Nature’s Next Moves
Date: 1899-12-31T15:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Weird Science; Parody; Humor
Description: Purportedly by “Archibald Damstruther,” the fictional creation of Pain, who is himself credited as “editor” of these pieces, this is a six-part set of loosely connected fantasies, cousin to the wacky invention story popular at the time. Pain’s variation on the theme is to speculate about fantastic (and funny) directions in which biological evolution might steer plants and animals—and people—to produce new improved versions of existing species (e.g., a third arm for people, or a writing tree that helps authors. As one might expect, the writing is droll and amusing. ~ ~ ~ ~ Barry Eric Odell Pain
Publisher: MobileRead.com
Rights: Public domain where copyright is “Life+90” or less, and in the USA

NATURE’S
NEXT MOVES

BARRY PAIN

MobileRead Edition
2022

Purportedly by “Archibald Damstruther,” the fictional creation of Pain, who is himself credited as “editor” of these pieces, this is a six-part set of loosely connected fantasies, cousin to the wacky invention story popular at the time.

Pain’s variation on the theme is to speculate about fantastic (and funny) directions in which biological evolution might steer plants and animals—and people—to produce new improved versions of existing species (e.g., a third arm for people, or a writing tree that helps authors. As one might expect, the writing is droll and amusing.

Barry Eric Odell Pain (28 Sep. 1864 – 05 May 1928) was an English journalist, poet, humorist and writer. During his lifetime, he was perhaps best known as a writer of parody and lightly humorous stories, but now is also noted for his tales touched with fantasy, horror, and the supernatural. He also wrote stories of mystery and suspense. His humour has been characterized by some modern critics as “a surreal forerunner to Monty Python.”

The contents of this collection were first serialized in Pearson’s Magazine, January through June, 1900. This book is in the public domain where copyright is “Life+90” or less, and in the USA.

CONTENTS:

- The Third Hand
- The Graduated Watchdog
- The Writing Tree
- The Poom
- Chameleonica
- The Treble-X Rays

NATURE’S
NEXT MOVES

SUGGESTED BY
ARCHIBALD MOSELY
DAMSTRUTHER
AND EDITED BY
BARRY PAIN.

THE THIRD HAND

“Have you,” inquired Archibald Mosely Damstruther, “a theory of the universe?”

He asked me this one day at the club, with the same complacence that a man might ask if you happened to have a match on you. It was, as a matter of fact, the last time that I saw Damstruther at the club, as it was on that day that he was asked by the committee to resign, in consequence of his having once more, and in spite of repeated protests, left his cork leg in the umbrella-stand downstairs. If you surmise from this that he was eccentric, you will be correct.

I made the very natural answer that I was sorry, but that I had to go out to see a man about buying a creeping jenny for his garden. But one did not get away from Damstruther so easily.

“You can give me five minutes. The man can detect for himself whether the jenny really creeps or not without any advice from you. Of course I did not expect an answer to my question. You are still young and thoughtless, and therefore you have no theory of the universe. I, on the other hand, am aged and bald and experienced, and I have a theory. What is more, I have written a series of papers in support of it. Listen. Nature was all right in the old day of the barbarous man. But the highly civilised race of the pre sent day has quite different necessities, and Nature, as she stands at present, cannot supply them. Either we shall relapse into barbarism or Nature will improve herself up to our standard, or something will break.

“It is my belief that Nature will improve herself up to our standard; and, acting on that belief, I have compiled a little book entitled ‘Nature’s Next Moves,’ indicating the lines on which it is desirable that Nature should go in order to catch up civilisation, and the lines which she will probably take. I have been asked by the committee to leave the club before noon, and it is time that I was making my preparations for departure; otherwise I understand that I am to be removed by force. Would you kindly ring and ask the waiter to bring up my leg from the umbrella-stand downstairs. The manuscript copy of ‘Nature’s Next Moves’ is with the hall-porter. He has instructions to hand it to you.

“I am about to leave for Tahiti, where, I understand, the climate is good, and there is none of that cast-iron conventionality which makes life in a New York club impossible. It is a spot where one’s requirements are those of the barbarian, and Nature is consequently less disappointing. I shall probably end my days there, but I should like to know that my work has been given to the public in the land of my birth. I therefore sought out a man with no particular ideas of his own who might be glad to make use of mine, and I have chosen you.”

—  —  —  —  —

And this is how I came to be able to give to the readers of “Pearson’s Magazine” the privilege of perusing the suggestions and forecasts of Archibald Mosely Damstruther.

The first of his papers is entitled “The Third Hand,” and runs as follows:

When Adam dug in the Garden of Eden, Nature provided him with all that he needed. If Eve happened to pass while he was engaged in this occupation he did not have to put down his spade in order to raise his hat; partly because he did not wear a hat, and partly because, if he had worn a hat, it would not at that time have been considered necessary to raise it.

But if I, Archibald Mosely Damstruther, am riding my specially-constructed tricycle (for propulsion by one leg only) in the direction of my club, and I meet a lady of my acquaintance, I am supposed to take off my hat. If I remove either of my hands from the machine, I run into the traffic or into the side-walk. As things stand at present I am compelled to bring my tricycle to a standstill and then uncover my egg-like cranium. By this time, as the lady has passed, the salute has lost something of its courtliness, and, owing to the sudden halt, a car or other vehicle has generally run into my machine from behind. If I had a third hand and arm, growing out of the middle of my chest, I should be able to take off my hat gracefully, and without incommoding the rest of the traffic.

I am far from wishing to generalise from a special case—my own case. So far as I personally am concerned, I require three hands, but one leg is ample for me. The substitute, which from a regard for conventionality I carry for the other leg, is only a source of constant trouble and expense to me. But I can quite see that many men do require two legs; while the habitually intemperate might after dinner even find it convenient to have four. I do not go into these special cases.

The improvements which I suggest to Nature, to take or leave as she likes, are improvements which would be of value, not to some particular class or under some particular conditions, but to humanity at large and under all conditions. And, as a close student of Nature, though I leave her a free hand, I have no doubt that what I suggest is what will inevitably take place.

When Nature gave us two hands she gave us all that was wanted at the time, but we have moved on, and Nature has remained stationary. We have the trolley-car to take us down town. We carry with us a hat which blows off when there is a slight breeze and is ruined by a shower of rain, an umbrella to protect the hat, and a small black bag containing papers. On our way back we have in addition in another bag a piece of fish which we have purchased in the market and are taking home to our residence. Laden with these impedimenta, we attempt to board a car in motion.

At first sight it would appear that one hand is necessary to catch on to the rail, another hand to secure the hat, another hand to hold the black bag, and another to hold the fish-bag. But this is not so in practice. One hand can satisfactorily account for a black bag, an umbrella, and a fish-basket. The trouble begins when we try to hold on the hat with the same we try to hold on the hat with the same crowd of smartly dressed people; there are hand with which we are gripping on to the rail. And in the case of the two-handed man this happens every day. As at present constructed, we lose our hat or our balance, or both. The third hand would make all secure.

Go down-town at mid-day and enter any of the popular restaurants, and you will be faced at once with the great luncheon difficulty. There is a long counter and a number of men seated at it on high stools. The counter itself is crowded,, and there are many waiting for their chance at at, and wasting valuable time. Now there is room and to spare, but not against the counter.

The third hand blots out all the difficulties of the rush luncheon at once. The third, or middle, hand spread out flat would hold the plate on which was the cut from the joint. The right hand would hold the knife, and the left the fork, as now. The counter could be removed entirely, thus giving more space. Every man would be his own counter. When the human race first started with the original couple, there was plenty of room and two hands sufficed, but in the crowded condition of the metropolitan luncheon the third hand, to hold the plate, has become a necessity. Having acquired the rush luncheon we must inevitably acquire the third hand.

Pass from the business to the social function. Let us suppose that it is a reception after a wedding. The wedding presents are ranged round the room. There is an enormous crowd of smartly dressed people; there are two detectives, carefully disguised to look exactly like detectives; there are refreshments. in the middle of the room is a young man with a coffee ice in each hand making his way to two ladies in the corner. There is a crowd round him and no available place on which he can put down either of the ices; and at that moment it be comes an imperative necessity that he shall sneeze. Think what a third hand would mean to him at that moment. I put the case to a lady of my acquaintance, and she replied with the following significant words: “Nobody would ever dream of wanting to sneeze under those circumstances, and if a man did, he would repress it. He would most certainly not sneeze.” I say that those words are very significant. They mean that Nature has become so miserably inadequate to the needs of civilisation that we are compelled to repress our natural and primeval passions.

What is repressed sooner or later becomes atrophied. Unless the third hand is provided for us soon we may expect that a generation of miserable beings will be born into the world absolutely unable to sneeze.

How often at the card-table have we seen a man in the very middle of his deal find that the ash of his cigar has grown to a dangerous length. Either he must knock it off into the ashtray or it will drop. He cannot knock it off because the whole of his miserable manual apparatus is concerned in dealing the cards. Therefore the ash drops on the table, on his clothes, or on the floor. The third hand would remove the cigar, cross over the left arm, knock off the ash into its proper receptacle, return, and replace the cigar in the mouth, without interrupting the deal in any way. Again, for the purposes of courtship in its delicate nineteenth century development, the third hand is essential. Primaeval man required one hand to knock the girl of his choice down, and two to fling her across his shoulder. He walked away with her; and the prehistoric “Fashionable Intelligence” said that the engagement had been arranged, and the marriage would shortly take place, between So-and-So and So-and-So. But that brutality has passed away now. We have the caress, and the expansion of the caress.

That a third hand is necessary has already been unconsciously realised. I picked up the other day a serial story in a ladies’ paper and read a beautiful description of a love scene between a baronet (who might be trusted to do the thing in proper style) and the daughter of an earl. He was represented as holding her two little hands in his, encircling her waist, stroking her hair, and kissing her on the eyes—all at the same time. The author felt that all these things were necessary and necessary simultaneously, but had forgotten for the moment that Nature (having modelled herself to suit the requirements of barbarous man) had only given mankind two hands.

The one possible objection that I can see to the third hand is the objection which would be only felt by children—that there would be one more hand to wash, but the advantages are without number.

Often at the opera, one has observed the conductor when he has got really warmed to his work. He conducts with his trunk, his head, four limbs, and a báton, and even then he does not seem satisfied. What he really wants is that third hand and arm. Then, how useful the third hand would be in driving. You have a troublesome horse and you want to signal to the traffic behind. Photography, the manipulation of a microscope, shaving, reading in bed—everything in fact, would be rendered easier.

I expect the third hand to be especially welcome to women. You can get more rings onto twelve fingers than onto eight. In many other ways, too, an additional hand will prove invaluable to the feminine sex.

THE GRADUATED WATCHDOG

I am afraid that in the following paper my friend Damstruther has allowed himself to be influenced by merely personal considerations. For some reason or other dogs did not like Damstruther, and were accustomed to signify the fact in the usual manner. He acquired, in consequence, remarkable skill in effecting a manoeuvre by which, whatever the dog’s original intention was, its teeth met in Damstruther’s cork leg, and not in the other. The dog would drop off with a tired expression, and slink away to discuss sensory illusions with other dogs, and form a determination to lead a better life. But, together with this skill, it was inevitable that Damstruther should also acquire some prejudice—although it will be noticed that he disclaims it. He often spoke with warm approbation of the muzzling order, and changed his tailor when he found the poor man kept terriers. He said that an honest tradesman would not try to make business for himself in that way. With these prefatory remarks we may proceed to his paper on the Graduated Watchdog.

The watchdog provides us with an excellent example of the way in which nature provided for the simple needs of the savage completely, but fails to satisfy our rich and complex civilisation.

In barbarous times the afternoon call, as we understand it, was practically unknown. As a rule, tea was not served, the visitor did a little fancy work with a primitive flint weapon and his host’s head, and the proceedings closed with a funeral. In that case a large ferocious watchdog, with his temper turned full on, ready to attack anybody except his master, was precisely what was wanted; in fact, the dog might make considerable alterations in the cast of that funeral.

In the rare event of a friendly visit—say, a visit from a man who wished to exchange two dozen of mead, old in bottle. medium fruity, for your best cow, he would come armed, and after shaking hands with his host, would, with a word of apology, bring the watchdog to an abrupt conclusion.

But how the softening and refining influences of civilisation have altered all that! We have many friends and they visit us frequently; they come armed with no more deadly weapon than a card-case; and the host is frequently so much attached to his dog that he would be positively annoyed if you killed it. And we cannot do without watchdogs, for in the country there are tramps, and in the town there are burglars.

We have tried to remedy nature’s deficiencies, and, of course, without success. To prevent the unpleasantness which must almost inevitably arise from your watchdog biting the face of the lady who has called about the Zenana Missions, we have introduced the muzzle and the chain. But though, as I have frequently found, they are better than nothing they are a sadly imperfect remedy. The dog who requires a muzzle or chain is the bad-tempered dog; and both muzzle and chain tend to make his temper worse still. What folly!

Other expedients have been tried but are hardly worth mention. Some pretend that their dogs are trained to make a distinction and not to bite the respectably dressed. As a rule this is pretence and nothing more. Where it is not a pretence, there has been cruelty.

A dog whose intelligence has been brought to such an abnormal pitch that he keeps a tramp out but allows the author of “Dukes I have Dined With” to agitate the door-knocker, is a dog who, like all highly-trained dogs, bas been treated with abominable cruelty. Be sides, the distinction by dress is not satisfactory. You do not want the man who has come to see why the bath water won’t run off to drop his bag of tools and bolt down the garden path for dear life. You would rather he came in and got to work. But you would like your dog to have something to say to the man, better dressed, who sends your servant to you with a card of summer prices for firing, and in her absence walks off with the little silver salver that you had from dear uncle Joseph, and the smaller of the two barometers.

What we really want is a graduated watchdog—that is, a watchdog with a graduated temper. With his temper turned down he might let the barometer-snatcher enter, but, as soon as you discovered the loss, you would turn the temper on full and the dog would go after the dishonest stranger and perforate him like stamp paper.

That is the kind of dog which we are going to have. As a thoughtful student of nature, I have no doubt of it. What is the meaning of the stripes on the zebra, or the rings on the tail of the wildcat? Take either of these animals—or, if you have not the menagerie and the requisite courage, take the pictures of them—and compare them with what was left of the garden thermometer when the nail came out. In both you find regular markings. One set indicates temperature, and the other indicates temperament In the case of the thermometer the indicator has been lost, and in the case of the wildcat the indicator has not yet been found. What does the iris mean on the burnished dove? I answer by another question—what does the dotted line mean on the can of potted tongue? It is interesting to notice these parallels. Marks always mean something. If you do not quite see what this paragraph means, read it again; I did not quite see it myself the first time.

The watchdog of the future will be exactly like the watchdog of the present except for its tail. The tail will be of uniform thickness throughout, and have six distinct marks, equidistant. The owner of the dog takes an elastic ring similar to the ordinary umbrella ring and puts it on the dog’ s tail. The ring must be loose enough to be easily moved up and down, and tight enough to retain its position on the particular mark where you have put it.

When the ring is not in use, the dog is absolutely innocuous and will bite nothing except its food. Its temper is then at zero. With the ring on the first mark (that is, the mark nearest the tip), the dog will bite cats and fight other dogs where there is a reasonable prospect of victory. The further on the ring is placed the greater becomes the ferocity of the dog, until when the ring reaches the sixth mark the dog is almost mad, and will even bite its own master—in fact, will bite everybody except the cook.

It will now be clear why it is on the tail, and the tail alone, that these regular marks will appear. In the process of making the dog dangerous, the part of the dog which one would handle would be that part which was furthest away from the biting apparatus. Doubtless as soon as it is needed, a useful physiological explanation will be forthcoming of the precise way in which the elastic ring regulates the temper—possibly because by constriction it modifies the supply of blood to the brain, heart and liver. However, that is but a guess, and we may safely leave this part of the question to the physiologists; as soon as we get the graduated dog we shall get the explanation.

The only possible objection to the graduated watchdog would be an aesthetic objection. Its looks would be against it.

A pug, for instance, would not be improved by a tail like an office ruler. The hair on the graduated tail would be very short to enable the ring to work easily, and this might at first have a curious appearance in such dogs as the collie. Let us frankly admit that the aesthetic objection has weight and see what compensating advantages there are. It will be found that these advantages are almost incalculable.

For instance, one fine morning you set out with your terrier. You do not want any trouble with him in the streets, and so you keep the ring in your pocket; he follows close at your heel, meek, docile almost sleepy. Once in the country you slip the ring on, and put it just beyond the first mark. The dog becomes livelier at once, looks sharper, scampers about, gives you some fun with a rat.

You have to call at a house where there is a valuable Persian cat; off comes the ring once more, and at the mere sight of the cat the dog runs for his life. When you leave the house, you find a particularly evil-looking tramp coming along the road towards you. On goes the ring up to mark number two. The dog barks and growls at the tramp. Undeterred, the tramp begs of you. You refuse. He threatens. You push the ring on to the third mark The dog flies at the tramp’s legs. The tramp bolts. You call back the dog and move the ring towards the tip again. What could be more satisfactory?

Or you go out in the country without your dog, and you lose your way. You turn into the first farmyard that you come across, to make inquiries, and immediately three collies dash furiously towards you, as if they intended to tear you limb from limb. Do you run away? Do you climb a tree? Do you defend yourself with your walking-stick? Nothing of the kind. You stand still blandly smiling, and quite imperturbed, for you have noticed that all three dogs have their rings only just past the second mark. They may bark, and they may look terrible, but they will not bite a man unless he actually attacks them.

The control of the dog’s temper will, naturally, not be left entirely to his owner. The law will, as usual, make its wise provisions for the safety and convenience of the public. In the streets of our principal towns the ring will not be permitted past the first mark. In our public parks we shall read the notice that all dogs must have their tail-rings removed before entering. To put the ring of a dog up to the sixth mark in any public place will be a wanton and criminal act on a par with train-wrecking. We shall read in our paper something like the following:

Policeman Murphy said that on the afternoon of Wednesday he was on duty on Broadway, when he observed a large crowd approaching rapidly, pursued by a mastiff with its tail-ring on the sixth mark. (Sensation.) He went after the dog and succeeded in pulling its tail-ring off, when the animal at once went to sleep. In the course of its career the dog had bitten eight men, thirteen women, and a curate. Acting on information received, he proceeded to No. 14, Broadway, where he arrested the prisoner.

The Chairman: You acted in a very prompt and courageous way, and we shall see to it that notice is taken of your conduct in the proper quarter.

Policeman Murphy: Thank you very much, sir. I only did my duty.

The Chairman: Not everyone would have done it.”

At present, when a dog at large in the public streets is mad, or very furious, we have to destroy it. When I say we, I do not When we come across a dog like that, we let the policeman act for us, while we run into the nearest shop and shut the door with particular care, before we make our modest purchase of acidulated drops to take home to the children. Yes, that is so. But it works out in much the same way for the dog. Now with the graduated watchdog, all that is required is to shift the ring back. Ask any humane lover of animals which is the more desirable.

But really, further argument is not required to show the immense superiority of the graduated watchdog. On his arrival, though may not live to see it, every difficulty of the dog-keeper will be solved at once. There will be no more chains or muzzles required; and though I have personally found much satisfaction from the use of muzzles, I do not allow such considerations to weigh with me.

In fact, when I think of the dog with the graduated tail, I see clearly that the advocates of muzzling orders are in reality tinkering at the wrong end.

THE WRITING TREE

Damstruther was a crank with a cork leg and a crowd of ideas for improving Nature. These ideas he committed to writing and handed the MSS. to me for publication. The original of this article was written upon the inside of three envelopes cut open, some sheets of the club notepaper, and the back of a bill (not receipted) from a vendor of surgical apparatus, for extensive and continuous repairs to one cork leg during a period of six months; and concluded on seventy-eight assorted visiting-cards. The whole was enclosed in an envelope bearing the stamp of another club of which, I regret to say, Damstruther was not a member. This will perhaps excuse him, if the following article seems to show a little bitterness.

I have collected a certain amount of evidence as to the supply of writing materials in places where one would expect them to be required frequently. The editor of the Daily Times writes:

“I think you are mistaken. There’s plenty of copying paper here, and it is part of my secretary’s duty to see that my table is well provided in every respect. Since you say that you require it for a scientific purpose, I have had a portion of the ink now in my inkstand packed up and sent to you. Please excuse pencil. I have a pen-holder, but the nib has gone wrong.”

I think this letter speaks for itself, especially when you take into consideration the following communication from Charles Hubert Ball, M.D. and Public Analyst.

“Speaking quite roughly, the specimen of ink which you have submitted to me is as follows:

“Vegetable pulp…32

“Ink…25

“Water…30

“Hair…10

“Glue…3

“Dead fly…a trace.

“However, I will send you the exact analysis in a day or two.”

The chief cashier of a well-known bank (the name of which I am not permitted to give) writes:

“We provide quill pens, ink, and blotting-paper for the convenience of customers. The bank has been in existence for a hundred and fifty years, and we have not at present seen any reason to renew the blotting-paper or the six quill pens originally provided. A five-cent bottle of ink was divided equally among the six pewter inkstands on the counter by a customer, surreptitiously, to the disgust of the bank officials. He has since been asked to take his account elsewhere.”

The steward of the Millionaires’ Club writes:

“Every care is taken to keep the writing-tables in this club liberally supplied with every requisite, but much difficulty is occasioned by members dishonestly removing, and taking home with sheets of clean blotting-paper or any pens which they have found suitable to their style of handwriting.”

There may be two reasons assigned for this disastrous state of affairs. The first is that with one exception, that of the telegram form, there is nothing which offers such temptations to a rigid economy and even parsimoniousness as the ordinary writing apparatus. The second reason is that the different items of the writing apparatus cannot be properly synchronised. I mean, it is impossible to arrange one’s paper, envelope, pen, pen-holder, and ink so that they will all end exactly together.

Envelopes are notoriously much longer lived than note-paper. After you have finished up the packet of five quires you nearly always have part of a packet of envelopes lingering alone. If at one time one could put the last piece of notepaper into the last envelope, address it with the last drop of ink, have the nib break in this its dying effort, and then lose one’ s pen-holder, it would be easier to keep oneself properly provided with writing apparatus. One would only have to think once instead of thinking four times. And when to the articles already mentioned you add blotting-paper, copy-paper, red ink, stamps, and scores of other things, you will see that it must follow that there is hardly one day in the year on which the ordinary man does not find some deficiency in his writing apparatus, and regrets it bitterly.

Even if this were not so, and every writing-table in the country were in a state of perpetual perfection, the great writing trouble would not be ended. It is chiefly in the street or in lonely country roads that one remembers that one has a letter to write. The sight of the red letter-box recalls to your mind that you have forgotten to write to thank Aunt Susan for her present. As you go down the street these mailboxes turn up one after the other, and shriek “Aunt Susan” at you, and the moment you have entered the house the storm dies down, and you forget all about it once more.

It is a curious fact that one’s writing-table only reminds one that one neglected to mail a letter when one was outside. The letter-box only reminds one that one neglected to write a letter when one was indoors.

If at the moment when you saw the mailbox, you had also been able to write the letter, Aunt Susan would not have been so permanently offended as she now is. Of course, you might have turned into a restaurant and called for writing-paper, or, if your club had been handy, you might have gone there, but what do these courses mean? They mean drink. They mean the formation of the habit of taking numerous cocktails between meals.

It has long been obvious to me (though I do not pretend to be a botanist ) that Nature has already foreseen that the want of a writing-tree would, as civilisation advanced, be felt, and has even made some tentative, experimental moves in that direction herself. Are not many plants provided with spikes, which need but little further adaptation to become passable quill pens? The seed vessels of many plants are Nature’ s first attempt at providing an ink-stand. The gum that exudes from the bark of certain trees shows clearly enough that here is the beginning of an envelope. The leaves of many trees would need but little further alteration to become writing material, while, with the profusion of pigments that we find in the vegetable kingdom, it is impossible to believe there would ever be any trouble about ink in two or three colours.

The fact is that our clever gardeners fool away their time. They improve the chrysanthemum. If they can get a new kind and call it after their own proper names they are pleased. They fool away their energy in making primroses grow bigger. They would like black tulips and blue roses. So far their work is merely aesthetic and useless. When they improve our table vegetables they are doing better, but even then they are missing their grand opportunity. Their grand opportunity lies in the discovery and creation in collaboration with Nature ) of the writing-tree. Nature has practically said: “I am ready to begin. I have made one or two little advances in the direction on my own account. All you have to do is to improve and combine, as you have improved and combined in other cases.”

The writing-tree of the future will be on something of the same lines as the palm. At the top will be a tuft of sharp spikes, capable of being converted easily into pens. Round the base of this tuft will be huge bunches of the paper pods, looking at a small distance very much like big bunches of bananas. The pod is of course a necessity in order to keep the paper clean and dry. Nature has used the same dodge before, in the case of beans and peas, and should be quite willing to use it again.

Underneath the paper pods, three small gourds will grow out from the trunk. Each will contain a different ink. Doubtless the authorities will have labels attached to these gourds so that you may know whether you are using black, red,or copying. Underneath the gourds, from one little spot in the trunk, the best gum will exude slowly. The remainder of the tree will be plain trunk, liberally studded with nails to prevent small boys from climbing it. The height of it will be seven or eight feet altogether. The tree will be specially adapted for growth in cities, as it will be necessary to have one planted beside each mailbox.

This will materially alter and, I think, beautify the appearance of our,say, Broadway, besides adding greatly to one’s convenience. You would step up to the tree and pick off a spike and a pod. Opening the pod you would find two or, if it was large, three sheets of white paper. You would dip the spike in one of the gourds,write your letter on one of the sheets, fold it up inside the other, secure the whole thing with gum, get a stamp from nickel-in-the-slot machine hard by, and go on your way happy and rejoicing.

But it is not only for the convenience of those who suddenly remember that they have a letter to write that the tree will be useful. It must have occurred to all thoughtful men what an immense amount of literary leakage there is at present. The poet is going along a lonely country road and suddenly an idea flashes upon him. He has no notebook, not even the back of an envelope. If he had he would certainly have no pencil. He does his best to fix the idea in his mind, but ideas are elusive things, and by the time he has got home the inspiration has vanished and the world goes short of a good serviceable sonnet. I should think it a fair computation that at least five hundred publishable poems get lost in this way every year through the want of a writing-tree. Let us suppose that these poems will sell to the editors of magazines at two dollars apiece. This means a loss in cash of one thousand dollars per annum.

Novels bring in more than poems, plays bring in more than novels, and how often a play or novel has been lost because at the moment when the author thought of a plot he was unable to make a note of it. There must certainly be thousands, it may be millions, running to waste every year for the want of a writing-tree.

Interesting indeed will be the scenes which will be witnessed in the great literary centres, when the writing-tree is no longer a dream but a reality. Suppose, for instance, that an enormous celebrity is lying ill, and that at four o’clock the evening newspapers assert that his life is despaired of. Every minor poet would fling down the copy of the paper which he had just purchased, rush to the nearest writing-tree and get to work on his “In Memoriam” verses. What a chance there would be for the snapshot photographer to secure interesting groups! At one tree perhaps “Dooley” and Mr. Richard Harding Davis might be sharing the product of the same paper pod, at another Mr. Hall Caine and Mr. Andrew Lang exchanging pens, at another Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Mr. Clement Scott dipping in the same gourd, at another Miss Marie Corelli writing to thank the critics for their excellent advice.

It is almost incredible that at the moment of writing there is no specimen of the writing-tree yet extant. Nature provided for the savage. It gave him the bread-tree, and it will be remembered that a water-tree saved the life of M. de Rougemont. Civilisation still waits for her next step. Civilisation must have the thing it wants at the moment it wants it. It is for that reason that on the station platform at three o’clock in the morning it is possible to obtain a packet of pineapple jujubes and scent one’s handkerchief with real lavender water. It is for that reason that anybody who fancies a diet of hot water and biscuits has only got to go to the nearest patent lamp-post. But our clumsy and mechanical efforts need to be seconded by Nature. And if the horticulturist will only take her hints and give her assistance, the writing-tree will shortly be ours.

THE POOM

Archibald Moseley Damstruther had not a very tactful hand with children although he was devoted to them. He would go into a happy nursery and work hard for half-an-hour; at the end of that time the children would be cross, or sleepy, or unhappy, or all three. The natural consequence was that parents and nurses gave no particular encouragement to Damstruther. He meant well, but his jokes frightened them, his stories bored them, and his sweetmeats made them ill. If when he was a visitor to a house he expressed a wish to visit the nursery, they headed him off to the garden or the stables. However, his devotion was quite sincere and among those to be benefited by his proposed Nature’s Next Moves he did not forget the children. This was shown by his curious and instructive paper on the poom, an animal intended solely for their amusement and pleasure.

Many must have noticed that at present there is no animal which is entirely satisfactory as a pet for children. The dog barks and frightens the baby; it may even bite. Even if it is so good-tempered that it will allow itself to be dressed up in what can be spared from the doll’s wardrobe, it does so with more resignation than cordiality. The cat is either lethargic or dangerous. The rabbit is too stupid. The canary is too fragile, and frequently breaks when the child is patting it; and the child must have something that it can pat. Even if the canary were more solidly put together, I do not think it would be quite satisfactory, because its diet is too limited. A child requires a free-eating pet. The child’s first question on being given a new pet is always “What will it eat?”

What the child really wants is a poom—an interesting little animal of the cat species, which Nature may be expected to evolve shortly. It is so called because poom is an exceedingly easy word to pronounce, and also because it contains just a suggestion of the word puss. Its fur is long and handsome, and may be pulled freely without injuring the poom. Unlike the long-haired rabbit, it performs its own toilet and keeps its coat in perfect order. It has no claws; its legs end in soft woolly stumps, like the legs of a toy lamb that squeaks when you pinch it.

The poom has a singularly sweet smile and bright, vivacious eyes. The eyes change colour from day to day, thus giving it the charm of variety and providing the child’ s father with something fresh to bet on. In size it is smaller than the ordinary cat, and has many of the frolicsome ways of the kitten. Pooms may be of any colour or combination of colours. The colours may be in regular stripes, as in the zebra or the Neapolitan ice, or may be distributed irregularly like the ink-stains on the schoolroom tablecloth. A group of twenty or thirty pooms in a nursery would present a perfect blaze of colour.

Often has one seen a young child wounded and mortified by the refusal of a fox-terrier to eat the proffered acidulated drop. Now there is none of that stand-offishness about the poom; under one condition—and only one—the poom will eat anything. Nothing is bad for it, and it is not affected by poison. The condition is simply this, that the food must be offered to it. It never dreams of taking anything that is not offered to it.

You may shut the poom up in a dining-room where the table is spread with every kind of delicacy and you will be quite safe. Just as the late George Washington found New York that in spite of all his tell a lie, the poom finds that it is unable to steal. It is physiological; there is something in its constitution that keeps it off the cold partridge unless it is expressly invited to partake. It does not even suffer from temptation.

But if the food is offered, that makes all the difference. If, for instance, its young master or mistress pours a little oxalic or sulphuric acid into a saucer and invites the poom to go out and see a man as the saying is, the poom laps it all up at once with every sign of pleasure. Anything else would drop dead, but the poom is not a slave to popular prejudices about poison.

And it may be added here that the apparatus for expressing delight is singularly full and rich in the poom. When pleased it wags its tail, purrs and smiles considerably. Also with the poom there are no mean limits as to amount. The child who is forbidden to give the pony more than six lumps of sugar has much the same feelings as the artist who is compelled to produce scamped and hurried work. He, or she, feels that the thing has not been done thoroughly. But the poom will go on eating until the child wants another kind of game. Mark my words, when Nature makes an animal exclusively for the use of children it will devote special the question of diet.

Another strong point will be the intelligence of the poom. It will be really intelligent; as a rule, the pet about whose intelligence its owner boasts has merely made a fool of itself. There is the well-known case of the terrier, the property of a gentleman living in New York, which is sold to a lady residing in Trenton. The dog is sent off by rail and delivered in good condition, reasonable wear and tear and damage by fire excepted.

Next day the dog turns up in New York again, at the house of the original owner, having made its way back on foot, guided partly by what it could see of the surrounding country by looking through the chinks of the hamper and the window of the baggage-car, and partly by its marvellous sense of smell. Then people write letters to the papers about that dog, and he is praised in a way which would be very injurious to him if he could possibly understand it.

Of course, the dog is really a fool, has failed to realise that his position does not allow him the exercise of an option, and has no grasp of the most elementary principles of honest commerce. If a man behaved on similar lines he would be put in prison and no fuss made. The silly owl is packed up again and sent to Trenton once more, and carriage has to be paid twice over.

There is none of that nonsense about the poom. When you sell your poom he perfectly well understands that he is sold, and does not dream of coming back again. If the check came back, the poom might come back also, but not otherwise. When you sell your poom he perfectly understands that he is sold, and acts accordingly.

It is not that he is wanting in affection—I doubt if any animal is so affectionate as a good poom—but his affection is tempered with reason and that humility which comes from a perfect grasp of the situation. When one nursery has finished with him, he is quite willing to let another take him up. He knows his place. He is affectionate, but not quixotic.

His obedience—and he is very obedient—is by no means the unreasoning obedience of dog. A man puts down a walking-stick, value five cents, and tells his dog to watch it, and goes away. He has to see another man about a canary, and forgets all about that stick and that dog. What is the consequence? The dog, value five dollars, keeps on watching that wretched stick until he dies of starvation; and his master—this is the absurd part of it—becomes proud, and writes letters to the paper.

Now, in a case like that you can absolutely depend on the poom. If you tell a poom to watch your walking-stick, he does watch it for a reasonable amount of time; but when he realises that you’ve forgotten all about it (which is where the intelligent dog slips up), he does not waste the money that you have spent on him by dying of starvation. He just picks that stick up in his mouth, trots off with it to the police station, and leaves it there.

This rational and discriminating obedience is absolutely essential in a pet intended for the nursery. Many of the orders that children give to their pets should not be obeyed. It would be of no use whatever for Tommy, aged seven, to tell the poom to bite the governess. The poom would merely shake its head, sigh, and walk away with every indication of disappointment. As the advertisement says, see what you save.

I have not the slightest doubt that if statistics could be prepared of the amount spent every year on the repair of governesses we should be surprised. Though the poom is intended by Nature as a pet for the nursery and nothing more, I should not be surprised to find that with many adults it entirely superseded the dog, simply on the grounds of its superior intelligence.

Look out for it. Get ready for it.

CHAMELEONICA

One of the more noticeable defects in my friend Damstruther was the singular poverty of his invention. The only excuse that he ever employed on those social occasions when it became necessary to get out of something, was the excuse of illness; and this excuse he abused and overworked in the most grotesque manner. It was bad when he, having neglected to be present at an entertainment for which he had accepted an invitation, wrote to his hostess to the effect that he had been prevented by small-pox. Nor did he make it any better when he met her on Fifth Avenue on the following afternoon, and thought he had put everything right by saying that the attack had been slight and the recovery rapid. Still worse was his refusal of a dinner invitation for the 21st, which was three weeks ahead, on the ground that he would be suffering from neuralgia on that date. No! With every desire to do Damstruther justice it must be owned that he did not do these things well. It was probably this little defect of his that led him to think of that very curious drug Chameleonica, of which he here gives us some account.

I profess no very great knowledge of Natural History, but I believe I am correct in saying that the Chameleon is a small insect of the serpent tribe, inhabiting the jungle, and chiefly remarkable for the facility with which it takes its colour from its surroundings. On the grass it becomes green, on the tree-trunk brown, and in the coal-cellar black; in this way it eludes the vigilance of its pursuers, who are accustomed to hunt it with great eagerness in order to sell it for what it will fetch.

It is from this ingenious and unobtrusive little beast that the new drug Chameleonica will (when it arrives) take its name. Just as the Chameleon gets its colour from its surroundings, so Chameleonica will get its effects from the wishes of the person who swallows it. It will provide for him the appearance of any disease that, for his own reasons, he wishes for a time to assume. It will not produce the actual disease, for that would be carrying verisimilitude further than is necessary, but it will imitate it for any period of time you like and with such closeness as to deceive even the cleverest doctors.

If you ask who requires such a drug, the answer is simple; everybody requires it who at any time wants to get out of anything; that is to say, the whole of the civilised world requires it. There is no excuse in the world so good as the excuse of illness properly substantiated. Once establish the genuineness of your complaint, and you can do what you like with your engagements and nobody will be angry with you; on the contrary, they will be most sympathetic with the poor invalid.

That is the boon that Chameleonica will bring to an eagerly expectant world; it will put back-bone into our excuses and give us more courage to make them. It has been long wanted and there can be no doubt that we shall soon get it. Nature may follow a little way behind civilisation, but still she does follow, and sooner or later supplies the article required.

We shall read one day in the papers that an orchid-hunter, while in the pursuit of his ordinary avocation in the tropics or thereabouts, has come across a plant of the palm-kind, hitherto unknown to science, and reports that he finds it possesses very curious medical qualities. A paper will be read on it before the Medical Association, and there will be some interesting notes on it in the scientific journals. Then we shall have the usual period of probation, while experiments are being tried, and finally the drug will be put on the market; and, though expensive at first, will at once command a large sale.

The demand for it is easily understood. How many occasions there are on which one would find a phial of Chameleonica Tabloids invaluable!

For instance, on coming down to breakfast one morning, you find that a police-gentleman has called and left for you a notice on yellow paper, intimating that your Country requires you to serve on a special jury. Now an official summons to serve on a special jury takes a good deal of dodging. If you are a foreigner, or are over sixty, or have a doctor’s certificate, or happen to be dead at the time, I believe you are exempt. Otherwise you have to sit on a jury for a week or more; and receive a small payment, of which the usher of the Court expects you to give him a great part, because he has done nothing whatever for you, and, as he also receives a salary for doing what he doesn’t, naturally has a claim on the assistance of the charitable.

It annoys you that you should be dragged into quarrels which do not concern you. If an entire stranger to yourself has been hit in the back by a truck in a railroad freight yard, where he had no business to be at the time, the truck having been started on its downward career by a third party, who may or may not have been guilty of contributory negligence, it seems rather hard that you, in company with eleven others, should be dragged into the discussion, made to examine complicated plans of railroad sidings, and be addressed as a body of intelligent gentlemen by a lawyer, who obviously does not mean what he is saying. But you have got to go through with it; the jury system is a national bulwark, and though you may feel at the time that you could do with a little less bulwark, your only course is to groan and submit.

There will be a great difference when Nature at last makes up her mind to give us Chameleonica. Then when the police-gentleman leaves you the paper it will have no terrors for you. On the day you are expected to attend at the Courts you will take a tabloid of Chameleonica and send for your doctor. He will find you with all the symptoms of typhoid, complicated with housemaid’s knee, and will give you a certificate to that effect, setting you free from that jury. As soon as the doctor has gone the symptoms will disappear, obediently to your wishes, and you will resume your usual business. It may be that owing to the general use of Chameleonica the supply of special jurors will run somewhat short; but that will tend to discourage the spirit of litigiousness, of which there is far too much nowadays.

Here is another illustration. You are playing whist; your partner is your uncle, who plays a good strict game, has a short temper, and a long purse, and has always regarded you as his favourite nephew. Suddenly, just as a trick is turned, you discover that you have revoked. Chameleonica would save you. You would draw a tabloid surreptitiously from your waistcoat pocket and swallow it hurriedly. Then you would only have to select symptoms of sufficient seriousness to put an end to the game—a violent and foaming fit, in the course of which the card-table would be overthrown, would do very nicely.

At present we are dependent on our own histrionic efforts, and, at the best, that is very risky work. You need to have the entire book of symptoms by heart; there are so many people nowadays that have attended First Aid lectures, and know exactly what a faint ought to look like. In fact, the whole system of fainting has been so discredited by ill-prepared amateur performances, that a singularly useful art stands in danger of total extinction. In the very early days of the century fainting was perhaps a little overdone.

Even when we get our Chameleonica, we shall have to guard against overdoing any one particular disease. During his last summer holidays I had my nephew Augustine staying with me, and every Sunday he accompanied me to church. On the first Sunday during the Litany a feeling of faintness came over him, and he went out on the second Sunday a violent headache compelled him to leave the church just after the first lesson; on the third Sunday he retired with bleeding from the nose during the hymn before the sermon. This was a little crude, of course, and would have been more convincing if his appetite had ever been impaired at Sunday luncheon, but there was the artist’s reluctance to overdo one excuse. We are having him trained now for the Weather Bureau. Of course, the sale of Chameleonica to boys or girls would be absolutely prohibited: it might tend to make them deceitful.

I welcome Chameleonica. On many social occasions I have felt the want of some sudden and harmless indisposition, and should have found the drug most useful. But, at the same time, I will not attempt to hide that, even if it is used with the utmost discretion, and only when the occasion justifies it, and is never used by children at all, it may still give rise to a general feeling of distrust and suspicion.

There is, for instance, a national crisis; on a semi-political occasion a minister is expected to make a semi-official statement. At the last moment he absents himself, and sends a note to say that he is suffering from the measles. Even if the illness is absolutely genuine the two-cent opposition papers will hint at Chameleonica, and the yellow journals will not scruple to use the actual word. On social occasions, too, it is very possible that one’s hostess will venture to suggest that the mumps which kept you from attending the wedding of her third daughter (to whom you have neglected to give a present) were procured from the chemist in a phial, price one quarter.

But we must take the rough with the smooth, and the advantages that we shall gain from the use of Chameleonica more than outweigh this feeling of distrust. After all it never can be more than a feeling; with a little care one can always make proof impossible. One would not buy the tabloids openly. They would be sent by mail to a assumed name at a hired address, and once purchased one would always keep them under lock and key. You would only have to stick to your story to receive the benefit of the doubt.

Revert for one moment to our minister, and let us suppose that these measles were but a hollow and Chameleonically induced pretence. If he had spoken and avoided the critical subject, or had refrained from speaking on any other pretext than of health, it is conceivable that it might have meant war; one must choose the lesser of two evils. Besides, if the opposition papers had not been nasty on the subject of Chameleonica they would have been nasty about something else. They must do their duty.

I must admit, too, that it would be possible for an improper use to be made of the drug. But the same might be said of any drug in the Pharmacopoeia, or of electricity, or of high explosives. We do not give up the use of dynamite in, say, mining operations, merely because the boy who monkey’s about with it is likely to solve the problem of how to be in several different places at the same time. What we do is to keep the dynamite from the boy, thus preventing any general redistribution of the neighbourhood.

We should take precisely the same course with Chameleonica. The sale of it to anyone under the age of eighteen would be prohibited by law; and any offence under this head would be severely punished. It would never do to let the tabloids fall into the hands of the young; there is no use in disguising the fact, Chameleonica would make them deceitful. They would shirk their lessons, and escape the corporal punishment which is so essential for them, by an adroit assumption of an early decline.

We want our children to grow up fearlessly truthful and absolutely straightforward. Not only should the sale be prohibited, but even the name of Chameleonica should never be mentioned in their presence. If all knowledge of the marvellous powers of the drug is kept from them, they will not be tempted to try to procure it by bribing some poor man to purchase it for them. There is nothing I dislike more than a deceitful child. There are probably at this moment in New York alone at least a quarter of a million human beings who even as you read these words are trying to get out of something; seventy-five per cent of them will fail for want of a good credible illness. Many of them (and not rich men either) would gold for a phial of Chameleonica Tabloids. And yet Nature waits!

THE TREBLE-X RAYS

Beyond an inaccurate knowledge of applied mechanics obtained from a study of different breeds of artificial leg, I should not have thought that my one-legged friend Damstruther was remarkable for scientific acquirements. Even after perusing this paper I am little doubtful about them. In fact I should have preferred to have submitted his theory of Treble-X Rays to an expert. Unfortunately at the time when this struck me the present issue was just going to press, and the tame scientific expert, usually kept in the office, had already gone to his lunch. Possibly I should have thought of it before; the Editor said something of the kind, though expressed rather more strongly. However that may be, it cannot be remedied now. I must, therefore, compliance with the Act, point out that though every care is taken by the management a to supply best quality goods only, no actual guarantee is given as to the exact amount, if any, of pure science in this article, and that anyone reading it is “ipso facto” held to have waived his claim to science of the prescribed strength or anything else.

Nature provides nothing until it is wanted. I have heard people say that they wondered why the X Rays had not been discovered before. The answer is simple: because the X Rays were not there to be discovered. The same experiments that revealed them to us would a few years before have given no results at all. When Nature is quite ready, Nature moves on; when she moves on we flatter ourselves that we have made a discovery. But no discovery can ever be made year before it is made. Think about that and you will see that it is so.

Similarly, the barbarian could never have discovered ordinary photography. It was not there then. The days of the flint-axe were not the days of the kodaks. Even if the barbarian had had all our knowledge and all our apparatus, he would never have got a picture. Photography, as we now understand it, was Nature’s contribution to the necessities of the weekly papers and other phenomena of civilisation. The X Rays were Nature’s compliment to our increased proficiency in surgery.

Improved anaesthetics, aseptic conditions, and our general advance in knowledge and skill, finally assured Nature that it would be safe to let us have some means of discovering the whereabouts of the penknife in the boy who accidentally swallowed it. It is quite obvious that the X Rays would have been discovered before if they had been there before. There were numbers of photographers and electricians at work, all as busy as bees, doing their best to find out new tricks. But until Nature was convinced that they were wanted, there were no X Rays to discover.

One of Nature’s next presents to the world will consist of the Treble-X Rays. They seem to me to be due about now. I may be wrong, but I think it would be worth while for some man of science just to look in and see if they have arrived. In any case they may be expected shortly. The very same experiment that fails to reveal them this week may be entirely successful next. You cannot discover a thing that is not there yet. You have only to consider that to see that there is sense in it.

What are the Treble-X Rays? What do they do? The Treble-X Rays are, as their name implies, far stronger than the ordinary X Rays. They are a superior article altogether. By the X Rays you can detect the bones in the hand or the cent-piece in the offertory bag. By the Treble-X Rays you will be able to detect the thoughts in the head. Does not that sound useful?

I am not, of course, able to give a precise and detailed account of the way in which it will be done, but I think I can indicate the general lines. I have found that most scientific operations proceed on the same or similar lines. You nearly always start with a cylinder. The best science is, I find, particularly partial to the cylinder. It encourages the breeding of different kinds of cylinder, and if you manage to hatch out a specially good one you are allowed to call it by your own name. If there is any justice in the world, the cylinder used for the production of the Treble-X Rays will be known as the Damstruther’s Cylinder. I am afraid it will be very expensive.

You will also require a battery and a screen. You must have the battery to avoid ill-feeling; the electricians expect to be in every discovery nowadays, and would be hurt if they were omitted. The screen will be very simple at first, but great improvements will be made, and in the end it will be a marvel of complicated ingenuity. In its latter state it is not too much to expect that it will be known as the Damstruther Improved Screen. I may not live to construct it, but at any rate I have foretold it.

The man whose thoughts are to be read by the Treble-X Rays will be asked to take a seat and to adopt a natural and easy position. On one side of him will be the Damstruther Cylinder and the battery; these will be connected by a few graceful festoons of wire covered with green silk, the scheme of decoration being completed by a piece of india-rubber tubing terminating in a bulb. You may have noticed the use of india-rubber tubing in all the more delicate inventions. On the other side of the subject will be the sensitive screen, which is to receive the record of his thoughts.

The operator presses the bulb and for the hundredth part of a second the Treble-X Rays pass through the head of the subject, and throw the record of his thoughts on the screen. In the early days of the Treble-X Rays, the record will probably look like a cross between a diagram of a chess-problem and the ground-plan of the Paris Exhibition seen through a fog. But when we get the Damstruther Improved Screen there will be a great difference, and the record will appear in correct and legible typewriting.

There have been many great inventions which have received but scant welcome from the public at first. For instance, when Nature, recognising the special needs of a highly advanced civilisation, first gave us the X Rays, there was a general feeling of nervousness. We feared that without our knowledge or consent, snapshots might be taken of our backbones, and that the privacy of our interior might be violated by the gaze of the curious and impertinent. That fear passed off when we found that the X Rays apparatus was elaborate and somewhat cumbersome, and that there was no chance of our being surprised by it.

There may be a similar feeling of nervousness, but far stronger, when the Treble-X Rays are brought in. And certainly, if it were possible to obtain a surreptitious and accurate record of a man’s thoughts as one sometimes gets the surreptitious snapshot, there would be grave trouble. In fact, either society would come to an end, or the possession of the Treble-X Ray apparatus would have to be made a capital offence.

How could you consent to be presented to a happy household, and have the face to say the usual pleasant things, when your host might discover afterwards, on developing the film, that in reality you thought all the children plain but not so ugly as their mother, and that you considered your host himself a bounder right away from the word jump? Nothing could go on. Commerce would be impossible; old established friendships would be broken up; families would be disintegrated.

One would never be able, with any feeling of confidence, to sell a horse to one’s best friend, or to attend as sole legatee the funeral of a distant and very wealthy relative, or to witness the performance of amateur theatricals in the cause of charity. All the amenities and pleasantness of life would vanish. Plain truth is excellent in theory; it is useful in the law courts; it is highly spoken of in poems; but plain truth in society would break society. in a civilised country one should no more be expected to expose one’s convictions than to go naked.

However, there is no ground for any nervousness at all. I have roughly described the Treble-X Ray apparatus, and clearly it cannot be used secretly. You cannot keep a cylinder, a screen, a battery, and a few other luxuries up your sleeve or in your waistcoat pocket. Briefly, the Treble-X Rays will be incapable of abuse. But it is not enough to answer objections, one must show the positive merits of the scheme, and in the case of the Treble-X Rays this is not difficult.

As a certain detector of crime, it would confer an immense boon on society. How seldom it occurs to us what the criminal costs. I do not mean with regard to what he takes—the burglary insurance people have figured that out for us—but with regard to the cost of detecting and proving his guilt.

How much do we spend on lawyers, on officials, on judges? The Treble-X Rays would lift a heavy burden from our backs. We should hear no more of the long delays of the law. A sixteen-days’ trial would be a forgotten absurdity. It would no longer be possible for us to be misled by circumstantial evidence. No longer would the guilty escape, thanks to the cleverness of their counsel. One brief test would decide all. However complicated the case, the Treble-X Rays would settle it in five minutes.

It may be urged that in this case a large body of men, some of them deserving, would be deprived of their means of livelihood. I refer, of course, to the legal professions.

There is much less in the objection than one might at first suppose. For one thing, good deal of legal work would still be left. I am reminded, too, of what a judge said to a fraudulent, but highly ingenious gentleman, previous to awarding him a suitable period of the usual pattern. “A man of your abilities,” said the judge, “could, if he wished, easily make a good living in an honest manner.”

It is the same—I mean it is similar—with barristers.

Besides, we cannot allow the interests of a class to weigh against the interests of humanity in general. The Treble-X Rays, there can be no mistake about it, would be the greatest preventative of crime that the world has yet known. Certain detection with the customary sequel would do more than anything else to make Mr. Sykes realise the sinfulness of sin.

Arrested on suspicion, he would be placed between the sensitive screen and the Damstruther Cylinder, and wily constables would discuss the crime in his hearing. Their talk would start a train of thought in his mind; it would be of no good for him to determine that he would not think about the crime; he could not help thinking about it. Those thoughts would be recorded by the Treble-X Rays on the screen, and the proceedings would terminate with a conviction. You see, the record would give Mr. Sykes’s real thoughts, not the thoughts that he would have liked us to think that he thought.

And there will be no possibility of the conviction of an innocent man. Take the imaginary case of Jones and Jackson. Late one night in a back street off the Bowery a policeman finds the body of Jackson. Beside it stands the unfortunate Jones, with the dripping knife in his hand. As soon as Jones sees the policeman, he makes off as hard as he can run. The policeman goes in pursuit, and, after a prolonged struggle, captures him.

Medical evidence shows that the wound from which Jackson died was inflicted by some such weapon as the knife found on Jones. The man who sold Jones the knife that afternoon gives evidence that Jones said he wanted it to kill a man with it, but that he took no notice of the remark at the time thinking that it was said in joke. It is also shown that there had been a quarrel between the two men, and that Jones had threatened to do for Jackson.

Jones, in defence, says that he did use the threat to Jackson in a fit of temper, but without any serious intent; that the knife was purchased by him to cut tobacco, and the vendor was right in his original idea that he spoke in joke; that the knife was stolen from him in a public reading-room; and that subsequently he found it on the pavement beside the body of Jackson and picked it up; and, finally, that seeing the constable approach and realising how much appearances were against him, he lost his head and tried to escape. With a poor counsel, a common-sense jury, and a hanging judge, the probability of Jones ever needing another new pair of boots seems remote; but with the Treble-X Rays, his story being true, his innocence would be established at once.

And how useful the Rays would be, too, in the training of children. No boy would dare to tell a lie, with the possibility of examination by the Treble-X Rays before him. He would learn quite early in life not only that it is immoral to tell a lie, but also that it is useless.

As it is, it takes some of us a lifetime to master that lesson, and even then we may not be quite sure that we have really drunk it in.