Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-09-15
ELECTRICITY.
A Glimpse in the Future-The Sanitary
Value of Electricity Sad Story
of Western Boy.
BY SHIRLEY DARE.

For the Gazette.
Alas! that there should ever come an
enc to the sweet, sane habits of vacation
life Not the idleness which hangs
heavy on those who practice it most
But how Is one ever again to live con-
tentedly ten rods away from salt ocean
tides and the breath of balsam fir! To
breaht absolutely pure air, cooled by
leagues of wave, soothing and purifying,
with the strong chemistry of the sea
above all healing, with the incense OF
evergreens. has been such medicine, such
incarnation, that one departs, reluctant
to enter inferior air. There have been
DAYS when the sweet evennesss of all
forces of air and sea have been incredible
pleasure, to the casting away of book
and converse, it was such bliss to be and
breathe. In such conditions one goes
under roof reluctantly, even to sleep.
Why in heaven s name can't we do our
working in such air, and know health
and content in such measure daily! Why
not live up to our best, and die easy, IN
stead of living in clang, dust and eYll
smells, until our bodies can bear it no
longer, and dissolve with rack and
gToan?
Science will do much for us in dismiss
ing the worst ills of civilization. The
sanitary advantage of electric motors and
pneumatic tubes in doing away with the
insufferable noise and smell of horse
teams for street cars and traffic will rem
der cities healthier by half, and summer
less dreadful All the not days, into
October moons, the dwellers IN towns
| breathe the odors and eXhalations of the
stable, nothing less, in degree lntolera-
| BILE to senses used to pure air. When
| transportation becomes mechanical,
easy thing, it will be profitable TO keep
| cities entirely clean for the value of their
| sweepings, and all refuse be sought for
| diligently, to be swept by pneumatic tubes
| a hundred miles and hour to fertilize the
| barren places inland, perhaps to feed
! growing forests. The sewage problem
| will be solved by electricity, as 1T is be-
| ing tried in English provincial cities this
wear, the waste Of towns being disinfect-
| ed by currents Of electricity-probabl
| che greatest step toward prolonglng- the
| life of man yet taken in 600 centuries.
| When the wastes of cities no longer flow
! into the tides and watercourses, to poison
| and pollute shore, air and water alike,
| disease will decrease at lease one-half.
| The genius of the next century will be
turned to sanitary and climatic improve
| ments or a grand scale, rather than the
| merely commercial inventions of the past
fifty years Great drainage works will
| be undertaken. having provinces of new
land, safe and free, in the choicest quar-
tiers of our coasts, and equally great
engineering works VIII turn inland
| basins into lakes refreshing whole
| countries with moisture and bringing
rain to rainless desert lands. l like to
| be on this sunshiny shore when write,
one elbow IN the sand, and dream OF
| what the future is sure to see-indeed a
| new heaven and new earth and who
knows?-perhaps these very changes by
! the hand of man are to work out the
transformation we think of as wholly
supernatural, yet, would be no
less divine for mans part in 1t.
The Buddisht mysteries have nothing
half so elate or wonderful as the provls-
. ions science conveys in hard deductions
and accomplished facts. What man has
done man can do, and while you are as
tonished and contemptuous, behold the
thing is done. 1 told you that IN less
than twenty years fresh strawberries
from Florida would be sold in Boston the
same day they were gathered, that cities
would be heated mainly by fuel from
|
should burn the filtered water from the
waste pipes, and that it would be as dis
graceful for a town to have streets where
lady could not walk without
soiling the hem of her gown Us
for a railway station to be as foul
You would smile at the eXaggera-
tons. Still there it is written, and those
who see twenty years from now may COM
mare the ideas with the reality. l don I
believe it will take more than ten year!
to bring this to pass, though politics anc
the hereditary stupidity of human ma
ture may drag more than one THINKS
But the professor filings pebbles in th'
water and plays with his pencil in thu
sand while he tells of yet greater i'm
provements foreshadowed at the Parl
/ exposition, whence he has lately come
in time for the opening of his college
lectures. Perhaps you may hnt
:, things he says, more mterestlu'
even than that gorgeous youth II
white hannels with crimson
} silk sash wound round waist rathe
pursy already with club suppers, o
those young ladies in startling yacht
| gowns, when blue and white make ever.
combiDation known to the signal code
r | and Jack Tar caps, with huge Woolel
9 | tassel covering most of the crown. The
i ! make no end of exhibition of their row
, ing skill between the yachts and eXcur
SION steamers shutting across the bya
But among them, swiftly and easily
without oar or puff of steam. plies trim
vanished boat, with little electrl
motor in the stern the size of water I'LL
ter, and the two gentieme
in it glide luxuriously with
q out effort beyond guiding its cours
e by a pull of cord. That little moto
q fascinates my eyes beyond telling. l Sc
! in it more than mere propelling power
1t is acknowledgements. That motor, tn
q size of a hotel coffee pot, madam, wi
\ turn your sewing machine, your paten
! washer, your laundry roller for ironing
q or the egg and cake beaten, and brea
: mixer. 1t will saw the wood, run tn
lawn mower, or garden cultivator, an
q render you so far Independent of iutelli
. gence offices and labor cliques. 1t vi
n propel your basket carriage and give yo
y the pleasure of riding without the expenS
: and bother of keeping a horse and a ma
to care for him. Machinery eats moth
id 70 f1T1l