The Red Cloud chief., 1881-12-15
THE YEAR OF GRACE POSI-.

Made him wish that he never had chaughcd'er.
~--Chioa9o Inter Ocean.
THE YEAR OF GRACE POSI-.
A Forecast OF How Affairs VIII BE
Condu cted Two Hundred Years
Hence.
A visit TO the electrical exhibition in
Paris will set unimaginative persons
wondering what kind of a world this
will be in that twcnty-first century TO
which nj. Gambetta alluded the other
day. NJ. Gambetta remarked that if
people were impatient To get all posi-
bic political reforms effected at once
there would be nothing left for the
twenty-tirst century to accomplish; but
1t is probable that in two centuries
hence the world will be as different
from that OF to-day as the latter is from
the world of the seventeenth century,
and we need not trouble ourselves 10
leave work for it 10 do. 1t would have
been thought a pretty conceit in Charles
Ills reign to talk of bringing water
into every household by means OF leaden
piping. and even Lord Worcester, in
his Century of Inventions" never
imagined anything so fantastic as the
conveying OF n combustible gas by such
n method; but we have become used
now 10 marvcls. and can easily foresee
the time when every house will have its
electric battery, serving manifold pur-
poses, and when most OF the things
done for Us at present by steam will be
performed by electricity. We have no
occasion TO worry ourselves about the
possible exhaustion of the coal mines.
Long before the last scuttleful of Goals
is drawn up from the last shaft, coal
will have ceased to be applied TO most
of its present uses.
In the house of the future there will
be no knocking at doors and summon
ing up servants every time a visitor
calls. The visitor will touch a button
that will sound a bell, and then he will
speak through a tube: ..is Mr.. Brown
al home:?" Answer, NO" Instead
of dropping his card Mr.. Robinson will
say that he leaves his compliments,
with kind inquiries; and these words
passing down the tube into the orifice
of a photograph, will engrave them
selves on a roll OF tinfGil. When the
lady of the house comes home she will
turn the handle of her photograph,
and hear. in the very voices of her Wis.,
itors. what they had to say: Il am Mr..
Jones, who has called for the third
time to know if it is convenient for You
TO pay that little BILL" and so on. Sup
posing Mrs. Brown TO be short of funds,
she may want 20 communicate with her
husband in Bengal. How? BY letter,
or by the present slow and roundabout
telegraphs? oh, no! Brown, as he
goes ont to dine with some friends, will
be called back by his servant saying:
''Missis wants to speak TO you, sir;
there's her bell ringing" and B., re-
turning to his study-let us hope with
cheerful alacrity-will see the form of
his consort projected into his pres
ence by means of the Pepper and
Dirk's apparatus acting in conjunction
with electric wires. Brown Will forth
worth project his own presentment into
Mrs. BIS London boudoir, and the con-
versation will commence through the
telephone.
please. dear, send me a check for
EGO this instant"
Here it is, my DEAR" and Brown,
taking up his electric stylus, fastened
to a wire, will write on tinfoil a draft
which will be reproduced word for word,
including his signature, on a correspond
ing piece of metal thousands of miles
of. The best of this system will be that
it will enable ladies to administer cur
tain lectures at incalculable distances,
for you must remember that, although
Brown might possibly like to dispense
with such fruits of science, there will be
an electric bell at the head of his bed
which will leave him no peace until he
starts up and saws meekly, with his ear
to the telephone: Now, my dear, I'm
listening" He will gain nothing by
taking himself out of doors either, for
will not his wife be able to speak into
his photograph, so that the first time
he sets that instrument spinning her
words will burst forth in an affectionate
torrent, interspersed with sobs, 1t is
pleasant 10 reflect, however, that Brown
will be able to make peace by transmit
ting a kiss through the wires. We,
to-day, transmit sounds and shocks to
a great distance; why should not
our descendants forward pleasant
sensations by electricity? No doubt
some time will elapse before every
house will be fitted up with a perfect
electrical apparatus; but when these
c~ontrivances get fairly established in
the dwellings of the rich. there will be
public electrical offices for persons of
small lean Cannot we imagine what
such an Office would be with its vast
hall, its rows of batteries in compart-
ments like pews, and its crowds of
people streaming in to correspond with
friends far away? We may picture a
country couple coming in to have q
talk with their daughter in Australia:
do you want to see her or only to
speak to herr" asks the clerk. The
old couple hesitate, Tor it costs ten
shillings more 10 set the Pepper proc
ess in motion; but n wistful look passes
over the mothers face. and the father
winks to the clerk: "Aye, we must see
the lass" and after the delay necessary
to call Betty from her electrical dairy.
where she is milking twelve cows all at
once by the Messrs. Puller's Artificial
Dairymaid'' (patented), she will burst
into the little box all rosy, smiling and
crying. too, may be. with the halo of
the electrical light round her.
It cannot be doubted that our de-
scendanIs viii shoot electric currents
through their chops and steaks and
bring them up fixing in a minute. The
Frenchman's cotellefe a Ia minute will
then become a reality. All the produce
of the earth-corn, fruit, flowers, o
tables-wIl be cultivated by a happy
combination of the sun and electricity
acting in concert. When the sun is Gov.
the batteries. with their systems of col
ored glasses for intensifying the various
properties of the suns rays. will 90 to
work. and there viii be no more talk of
backward potatoes then than there will
be of backward boys. The sluggish
vegetsble, startled to its very root by
galvsnic currents, will have to wake up
and take its vivifying bath Of warmth
streaming through revolving glasses of
rsi. blue and yellow; and it will be q
Tad time for slugs, snails. caterpnlars
and worms. who only exist at present
60 onuouvoo vvhot mon waStoc Nor