ome to be made available for divers uses, as so much of the
underworld of Broadway now is in New York.

The great 'pavement question' is an open question still, in spite of
asphalte and of wood, and there would seem to be nothing in the nature
of things to prevent its being eventually solved by the glassworkers.
The roofing question clearly belongs to them. The casting of glass for
roofs began, I believe, with England, in the time of Sir Joseph Paxton,
but it has been immensely developed at St.-Gobain. Over a hundred
thousand square metres of glass roofing made here were required for the
building of the Exposition of this year at Paris. All the most important
railway stations in France, from Nantes to Strasburg (unless the Germans
have changed this), and from Calais to Marseilles, are thus roofed. In
great warehouses, markets, public museums, street galleries--like those
of Victor Emmanuel at Milan--factories, workshops all over France and
the Continent, this conversion of the roof into a colossal window has
revolutionised matters within the last twenty years. The light is making
its way even into Turkey, where the great bazaar at Salonica has been
roofed in glass by St.-Gobain, and as the Chinese, who, despite their
early invention of glass, never got beyond using it for beads and little
bottles, have condescended to admit great French mirrors into the
Imperial Palace at Pekin, the glass roof may, ere long, make its way
even into China.

In the form of tiles, such as are now made here, glass must inevitably,
sooner or later, displace slates and shingles and terra-cotta for the
roofs, even of private houses, it being quite certain that these glass
tiles can be so used as to give a much better light in the garrets of
private houses than can possibly be got through the windows. When that
comes to pass the burglar's occupation of clambering stealthily from
roof to roof will be seriously interfered with. What with glass roofs
and glass floors and electricity, indeed, the city of the future is
likely to be much more easily 'policed' and patrolled, as well as
incomparably more cheery and habitable, than the city of to-day.
Perhaps, too, when we all come to living in glass houses, the cause of
peace and good neighbourhood may gain, and even Mrs. Grundy may grow
more careful about looking into the affairs of her friends and
acquaintances.

If that much maligned potentate the Emperor Nero had any real notion of
the capabiliti