Electrical Navigation.
Strange and novel uses to which electricity was applied in
1999. Hydrophobia banished from the earth. The relations of
Creditor and Debtor greatly improved. Electrical ocean, river
and lake navigation. The ocean ablaze with electric lights. Ships
navigated by wireless telegraphy.
It has always been the conceit of every age that its own era is the
most progressive and the most enlightened of all. In 1799 any man
who could have stood on the deck of Nelson's flagship "Victory" and
informed that gallant sailor that in 1899 warships would navigate
without sails; that powder would be used that made no smoke; that
heavy rifles would hurl a ton shell fourteen miles, would have been
dropped overboard as a monumental liar.
The age in which we live is always a conceited one; always ready to
scoff at innovations. [The Bump of The Age.] Every age had a bump
of its own. How these precious bumps are smoothed down one by one,
is really interesting. The stage coach was king in its day. As men
gazed upon the lumbering, six miles per hour coach, the bump of the
period made them believe it was the swiftest and most luxurious mode
of travel the world would ever see. Steam came and reduced the stage
coach bump. When men saw steam locomotives drawing fast trains and
covering the country with villainous smoke, they really believed it was
the swiftest mode of travel the world ever would employ. Electricity
then appeared and reduced the steam bump.
In 1999 electricity became a mighty monarch and an obedient slave. It
ruled and [A Lively Customer.] it obeyed. This lively king of the
twentieth century was a hustler. Sixteen distinct trips around the
globe it could make in just one second's time. Electric railroads and
flying machines could not reasonably hope to make sixteen separate
trips around the globe in one second's time. The age of 1999 was a
very rapid one, but its joints were too rheumatic to attempt any such
gait. A traveler hustling around the world at the rate of sixteen
times per second would hardly have time to visit and shake hands
with friends.
In the twentieth century electricity, the servant-king of the
world, was harnessed [All Done by Electricity.] to everything
conceivable. Everything was done by merely pressing a button. Houses
built in that period had no stairs. Every private house had its
elevator. Press a button and up it went. Houses built in that period
had no chimneys. All heating and every bit of the cooking was done by
electricity. If you wanted heat, press a button; more heat wanted,
press two. Locks and keys also became relics of a past age. No one
in 1999 ever locked his house. Every house was provided with an
electrical outfit. Those who desired to leave the house for a few
hours attached the electric gongs and alarm bells. When connection
was made no one could leave or enter the house without raising a
pandemonium and sending an alarm to the central police station.
The uses of electricity in 1999 were carried to even absurd
lengths. Man's most faithful, but, alas, uncertain friend, the dog,
was in evidence throughout the twentieth century. He wagged his tail
vigorously as ever in token of kindnesses received. He was as ready
as ever to sacrifice his life for that of his master, as well as to
plant his teeth into the calf of his leg. The Hindoo charmer is never
really safe until he has extracted the fangs of the reptile.
And so it was with the twentieth century dog. Nothing can be more
violent than death by hydrophobia. The bite of the dog may prove
more terrible than that of the cobra. This scourge was effectually
removed. In 1999 dogs over one year old had their teeth removed by
electricity. Their mouths were then fitted with a false set. During
dog-days, while Sirius was in the ascendant, the false teeth were
removed and all canines were kept on a vegetable diet. Hydrophobia
became one of the lost arts.
Another peculiar method in which electricity was utilized in 1999
tended to rob [Electrical Dentistry.] dentistry of some of its
terrors. There was one feature of dentistry in 1899 that often tested
the best nerves, and that was the peculiar odor common to all dental
chambers of horror. This peculiar odor settles like a cloud upon the
stomach and seldom appeals in vain to one's nerves for sympathy. For
this reason an electrical machine was invented in 1999 which enabled
the patient to remain at home while an offending tooth was tendering
its resignation. The dentist, during the operation, remained in his
den, enjoying a monopoly of its odors. If a tooth ached all one had
to do was to call up a dentist, on the telephone, and ask to be placed
on the line. The victim, in the seclusion of his back parlor, adjusted
the electrical forceps and signalled to the dentist, five blocks away,
to touch it off, then the festivities commenced. These private tooth
extracting séances became very popular. No profane eyes were there
to witness the agony of the victim, as in a public dental office. If
he shouted loud enough to make a hole in the sky or tried to kick
the plaster off the ceiling, no one was any the wiser for it. But
in a public dental office (especially with ladies in the adjoining
room), while the victim is being harpooned, his eloquent groans must
be stifled and no attempt must be made by the victim to kick at the
chandeliers. The new system of home electrical tooth extracting proved
very popular. It was one of the things that had come to stay.
In 1999, through the medium of electricity, the relations existing
between creditors and debtors became closer and more binding. [Sure
Cure for Dead Beats.] In 1899, for some reason or other never fully
explained, a debtor who had a long standing account, was liable to
dodge into some nook, corner or side street, if he caught a glimpse
of his creditor coming down the road. The relations existing between
creditor and debtor in the nineteenth century were not as cordial
as they should be. If the debt were of long standing there lacked
a certain warmth in their greeting which was perhaps difficult to
account for.
In 1930 creditors and debtors adjusted themselves in better harmony,
at least they kept in closer electrical touch with one another. If
the sum due was $50 or over and of long standing, the law allowed
the creditor to connect his debtor with an electrical battery. The
object of this wise law was to keep the creditor in constant touch
with his debtor. If the debt was over three months due, the creditor
was allowed to occasionally "touch up" his debtor without having to
hunt him up and dun him. The creditor always had him "on the string"
so to speak. It was further specified by law that creditors must
employ only as many volts as there were dollars due on account in
shocking a debtor. These electrical shocks were merely reminders,
intended to refresh the memory of the debtor. A man owing $200 was
liable to receive two hundred volts until the debt was satisfied.
This plan for the collection of bad debts worked very successfully. In
1999 no [Worked Like a Charm.] debtor could tell when his creditor
might touch him up. The shock reminding him of his old debt might come
during the night and disturb his pleasant dreams. Perhaps while seated
at the family table, or perhaps even while engaged in family worship,
an electric shock might come that would raise him three feet off the
floor. Such little occurrences were rather embarrassing, especially
if the debtor was talking at the time to some lady friend. A man
owing $500 was in danger of his life. His creditor was liable to dun
him by giving him a shock of five hundred volts. Such sensations,
certainly, are not as pleasant as watching a yacht race, with your
boat an easy winner.
A curious illustration of the operation of this new condition between
creditors and bad debtors, by which the former had an electrical
control of the latter, came to light in a parish church on the banks
of the St. Lawrence. It appears that the village school teacher, who
was also choir-master, was busy with a Saturday evening rehearsal. The
members of the choir were in their places, while the professor stood
near the communion-rail, facing the choir, with his back turned
towards the empty pews. He was speaking, when suddenly his red hair
stood on end, his whiskers straightened out at right angles, while
his eyes looked big as door knobs. He then gave a leap in the air,
turned a somersault backwards and cleared ten pews before landing
again on his feet. It appears that he owed his landlord an old board
bill of $120 and the latter had just given him an electrical dun. The
choir was astounded at the professor's performance. The latter excused
himself and merely said it was a slight attack of grip.
In 1942 any one who used the word "steamship" was immediately rated
a back number. A few of them, it is true, still fouled the ocean with
their villainous smoke, but in 1999 the electrical ship ploughed the
briny waters. It was a grand sight to see a magnificent ship nine
hundred feet in length propelled through the waters at a [Electrical
Ocean Navigation.] rate of thirty-five knots per hour by an invisible
power, a mighty giant encased in the interior of the ship, a power
that labored silently yet swiftly, with no perceptible vibration
to the vessel and without emitting volumes of black smoke. These
swiftly moving electrical ships were strange and striking in their
appearance. Those constructed in 1975 by the Cramps had no masts,
and they, of course, had no more use for funnels than a hen has for
teeth. To the people of the old school of 1899, the ocean electrical
ship looked strange indeed. The spectacle of a large steamship of
28,000 tons burden cleaving the ocean waves at the rate of forty knots
per hour, with no masts and no smokestacks, looked strangely to men in
1975 who had been accustomed in their youth to old fashioned steamships
like the City of New York, Campagnia, Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, Fürst
Bismarck, Teutonic and others of that class. In 1975 the hull of the
electrical ship retained practically the same old lines. An electrical
ship, like the Great Republic, built in the year last named, plying
between Manhattan and Liverpool, was a trifle over nine hundred feet
long, with only eighty-two feet breadth of beam. From stem to stern
was built a swell body roof which covered the entire deck of the
vessel. This covering was supported by ornamental iron columns from
the bulwarks and usually stood about twenty feet above the deck. The
only object that arose above the deck-roof was the captain's bridge, in
which was stationed the steersman, who steered the leviathan by merely
pressing electrical buttons on a small disc in front of him. With the
masts and funnels removed from an electrical ocean ship, much valuable
room was thus secured, adding greatly to the comfort of the passengers.
Electricity was pressed into every conceivable service. That wonderful
element [Lighting Up the Atlantic.] was man's best and most faithful
servant. There was no duty in the twentieth century too menial for it
to do. It transformed our ocean, lake and river craft into a blaze
of light by night. Collisions after dark were unknown to navigation
in 1975. At a distance of ten miles out at sea an electrical vessel
looked like a solid mass of moving flame. Electricity drawn directly
from the air and extracted from coal, costs practically nothing. The
chief item of expenditure was to maintain the electrical machines in
repair. In 1899 sailing ships moved along at a snail gait and during
night time a small green and red lamp on the port and starboard
sides of the ship was all that enabled other vessels to note their
presence. It was always the marvel of that age that a hundred
collisions did not take place every night on the Atlantic. But in
1999 not a sail or steamship was anywhere to be seen, on ocean,
lake or river. Electricity was cheaper, swifter and more reliable.
In 1899 so backward was the age that small boats, called row-boats,
were still propelled with oars. In that year those primitive people
still employed the old methods of propelling a boat that were in vogue
in the days of the Phoenicians and Vikings. They still rowed a boat
in the manner of the Greek galley slaves. In 1930 seamen had no more
use for oars than a sperm whale has for paddle-wheels. Everything
that could float, from a wash-tub to a man-of-war, was propelled
by electricity. Even toy boats, sold for $5, were propelled by
electricity. The winds still raged in 1999. From zephyr to cyclone
that element ruled over the surface of the globe, but man had little
use for it. Even the staid Hollander harnessed the wind no more. His
mills were run by electricity, while the same agency was continually
at work pumping out his dykes.
Through the agency of electricity navigation in the twentieth
century was rendered much safer. The ocean by night was dotted
with electric buoys, which tossed and bowed with every wave. On
these buoys signal-lights were placed, and passing vessels could
read the latitude and longitude in which they were in at any time
of the day. The figures were plainly marked on each buoy. By night
the Atlantic ocean between Sandy Hook and Daunt's Rock was dotted
with bright electric arc lights of 8,000 c. p. The eye never wearied
gazing upon the picturesque beauty of the scene.
The effect of these brilliant lights on the broad bosom of the ocean,
especially during [A Scene of Thrilling Beauty.] a storm, was grand
beyond the power of pen to describe. A distant wave could be clearly
seen approaching one of these electric, mid-ocean buoys. On it sweeps,
a tremendous current that no human power could stem. The rugged blue
wall of the great wave glistens in the dazzling electric light as its
huge side and foaming crest reaches the electric buoy. It seems as
though the light and buoy must be swept to destruction and buried from
sight. As the great wave sweeps over the light, all becomes dark for
a few seconds, but when the mighty billow has swept on, the electric
arc again blazes forth in the trough of the sea bidding defiance to
Neptune's frowns. These mighty mid-ocean scenes, viewed from the deck
of an electric ocean greyhound, were thrilling in the extreme.
Along the great chain of coast-line of the United States of the
Americas, from the State of Maine to the States of Venezuela, Brazil
and Patagonia, also on the Pacific slope from the States of Chile,
Peru and Colombia to the States of West Canada and Alaska, every
rock or promontory dangerous to navigation, was ablaze with electric
beacons. Electricity was common as air. Oceans and continents were
made more habitable to man. It became in 1999 the world's sun by night.
The perfect and absolute control of electricity by the scientists
of the twentieth century benefited both ærial and ocean navigation,
in furnishing the motive power. But these were benefited in another
and hardly less remarkable manner by the perfected Marconi system of
wireless telegraphy, which in the nineteenth century was comparatively
unknown and in its early experimental stage. In ærial and ocean
navigation wireless telegraphy proved an invaluable aid. The bright,
young Italian inventor became a benefactor of the human race.