to them. "Some of them have not sufficient intelligence to even
feed themselves."

"And what are they?" she inquired anxiously.

"They are idiots; human vegetables."

"And you build palaces for them, and hire servants to feed and tend
them, while the bright, ambitious children of the poor among you,
struggle and suffer for mental advancement. How deplorably short-sighted
are the wise ones of your world. Truly it were better in your country to
be born an idiot than a poor genius." She sighed and looked grave.

"What should we do with them?" I inquired.

"What do you do with the useless weeds in your garden," she asked
significantly. "Do you carefully tend them, while drouth and frost and
lack of nourishment cause your choice plants to wither and die?"

"We are far behind you," I answered humbly. "But barbarous as you think
we are, no epithet could be too scathing, too comprehensive of all that
was vicious and inhuman, to apply to a person who should dare to assail
the expense of those institutions, or suggest that they be converted to
the cultivation of intellect that _could_ be improved."

My friend looked thoughtful for a long time, then she resumed her
discourse at the point where I had so unfortunately interrupted it.

"No people," she said, "can rise to universal culture as long as they
depend upon hand labor to produce any of the necessities of life. The
absence of a demand for hand labor gives rise to an increasing demand
for brain labor, and the natural and inevitable result is an increased
mental activity. The discovery of a fuel that is furnished at so small a
cost and with really no labor but what machinery performs, marks one
grand era in our mental progress."

In mentioning the numerous uses made of glass in Mizora, I must not
forget to give some notice to their water supply in large cities. Owing
to their cleanly advantages, the filtering and storing of rain-water in
glass-lined cisterns supplied many family uses. But drinking water was
brought to their large cities in a form that did not greatly differ from
those I was already familiar with, excepting in cleanliness. Their
reservoirs were dug in the ground and lined with glass, and a perfectly
fitting cover placed on the top. They were constructed so that the water
that passed through the glass feed pipes to the city should have a
uniform temperature, that of ordinary spring water. The water in the
covered reservoirs was always filtered and tested