The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-10-20
In THE YEAR 5000.
An Italian Romnncer Dips Into the
Future for a Thousand Years and
Foresees Things Which Ontdo the
Most sanguine of All Drcamers.

MOst OI All bEtHmcTSs
Paolo Montegazza has published in
Milan, Italy, a romance of the future
which far surpasses in fantastic
prophecy the most imaginative flights
of the Bellamyites. Year of our
Lord 3OO0' is the title of the romance.
The hero Is Paolo Fortunati of Rome,
and the heroine a certain Maria of the
same city, which, being truly eternal,
endures in pristine splendor q thousand
years hence. Their experiences are
as far in advance of the wonders of
Looking Backward" as the thirty
first century might be expected to be
in advance of the twenty-frst.
These two young persons are be-
trothed, and, in tine free and easy way
of the emancipated society of the flu
ture, go on a trip round the world to-
gether, without chaperone. just before
their marriage. They go in an airship
three times the length of the ordinary
pleasure yacht of today. The ship is
operated by electricity so stored as to
be applied for heat and power without
the help of a crew. Three buttons are
the means of steering, lighting, warm
ing, and propsllng the craft. on the
walls of the cabins the necessary foods
are stored, in condensed form, in little
metal receptacles, from which may be
drawn nourishment to last through a
trip Of weeks.
UNIVERSAL PEACE.
Naturally, at just this time the first
of this dreams realized in this year of
our Lord 5000 Is the dream of universal
peace. The airship is guided from
Rome to Spezia. where FORTUNATE
shows to his fianCee the scene of the
worlds last naval battle, fought in the
middle of the twenty-first century. 1t
was in the great general war which
mankind had dreaded and prepared
for through many previous genera
| tions. Almost contemporaneously with
| the final land battle round Paris, The
| navies of the nations met off SpsZia.
| The two battles cost millions of lives,
| and so shocked the refined senses of
| twenty-first century civilization that
| civilization at once took effective steps
! to abolish war; The United States of
! Europe rose from the ruins of the war
! ring people. Under Leo Xxx, the last
| Of the popes, the king of Italy abdicat-
! ed to make way for the socialistic
| state, predicted eVsr since the middle
| of the nineteenth century, and other
| monarchs followed his example, until
| Europe was united as one land in
| brOtherly love. The aOcialistiC state
endured in Europe four generations,
at the end of which it was succeeded
| by the United States of the Whole
| World. All dividing lines, such as ter
! ritorial and customs demarcation, were
obliterated. There We're no more tar
ifs, there was no more "mine and
thine" in national affairs; even the
babsl of languages was wiped out.
| There was thenceforth one language,
| one literature one art, one science.
From Spezia the emancipated couple
so to the Pyramids on the shore of the
| great sea of Sahara. once desert
When the Chief Engineer of the
| Worlds Government proposed to make
this desert over into a sea the peoples
of Europe objected that the change
| would render their climate colder, but
the Chief Engineer removed this OBJ
| jection by using the south wind tc
melt the icebergs round the North
Pole. and thus more than counteract.
ed the effect of the improvement IN
North Africa. At the Pyramids the
couple meet the passengers just leav
ing the mail airship from Ceylon tC
London, exchange thirty-iirst century
gossip, and then proceed on their way
to Ceylon. On this island is the asylum
of all persons who have Governmental
hobbies which they arr intent on real
izing. Here Fortunati can explain t,
his fiancee the foolishness of the equal
! ho oil
clothed, fed and housed alike. Here
too, hs can point out the horrible con
ditiOns of the people whose monarcl
rules absolutely by the grace of God >
the SORROWS of those living under tn,
system of mllitarism so popular fo
two centuries before the abolition o
war, and the wasted lives Of all WHIT
talk themselves to death in the effor
to govern by means of parliaments %
congresses. This part of the book il
after the model of Looking Back
ward" and is supposed to be a KILN,
criticism of all nineteenth century sys
TENS of government, from Teheran t,
Washington and from St Petersbur,
to Cape Town.
From Ceylon the alrship Is steere,
to the Adaman Islands, now know
|
Malta and Fernando de Noronha, ther
is central station from which powe
is distributed to the rest of the eartf
The power is derived from a materia
known as pandinamo, which in tur
is obtained from protoplasm TIL
wires radiate from this station to a
quarters of the globe, and carry, be
sides power all the news that tn
| a. y h Z. ffnl 1,s -, H..
century care to learn of one another
doings.
THE WORLDS CAPITAL.
; The most interesting station on tn
betrothal journey is the capital of th
? world, AndropOlis, founded in 2501 an
inhabited by 100000 persons. TIL
site is at the foot of the Himalayas. /
this city every family, every spinstel
every isolated bachelor every WidON
has a separate house. Such apparen
extravaganza is possible because in tn
{ year 5000 houses do not cost much
they are no longer built, but are mere
ly cast out of a new-fangled meta
pretty much as a plaster of Paris bus
is cast nowadays. The city is built /
, squares; every street is seventy fee
wide and-evidently Mantegazza ha
) in mind here some VeXatious nine
,teenth century restrictions on wheel
l ing in Italy-no place in the city is for
bidden ground for the bicyclist. I
the whole capital there is neither pc
liceman, judge, nor soldier. The fe'
public officials always at the capita
, have charge Of the distribution of ligh
heat, water and power from the Ger
: tral stations. Prisoners are unknow
to the people of the capital. In the