_A NEWSPAPER OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY._
BY
MERLIN NOSTRADAMUS.
“Forerun thy time, thy peers, and let
Thy feet, milleniums hence, be set
In midst of knowledge dreamed not yet:
· · · · ·
Thou hast not gained a real height,
Nor art thou nearer to the light.”
_Two Voices._
[Illustration]
_LONDON_:
WARD, LOCK, AND TYLER,
WARWICK HOUSE, PATERNOSTER ROW.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY J. OGDEN AND CO.,
172, ST. JOHN STREET, E.C.
THE AGE OF SCIENCE
The greatest discovery ever achieved by man is beyond all question that
which it is now our privilege to announce, namely, that of the new
PROSPECTIVE TELEGRAPH. By this truly wonderful invention (exquisitely
simple in its machinery, yet of surpassing power) the obstacle of _Time_
is as effectually conquered as that of _Space_ has been for the last
generation by the Electric Telegraph; and future years—even, it is
anticipated, future centuries—will be made to respond to our call as
promptly and completely as do now the uttermost parts of the earth
wherewith the magic wire has placed us in communication.
For obvious reasons the particulars of this most marvellous invention,
and the name of its author, must be withheld from the public till the
patents be made out, and the enormous profits which must accrue from its
application be secured to the Company which is invited to undertake to
work it (with limited liability). We are only permitted by special
favour to hint that the natural Force relied on to set the machinery in
action is neither Electric, Magnetic, nor Galvanic; nor yet any
combination of these; but that other great correlated imponderable
agency, whose existence has been for some time suspected by many
intelligent inquirers, called the _Psychic Force_, whose laws of action
it has been reserved for this new and greater WHEATSTONE to develop and
apply to practical utility. That no scepticism may linger in the minds
of our readers, we desire to add that we have been gratified by the
actual inspection of several short fragments forestalled by this
invaluable process from the press of the next fifty, eighty, and one
hundred and thirty years respectively; and have at this moment in our
hands a complete transcript (the most important document of the series)
of a newspaper bearing date January 1st, 1977, photographed in a very
beautiful manner by the machine upon an enormous sheet of paper, which
was found needful to contain the type in the most compressed form. As
the printed matter of this gigantic periodical equals at least in bulk
the whole of Gibbon’s History, or Mr. Jowett’s edition of Plato, we
cannot attempt to do more than offer our readers a few brief extracts,
serving, however, we trust, as not inadequate samples of the literary
treasures which are shortly to be revealed to our curiosity, and
satisfying even the most incredulous that the invention of which we
speak has been crowned with triumphant success. We have only to add that
the great originator of this discovery entertains hopes that, by an
ingenious _inversion_ of the action of his machine, he may be able to
convert it, when required, into a RETROSPECTIVE TELEGRAPH, bringing back
the Past, as it already antedates the Future, and restoring to us all
the records of antiquity whose loss we have deplored, as, for example,
the Odes of Sappho, the missing Books of Livy, the Prometheus Unbound of
Æschylus, and the original MSS. of the Vedas, the Zend Avesta, and the
Pentateuch. The final completion of this latter discovery, however, is
scarcely perfected, and we shall not therefore pause to describe its
probable value, but proceed without further delay to put our readers in
possession of all the details for which we can find space concerning the
Newspaper of 1977, which has been very sagaciously selected by the
inventor as the first fruits of the working of his Prospective Machine.
The name of this journal (which, we conclude, may be considered as the
_Times_ of the twentieth century) is