"Jules Vernes - In the Year 2889" - читать интересную книгу автора (Verne Jules)

needs of industry.
Yes, the accumulator and the transformer have wrought all these wonders.
And can we not to them also trace, indirectly, this latest wonder of all, the
great "Earth Chronicle" building on 253rd Avenue, which was dedicated the
other day? If George Washington Smith, founder of the Manhattan
"Chronicle", should come back to life today, what would he think when told
that this place of marble and gold belongs to his remote descendant, Fritz
Napoleon Smith, who, after 30 generations, is owner of the same newpaper
that his ancestor established! For George Washington Smith's newspaper
has lived generation after generation, now passing out of the family, anon
coming back to it. When, 200 years ago, the political center of the United
States was transferred from Washington to Centropolis, the newspaper
followed the government and assumed the name of Earth Chronicle.
Unfortunately, it was unable to maintain itself at the high level of its name.
Pressed on all sides by more modern rival journals, it was continually in
danger of collapse. 20 years ago its subscription list contained but a few
innumerable phonographs set up nearly everywhere.
Fritz Napoleon Smith's innovation galvanized the old newspaper. In the
course of a few years the number of subscribers grew to 85,000,000 and
Smith's wealth went on growing, till now it reaches the almost unimaginable
figure of $10,000,000,000. This lucky hit has enabled him to erect his new
building, a vast edifice with four facades, each 3250 feet in length, over
which proudly floats the hundred-starred flag of the Union. Thanks to the
same lucky hit, he is today king of newspaperdom; indeed, he would be
king of America, too, if Americans could ever accept a king. You do not
believe it? Well, then, look at the plenipotentiaries of all nations and our
own ministers themselves crowding about his door, entreating his counsels,
begging for his approbation, imploring the aid of his all-powerful organ. Add
up the number of scientists and artists he supports, of inventors under his
pay.
Yes, a king is he. And in truth his is a royalty full of burdens. His labors are
incessant, and, doubtless, in earlier times any man would have succumbed
under the overpowering stress Mr. Smith endures. Fortunately for him,
thanks to the progress of hygiene, which, abating all the old sources of
disease, has lifted human life expectancy from 37 up to 52 years, men
have stronger constitutions now than heretofore. The discovery of nutritive
air remains in the future, but in the meantime men today consume food
scientifically compounded and prepared, and breathe an atmosphere free
of the microoganisms that once swarmed in it; hence they live longer than
their forefathers and know nothing of the innumerable ailments of olden
times.
Nevertheless, Fritz Napoleon Smith's mode of life may well astonish one.
His
iron constitution is taxed to the utmost by the heavy strain upon it. Vain the
attempt to estimate the amount of labor he undergoes; only an example
can give
an idea of it. Let us go about with him for one day as he attends to his
multifarious concerns. What day? That matters little; it is the same every
day.
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