Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-10-19
A MESSAGE TO POSTERITY.
The Significance of the Documents Placed
Under a Church Corner Stone-A Glance

The Significance of the Documents Placed
Under Church Corner stone-A Glanc,
Into the Future-The Possible Change.
of Century.
WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPATcH.l
1t was with good deal of interest that
1 watched, one day last week, the mailing o
letter to the twentieth century.
The posting of letter is always somewhat
of an act of faith. 1t is dropped into an iron
| box at street corner, and it falls in ouI
friends hand at the door of his own house
in Halifax or Seattle. That is one of the
modern miracles. With all our letter-writ
ing, however, and with all our trust in the
postofice department. we do not often ven
| ture to open correspondence with the TWEEN,
| tieth century. We ought to be fairly well
| acquainted with that interesting era. II
has been sufficiently described by reputable
authors. We have any number of pictures
OF it taken by enthusiastic amateur pho.
tographers. Nevertheless, the twentieth
century is so far removed, 1t will take SO
long to get letter to it, that there is such q
d1scouraging certainty that we will get no
answer back, that most of us would as soon
think of mailing a letter to the moon.
Among all the latest improvements in the
new postofice there is no provision made
for the delivery of letters to the people
whose names will.not begin to appear in the
/ directory until the year 1000.
The dispatching of this curious epistle, ac-
cordingly, made good deal of stir in the
neighborhood. 1t was mailed at little town
up in the coke country, and great number
OF citizens and all the children from the
public school were assembled to see It done.
The letter was first wrapped in stout COW
ering of tin, with solder for mucilage, and
was then inclosed in u good, big, heavy envel-
ope, warranted to last 500 years, made out of
solid limestone rock. 1t took half a dozen
parsons to put the letter properly in the en-
velope and a bishop had to come all the way
from Pittsburg to stamp it-with three good
blows of q steel hammer.
A Message to the Future
"A cornerstone has various uses and
meanings. 1t is the mark in a church wall
of the progress of a new fortress in the old
fight against the devil. And it is an excel
lent thing to strengthen q corner in a found
alton. But really the most interesting thing
about cornerstone is that it carries
message to the future. 1t is letter to the
people who will live here after we are both
gone and forgotten. 1t is a lesson in ancient
history, set down while ancient history is
still cotemporary, and intended for the in
Nobody can possibly predict the changes
in living and thinking that will separate the
readers from the writers. If they are half
SO curious about US as we are about them
tn " will hail this letter with jubilations.
That is what it is, a letter. And the address
is "To whom it may concern-in the twen-
tieth century"
The most interesting part OF this letter
was composed of copies of the Pittsburg
daily papers. OF course, they put Bible in,
but the Bible has lasted a good many CEN
turies already, and is not likely to be news
even in the day when the tourist from
Australasia shall hitch his electric balloon
to broken arch of Smithfield street bridge,
while he kodaks tie ruins of the Court
House tower. The citizen of the twentieth
century will seiza upon these last-week's
papers, which are dull enough to us, but
which will be fresh enough indeed to him.
An End to the Cities.
1t is not likely that the coming man,
who will think of the nineteenth century as
belonging to the Middle Ages will be greatly
interested in much of our local matters, ex-
cept so far as they help to inform him about
that obsolete institution, the city. Mr. Will
lam Morris, the latest explorer of the undis-
covered future, says that in the twentieth
century there will be no crowded streets,
no blocks of houses, no smoke, and no facto-
ries to make smoke. There will be distri-
button of power. There will be no more
need of great machines and great mills to
house them, and great gangs of men to feed
them. The age of cities will come to an end
and people will get back again in Ito Paradise.
Naturally the coming man will be interested
to know the conditions of life under this
imperfect and medieval order of things
1Nor rlnrN
letter will read with curiosity, though with
dim understanding, the discussions in the
councils about the payment of the street I'M
provement bills. The late Exposition will
interest him. The prices of food in the CITY
markets will afford him many significant
comparison. He will note with attention,
possibly with surprise, the values of real
estate No doubt he will read all the ad
vertisements.
Lively Age at Present.
The coming man will get some queer
notions about law and order in this century.
He will read the accounts of several MUIR
ders and of several horrible suicides He
will notice in the proceedings of the GRIM
inal court that men were amazingly ready
with knives, razors and pistols to take each
others blood. He will learn that in two diff
ferent places at the same time men were at
work deliberately wrecking trains On the
for the sake OF plunder, pulling
out the spikes "from seven rails on the edge
of a 50foot embankment." He will make
the acquaintance of Judge Lynch. He will
get tidingS of riots in Monteyideo and
Iohang. He will discover that the Governor
of Pennsylvania was accusing magistrates
and constables in Philadelphia of conspir-
ing to defraud the treasury of the State. He
will be informed as to the progress of he
printers strike, and the pipe-mill strike
and the miners strike. He will learn of
wars between competing railroads. and con-
tentions between competing oil companies
1t will be told him that O man was bitten to !
death by mosquitoes in the swamps of New
Jersey. And all this is in the history of the
world-and really of only small part of
the world-for one day. New fights, mur-
ders, suicides, train-wreckings, strikes. !
stealings tomorrow. This, 1 hope, will |
amaze the twentieth century man, and give |
him cause for profound gratitude.
The reader of the epistle in the stone en- |
veIope will be interested in the debates
about the tariff. This contention will be |
almost as far away from the living issues
Of the twentieth century as that old mur- |
muring which arose of the Grecians against
the Hebrews because their widows were
in the daily ministrations. 1t will
be as medieval as the strife of the old Guel-
ohs and Ghibellines.
They VIII Regulate the Weather.
The experiment of man in Kansas at
The rain business will have Il funny sound in |
he days when not only the rain but the sun,
Il It, i