Chapter XX · Newspapers in 1999.

They are still progressive and enterprising as ever and constitute one of the bulwarks of American liberties. The Pneumatic tube postal service and swift delivery of mails. Four daily deliveries of mail between Manhattan and San Francisco. A Submarine Railway Accident. A Marine Spider Crippled. Returns to Babyhood. Buying up Titles.

It is the proud boast of America that as a nation it possesses a larger per centage of people who can read and write than any other nation on the habitable globe. Our excellent system of free schools and the avalanche of newspapers that find their way into every home, at a mere nominal cost, have vouchsafed a general diffusion of knowledge throughout our great Republic, filling every branch of art, industry, and every profession with men and women of brains and intelligence.

The force and power of the newspapers in America in 1899, the perfect liberty of Safeguards of Liberty. the press, were regarded in that year as guarantees of public safety, mighty levers in forming public opinion. In 1999 the newspapers of the period had lost none of the prestige and influence they enjoyed in the old days of sail boats and steam engines. They were still handled in many instances with consummate skill and wielded a power that built, as well as shattered, governments.

In current topics and in the chronicles of events, there existed a marked difference between the newspapers of 1899 and those of 1999. New elements and conditions had come into play which were unknown in the period of the nineteenth century, and as a natural result the newspaper of the twentieth century contained some curious and interesting articles.

In 1899 the daily that got out a morning and evening edition was regarded as an up to date affair in every sense of the term, but in 1999 the newspaper world moved much faster. In a large daily office four complete editions were issued every day or once every six hours. The news poured into these daily offices with marvelous speed. Wireless telegraphy and ærial navigation annihilated space. On the other hand, newspaper and letter mails in 1999 were conveyed through much swifter channels.

The postal pneumatic tube system constructed by the American government was Very Rapid Mail Deliveries. a marvel of the twentieth century. There extended from Washington, (Mexico), a network of underground and overground pneumatic tubes reaching throughout the Americas, penetrating all the Northern, Central and Southern States, from the State of Alaska to the State of Argentina. Mail deliveries made through these pneumatic tubes were exceedingly rapid. No electrical transit or any method of ærial navigation could equal the rapid delivery of the pneumatic tubes. The mail pouches were forced through these large tubes and delivered at all the principal cities in a very short space of time. Mails from Manhattan to Washington, the seat of the national government in the State of Mexico, traversed the distance in less than two hours. From Mexico to the State of Argentina, as well as the Southwestern American States of Peru and Chile, the mail transit in 1999 required but a few hours in delivery,—in 1899 it was a question of weeks. Even ærial navigation in 1999 was found too slow to convey and deliver the mails. The pneumatic tube system was even swifter, and with such facilities at hand it is not surprising that people in San Francisco received four daily editions of the Manhattan journals, although the distance between Sandy Hook and the Golden Gate is a matter of 3,600 miles.

The subjoined clippings from the Electrical Times, of Thursday, August 20, 1999, The Editorial Blades of 1999. will give the reader a general idea of the newspapers style and matter of that period. It will be observed that the noble race of beings known as editors and newspaper reporters was by no means extinct in 1999. The subtle art of telling wonderful stories and the science of making American newspapers the foremost in the world, had been inherited by the children of 1999 from their lively ancestors of 1899.

In 1899 Yankee genius and enterprise was conspicuous in the newspaper line. It led the world. The latest and the best always found their way into American print.