overy in a German
laboratory is being demonstrated in San Francisco within twenty-four
hours. A book written in South Africa is published by simultaneous
copyright in every English-speaking country, and on the following day is
in the hands of the translators. The death of an obscure missionary in
China, or of a whisky smuggler in the South Seas, is served up, the world
over, with the morning toast. The wheat output of Argentine or the gold
of Klondike is known wherever men meet and trade. Shrinkage or
centralization has been such that the humblest clerk in any metropolis
may place his hand on the pulse of the world. And because of all this,
everywhere is growing order and organization. The church, the state;
men, women, and children; the criminal and the law, the honest man and
the thief, industry and commerce, capital and labour, the trades and the
professions, the arts and the sciences--all are organizing for pleasure,
profit, policy, or intellectual pursuit. They have come to know the
strength of numbers, solidly phalanxed and driving onward with singleness
of purpose. These purposes may be various and many, but one and all,
ever discovering new mutual interests and objects, obeying a law which is
beyond them, these petty aggregations draw closer together, forming
greater aggregations and congeries of aggregations. And these, in turn,
vaguely merging each into each, present glimmering adumbrations of the
coming human solidarity which shall be man's crowning glory.

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA.
_January_ 1900.

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL

Speaking of homes, I am building one now, and I venture to assert that
very few homes have received more serious thought in the planning. Let
me tell you about it. In the first place, there will be no grounds
whatever, no fences, lawns, nor flowers. Roughly, the dimensions will be
forty-five feet by fifteen. That is, it will be fifteen feet wide at its
widest--and, if you will pardon the bull, it will be narrower than it is
wide.

The details must submit to the general plan of economy. There will be no
veranda, no porch entrances, no grand staircases. I'm ashamed to say how
steep the stairways are going to be. The bedrooms will be seven by
seven, and one will be even smaller. A bedroom is only good to sleep in,
anyway. There will be no hallway, thank goodness. Rooms were made to go
through. Why a separate passage for traffic?

The bath-room will be a trifle larger