SCIENCE, ART, AND INVENTION; PHOTOGRAPHY, CHEMISTRY, ENGINEERING AND OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE; CARRING FOR THE SICK IN PAST DAYS; EFFECT OF STUDY AND RESEARCH UPON CONSUMPTION AND CANCER; THE INVENTOR THE TRUE HERO; TELEGRAPHY; TELEPHONE; AND OTHER ELECTRICAL APPLIANCES; BOB TAYLOR PREDICTS FOR THE FUTURE

This is the golden age of science and invention, and great strides recently have been made therein for the betterment of the world. I will name one product--kerosene--that every one knows something of which in a crude state is pumped out of the earth with improved machinery and by modern processes is clarified for use. It affords a vivid light and takes the place of the old tallow-candle. There are scores of other efficient helps and all manner of cleansing processes. Besides these helps, in clarifying this oil, many useful inflammable elements are derived therefrom which were once thrown away as useless, but have now been made useful in many ways, as, for instance, in propelling boats on every sheet of water.

There is amazing progress in photography, chemistry, engineering and other departments of knowledge; all of which redound to the benefit of all trades and all conditions of the human race.

At the chemist's bidden pain vanishes; constant study and research in minutest life are resulting in the discovery which promise to rid the world of consumption itself.

Prevention of disease has become the ruling note of scientific medical progress, and the skillful physician's aim is not merely to restore lost health but to maintain the health still unimpaired.

It has become an easy task for the surgeon to cut into the inner cavity of a human body, take there from abscesses both small and great, cut and mend the intestines with the result a large percentage recover and suffer but little pain in the operation.

Almost every nation has a score or more of scientific experts whose aim is to find the cause, cure and prevention of the deadly cancer, which has been for ages, and still is afflicting and killing people of all nations. There is little doubt, in this scientific and progressive age, but that success will soon appear.

Once sick people were put in closed rooms where they were allowed or compelled to breathe the foul gases therein especially was this so with consumptives and women in child-bed; now it is precisely the reverse--breath fresh air--fresh air continually. Many persons who are inclined to consumption now-a-days eradicate its dendency by breathing cold, fresh air.

The inventor perhaps is the true hero of the age. He multiplies the working value of life in thousands of ways in the management of household concerns. He ousts the scythe by devising a mowing machine, and in connection with this, a thrasher and a bagger, so in a minute the wheat is ready for the mill. He created a device whereby at his bidding the human face, the landscape, the sea, were depicted on a photographic plate. Then again, the telegraph, the telephone, the talking-machine and other electrical appliances.

Then came the dynamo and motor, the X ray, etc. These inventors have exhausted the Greek language to find names for their inventions, and will undoubtedly exhaust the prefixes and suffixes of the English tongue, in tying them to "phone" and other roots, so as to distinguish one from the other.

Daily inventions little less than miraculous are crowding on the capital. What astonishing inventions may come in the future no one now may tell, except perhaps some New York papers and Ex-Governor Bob Taylor of Tennessee. The following in part is what Governor Bob says the dreamers will unfold: "It may be that another magician, greater even than Edison, the “Wizzard of Menloe Park," will rise up and coax the very laws of nature into easy compliance with his unheard of dreams. I think he will construct an electric railway in the form of a huge tube, and call it the "electro-scoot," and passengers will enter it in New York and touch a button and arrive in San Francisco two hours before they started!

I think a new discovery will be made by which the young man of the future may stand at his "kiss-o-phone" in New York, and kiss his sweetheart in Chicago with all the delightful sensations of the "aforesaid and the same." I think some Liebig will reduce foods to their last analyses, and by an ultimate concentration of their elements, will enable the man of the future to carry a year's provision in his vest pocket.

The sucking dude will store his rations in the head of his cane, and the commissary department of a whole army will consist of a mule and a pair of saddle-bags. A train load of cabbage will be transported in a sardine box, and a thousand fat Texas cattle in an oyster can.

Power will be condensed from a forty horse engine to a quart cup. Wagons will roll by the power in their axles, and the cushions of our buggies will cover the force that propels them. The armies of the future will fight with chain lightening and the battlefield we'll become so hot and unhealthy that,

"He who fights and runs away will never fight another day".

Some dreaming Icarus will perfect the flying machine, and upon the aluminium wings of the swift Pegassus of the air the light hearted society girl will sail among the stars and "behind some dark cloud, where no one's allowed, Make love to the Man in the Moon."

The rainbow will be convereted into a Ferris Wheel; all men will be bald headed; the women will run the Government--and then I think the end of time will be near at hand.

"Man's a vapor full of woes, Cuts a caper--down he goes.

"Whether all Ex-Governor Bob Taylor's funny and Mirthful prophecies, as he peeps into the future will ever come to pass we cannot say; but the wireless telegraph, the automobile and plenty of lately made phones are now with us.

We may be quite sure though that during the present twentieth century will be developed in the scientific mind to astound the world. The telegraph, the telephone and the phonograph--one after another, were marvels when first introduced, and the steps that have been taken since to improve the wonders of each, still keep us in a maze; but their magic workings have prepared our minds to receive other inventions and discoveries, though apparently touching the miraculous, with less ado.

Back to the top.