge, and make 
 him in each generation more and more nearly 
 the worthy, perfect image of an all- wise and 
 beneficent God. 
 
 Roger Bratiiwaite. 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 75 
 
 I read this prophecy through without stop- 
 ping; then gave myself up to the idea of the 
 great possibilities about to present themselves 
 to me. To be sole heir and executor of a prop- 
 erty so valuable as this arduous life-work must 
 be, should elate any struggling youth of twenty- 
 two; but to be the mouthpiece of prophecies 
 more wonderful, more far-reaching, more de- 
 tailed, yet more universal, than any ever before 
 given to the world, be they inspired or unin- 
 spired, was enough to turn his head completely. 
 I drew mental pictures, far into the night, 
 limning myself as famous and rich; and inci- 
 dentally, the husband of Estelle; the father of 
 her children; the founder of a family which 
 should be known throughout the world as that 
 of him who unlocked (he gates of time to come; 
 who pierced the depths of futurity; who con- 
 trolled that knowledge for the right to pur- 
 chase which the kings of finance jostled each 
 other. 
 
 I am ashamed to say that gratitude to Brath- 
 waite, and thorough appreciation of the fact 
 that he was the first to conceive and the first 
 to carry out, even in part, the idea of scientific 
 prophecy through graphical construction, took 
 
76 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 in my mind second place to the ideas of that 
 fame and fortune which were to be mine 
 through his industry and generosity. 
 
 " Midnight brought on the dusky hour 
 Fi'iendliest to sleep and silence," 
 
 but still I thought on, thought on. At last, tired 
 Nature asserted herself ; I fell asleep in the big 
 chair from which I had in imagination seen tlio 
 magnates of the monetary world feverishly 
 awaiting, in my ante-room, my pleasure as to 
 how much information I would accord them, oa 
 my own terms. I slept, to dream of dictator- 
 ship of two continents, compelled by my exclu- 
 sive knowledge of the things to come; but while 
 I ruled as with a rod of iron the doings and the 
 comings and goings of both hemispheres, it 
 seemed as though war's alarms sounded in my 
 ears — the rebellion of a nation from tyranny, be 
 it ever so mild, from dictation, be it ever so 
 wise. The clang of the multitude seeking re- 
 lief from the oppression of ignorance by knowl- 
 edge, rang in my ears; I started to my feet to 
 wake and find the fire-brigade jangling and 
 rumbling past my dwelling — the sparks from 
 the steamer's stack streaming upwards and 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 77; 
 
 backwards in the black night as the great engine 
 thundered by. 
 
 m 
 
 To the west, a ruddy glow extended up 
 through the murky midnight sky, while lurid 
 flashes rose and fell in horrid alternation. 
 From time to time an angry flame arose, while 
 the harsh clangor of more engines speeding 
 through the almost deserted streets, gave great- 
 er terror to the scene. 
 
 Fear filled my mind — I knew not why — lest 
 that awful holocaust should be the pyre of my 
 hopes and fortunes. Rushing from my room, 
 and spurred by anxious fears, I soon traversed 
 t^he distance between my home and the quiet 
 street in which for so many years Brathwaite 
 had labored in the accomplishment of his end 
 and aim — and for my great and ultimate benefit. 
 Hot though the pace, my heart thumped high 
 and hard against my chest, less from the un- 
 wonted exercise than from anxiety lest the cup 
 of prosperity had been dashed from my lips 
 before I had tasted its contents. 
 
 My fears were but too well grounded. Tear- 
 ing past the blue-coated guardian of the peace 
 wdio sought to restrain me, I rushed to a spot 
 where without actual danger, I could best see 
 
78 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 the ruin which the fire-fiend was working to me 
 — and of course to Brathwaite — but how can 
 man, born of woman, feel more for his fellows 
 than for himself? Why affect a nobility not of 
 the nineteenth century? Why lay claim to 
 emotions which may belong to those to come — 
 which may have belonged to those gone by — but 
 not of the genius of this eager, selfish present? 
 True, I felt for Brathwaite; but for Ains worth 
 — for A ins worth again — and for Ainswortb still 
 again, the pity, the regret, the mad sense of 
 baffled ambition, rose ever up and obscured the 
 finer feelings. 
 
 The fire had gained the mastery over the great 
 building, before my arrival, and the principal 
 efforts of the firemen were directed to saving 
 the piano-factory, with its stock of kiln-dried 
 lumber, of costly veneers, and of inflammable 
 varnishes. From that repository of so many 
 almost priceless volumes, so many absolutely 
 priceless chart, and of that Key which should 
 enable the possessor to avail himself of half a 
 century's work by another — great sheets of 
 flame arose from beds of fire. Bed sullen gusts, 
 "fierce as t«n furies, terrible as hell," bore on 
 their hurtling wings the treasures of a lifetime 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 79 
 
 -—bright, upward-pouring golden torrents, wast- 
 ing mind and matter at furious rate. 
 
 Fierce though the heat, which seemed to crisp 
 my skin even at the distance at which I was 
 stationed, it was nothing to the hot welling pas- 
 sions which assailed my inner self and drove 
 me to despair. That fury of a woman scorned, 
 than which hell no greater hath indeed, was 
 as nothing to a man so baffled in ambition, 
 which 
 
 '' hath one heel uail'd in hell, 
 Though she stretch her fingers to touch the 
 the heavens.'' 
 
 Demoniac rage possessed my soul— I was 
 frenzied to the verge of insanity, and as the 
 crash of that roof-tree which had shielded the 
 light of prophecy and covered my hopes, if but 
 for so short a time, sent scintillations up and 
 out; far and wide, I rushed from the excited 
 scene, I knew not whither. 
 
 ******* 
 
 \Mien I next recognized my surroundings, I 
 found myself in a small, neat room, white- 
 "walled and curtained— and Estelle/s anxious 
 face was bending over me. I had been ill a 
 month, and my gaunt limbs and haggard feat- 
 ures, which I insisted on seeing in a mirror. 
 
SO FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 gave no reminiscence of my once plump face 
 and rounded form. My voice, the mere ghost 
 of a sound, was hardly the semblance of its 
 former resonant self. 
 
 At first I was not permitted to excite myself 
 by too eager inquiry, but as I gained strength, 
 those about me, who of course had known noth- 
 ing about my intended collaboration with 
 Brathwaite, set to work to ascertain something 
 concerning the events of that September night 
 in which I had been so swiftly snatched up to 
 the seventh heaven of expectancy, and as sud- 
 denly dropped to earth again. 
 
 There was nothing reassuring in the tidings 
 of a month ago. The enthusiast, roused from 
 slumber by the shrill cry of fire, sought to 
 save his papers rather than his person; trav- 
 ersed passage after passage claimed by the in- 
 vading flames; and bore treasure after treasure 
 to the lower hall. But in penetrating to some 
 distant stairway, which gave way under his 
 daring footsteps, he inhaled flame, and although 
 rescued by the bravery of the firemen, was 
 borne from the seething, roaring furnace — only 
 to die. 
 
 So, then, the manuscript which the noble soul 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 81 
 
 had entrusted to me, as an earnest of what was 
 to come, was all that remained of a life of work, 
 a fortune of expenditure. 
 
 "Then black despair, 
 
 The shadow of a starless night was thrown 
 Over the world in which I moved alone"— 
 
 I could without a sigh "let the dead past bury 
 its dead," but the future which promised so 
 much for me and mine — how could I bear to 
 give it up? 
 
 The attending physician, wdio gathered that I 
 had met with some sudden business reverse, 
 said soothingly: "Remember this line of Shake- 
 speare: 
 
 " 'Sweet are the uses of adversity,' 
 
 and this wdiich Beaumont and Fletcher bor- 
 rowed from Seneca: 
 
 " 'Calamity is man's true touchstone.' 
 This trouble, great though it be, may be like the 
 heating in molten lead and quenching in cold 
 brine which gives to steel its greatest hardness 
 and most exquisite temper. Everything is for 
 the best." 
 
 With this I could not agree. I am not sure 
 that I agree with it 3 r et. I replied, peevishly: 
 "It is vevy easy for you to console me; to patch 
 
82 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 grief with, proverbs. But I can quote you 
 Shakespeare against himself: 
 
 '* * 'Tis all men's office to speak patience 
 
 To those that wring under the load of sorrow, 
 
 But no man's virtue, nor sufficiency, 
 
 To be so moral when he shall endure 
 
 The like himself.'" 
 
 Pope says, 'I never knew any man in my life 
 
 who could not bear another's misfortunes like 
 
 a Christian .' While I do believe that I should 
 
 make the best of everything, I do not believe 
 
 that everything is for the best. 
 
 " 'Yet I argue not 
 
 Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 
 Of heart or hope ; but still bear up and steer 
 Right onward.' " 
 
 Estelle said, half-reprovingly, " 'If thou faint 
 in the day of adversity, thy faith is small.' " 
 
 "I never pretended to have faith. I never 
 thought that I had any, except perhaps when 
 none was needed. Faith is like courage; it 
 must be born in one, or be cultivated by contact 
 with danger. When there is no danger to test 
 one's faith, there is no means of knowing 
 whether or not any has been born with one. 
 Then when faith is most needed, it may be 
 found entirely lacking." 
 
 With such thoughts and words our conver- 
 
FIFTY YEAKS HENCE. 83 
 
 sation continued until the physician, mindful of 
 his patient's physical welfare, signed to Estelle 
 to leave me — which she did, pressing on my pal- 
 lid forehead a soft, tender kiss that meant hope 
 and love, confidence and reassurance. 
 
 A soothing draught composed me to dream- 
 less sleep, and when again I woke it was to 
 see the love-light in my deo+r one's eyes, pa- 
 tiently watching my restful slumber and await- 
 ing my return to consciousness. 
 
 Her gentle ministrations, as much as the doc- 
 tor's skill, restored health and strength to my 
 enfeebled mind and body. We tacitly avoided 
 the subject of my so-sudclenly blasted ambitions, 
 and talked of love and happy life together, in a 
 pleasant uneventful future, such as had often 
 engrossed our conversation before my eyes had 
 seen from afar that promised land which I was 
 never to enter. 
 
 With returning vigor, I renewed my former 
 plans for my future and Estelle's; but as my 
 steps increased in firmness, my thoughts still 
 reverted to Brathwaite's wonderful prophetic 
 manuscript, some of the details of which I set 
 about to make realities of the present, rather 
 than of a generation hence. The hope of real- 
 
84 FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
 
 izing for myself and Estelle an early return 
 from my mental labors in their development and 
 embodiment, lent new strength, suppleness and 
 deftness to my touch, and seemed to make my 
 insight keener, my inventive powers more fer- 
 tile, more promptly responsive to the demands 
 upon them. Festina lente became my motto. 
 I doubted as I hoped; I criticised relentlessly as 
 I solved method after method, and produced 
 result after result. At each new step I felt the 
 ground firmlj r before trusting to it; I looked at 
 each production ais though it were that of some 
 hated rival whom T had in my power to thrust 
 down, keep down, by savage search for faults 
 and merciless exposure of each weakness in de- 
 sign, construction or operation. 
 
 The news of the dramatic death of Brathwaite 
 and some inkling of the fact that he had for so 
 many years been engaged in scientific research, 
 every vestige of result from which was belie ved 
 to have perished with "the old Professor" — as 
 the journals of the day styled him — had startled 
 the city; and gave three-column stories, spread 
 headed, sub-headed and padded ad nauseam; 
 no two agreeing, save that in all "the fire-fiend" 
 was, rampant; "holocaust" and "pyre," "ere- 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 85 
 
 mation" and "conflagration," vied with each 
 other in harrowing up the reader's nerves. The 
 suburban press took up the strain in more sub- 
 dued tones and in less space, although no more 
 grammatically — while the far-away sheets of 
 Boom City or Dead Man's Guleb paragraphed 
 it as the shocking self-destruction of Robert 
 Batterman, an eccentric metropolitan hermit 
 who had a mania for collecting old almanacs 
 and back numbers of periodicals. "Such is 
 fame," said Byron, "to have one's name mis- 
 spelled in the 'Gazette.' " 
 
 The Masonic body of which Brathwaite had 
 been for so many years an unobtrusive member 
 announced a Lodge of Sorrow in memory of 
 the deceased brother; and most imposing were 
 the ceremonies, most impressive were the ad- 
 dresses upon that occasion. From the pamph- 
 let account of this function, printed by resolu- 
 tion of the Lodge, T excerpt the remarks of M. 
 W. Past Master Ashley, as showing in some 
 degree the respect in which Brathwaite was 
 held by those who knew him, and the veneration 
 which his upright life, his charitable although 
 retiring disposition, and his many and varied 
 accomplishments, inspired. 
 
EULOGIA. 
 
 "My Brethren: — 
 
 " 'Dear beauteous death, the jewel of the 
 just/ has been laid upon the breast of him who 
 was and is in the Mystic Tie your brother and 
 mine; in every sense, the brother of all man- 
 kind. 
 
 "I have known him longer than the span of 
 most men's lives, and though our paths have 
 been apart for many years, I have ever been 
 interested to know that his industrious life has 
 been kept unspotted from the world, and that a 
 heart large enough to include all who suffered 
 or were in want, a soul as white as heaven, have 
 ever been the tenants of his earthly habitation. 
 In youth pure and amiable, in vigorous man- 
 hood wise, and steady, and just, a serene and 
 bright old age, lovely as a Lapland night, has 
 rounded out the earthly stay of Roger Brath- 
 waite. With him, high -erected thoughts, seated 
 in the heart of courtesy, w T ere ever present. 
 While even in boyhood his thoughts and studies 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 87 
 
 were what are called philosophical, he never 
 sought to help kno 'pledge overthrow faith, 
 weaken hope, or lessen charity. His youth was 
 chaste and uneventful. That future then dawn- 
 ing and which has become of the silent past, 
 was one of opportunities of many kinds for him, 
 favored as he was in health, in mind, in person- 
 al appearance, in social position, and in this 
 world's goods. He could have had a career in 
 which he would have been known and honored 
 of the multitude; but he preferred seclusion and 
 mental improvement to publicity and social ad- 
 vancement. Yet at no time was his retirement 
 so complete as to shut out from him a knowl- 
 edge of the world's, on-goings and of the suffer- 
 ings and needs of his fellow-men; never did his 
 absorbing occupations close his ears to the cry 
 of the fatherless, or his purse against the ap- 
 peal of the widowed and forsaken. He craved 
 knowledge as the poet, the artist, crave fame; 
 yet the rich storehouses of his mind were ever 
 open to the inquiry of any earnest seeker after 
 truth. 
 
 " He loved mystery only that he might throw 
 its portals open to the light of day. 'A gentle- 
 |man well-bred and of good name,' honor sat 
 
^S FIFTY YEAKS HENCE. 
 
 upon hiin as the sun in the gray vault of heaven. 
 He sought hidden knowledge that he might use 
 it for the good of men, and eventually make it 
 free as the wind. No covert enmity made him 
 a target; he had no foe but death, to whom he 
 has rendered quittance. He died in full puis- 
 sance of mind and body. The rude imperious 
 surge has carried him from us, but his bright 
 and shining memory remains. Could I but 
 wish him no better than he wished his fellow- 
 men of all degree, I would breathe naught but 
 blessings and good will. 
 
 4k What the exact import of his life-work, so 
 suddenly, so unfortunately swept away by the 
 rude flood of fire, I know not; no one seems to 
 know. This only we do know, that he culled 
 from every flower of fact some virtuous sweets 
 of knowledge which he laid up for mankind's 
 good use. 
 
 '' He leaves no kindred, save that all men are 
 alike his kith and kin. No widow's tears be- 
 dew, no orphan's sighs bemoan, his honored 
 grave; yet there is no lack of tears or sighs, for 
 strong men full of years must mourn his death, 
 whose life was all so full of tenderness and 
 good." 
 
FIFTY YEARS HENCE. £i) 
 
 * * * * * ♦ * 
 
 On a grassy sun-kissed slope overlooking the 
 beautiful harbor of New York, a massive granite 
 cube bearing his name, and the dates of his 
 birth and death, covers the silent tomb of Koger 
 Brathwaite. Peace to his ashes no less than to 
 his daring spirit, which laid bare the inmost 
 heart of the dead past, and would have wrested 
 its every secret from all time to come. 
 
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WHY THE 
 
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 Grimshaw Catechisms" 
 
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NOTES ON NEW AND PATENTED INVENTIONS. 
 
 In the great struggle after new methods, processes and imple- 
 ments that characterizes our day, and which is a principal factor in 
 our material progress, there is a constant rule of the "survival of the 
 fittest." Opposed to this is the claim, sometimes put forward, that 
 the value of a patented invention is not so much in its intrinsic worth 
 as in the method of presenting and introducing it to the world, or to 
 a market. Both propositions are in a sense true, but with this quali- 
 fication, that " permanent " success always depends upon intrinsic 
 worth, and while a short success may be attained by a plausible but 
 faulty invention, the future is sure to regulate it to the place it be- 
 longs. It is perhaps unnecessary to argue this. Everyone's observa- 
 tion will prove it. 
 
 CASS IE It'§ MAGAZINE, an engineering publication, 
 gotten up in the same style and equal in every respect to Harpers', 
 The Century, and Scribners', has begun a series of articles about 
 "New and Patented Inventions." Many important things are to be 
 considered in these articles, among them that of "added detail." 
 This might properly come under the head of "operative conditions," 
 because it involves maintenance and attendance, but may be made 
 more plain by quoting a remark once made in England by an experi- 
 enced designer and constructor of machinery. He said: 'The great 
 art of designing machinery consists in leaving out parts and pieces." 
 
 The articles will be written by John Richards, in a popular style 
 such as the ordinary inventor and the busy business man can have 
 time to read and understand. 
 
 Mr. Richards is President of the Technical Society of the Pa- 
 cific Coast, and editor of the journal "Industry." There are prob- 
 ably few engineers so well known, or so capable of expressing an 
 intelligent opinion on the various classes of engineering matters, as 
 is Mr. Richards. He has had many years of active and practical ex- 
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 and he is known throughout the world by engineers and manufac- 
 turers as a man from whom an honest, conscientious, as well as capa- 
 ble opinion can be obtained. 
 
 CASSIER'S MAGAZINE— cost, $3.00 per year, 25 cents a 
 copy — can be obtained from newsdealers, or from the publishers, The 
 Cassiek's Magazine Co., Potter Building, New York. 
 

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