Caesars Column | Page 7

dear
brother, in this city they actually facilitate suicide! A race of philosophers has arisen in
the last fifty years who argue that, as man was not consulted about his coming into the
world, he has a perfect right to leave it whenever it becomes uncomfortable. These
strange arguments were supplemented by the economists, always a powerful body in this
utilitarian land, and they urged that, as men could not be prevented from destroying
themselves, if they had made up their minds to do so, they might just as well shuffle off
the mortal coil in the way that would give least trouble to their surviving fellow-citizens.
That, as it was, they polluted the rivers, and even the reservoirs of drinking-water, with
their dead bodies, and put the city to great expense and trouble to recover and identify
them. Then came the humanitarians, who said that many persons, intent on suicide, but
knowing nothing of the best means of effecting their object, tore themselves to pieces
with cruel pistol shots or knife wounds, or took corrosive poisons, which subjected them
to agonizing tortures for hours before death came to their relief; and they argued that if a
man had determined to leave the world it was a matter of humanity to help him out of it
by the pleasantest means possible. These views at length prevailed, and now in all the
public squares or parks they have erected hand some houses, beautifully furnished, with
baths and bedrooms. If a man has decided to die, he goes there. He is first photographed;
then his name, if he sees fit to give it, is recorded, with his residence; and his directions
are taken as to the disposition of his body. There are tables at which he can write his
farewell letters to his friends. A doctor explains to him the nature and effect of the
different poisons, and he selects the kind he prefers. He is expected to bring with him the
clothes in which he intends to be cremated. He swallows a little pill, lies down upon a
bed, or, if he prefers it, in his coffin; pleasant music is played for him; he goes to sleep,
and wakes up on the other side of the great line. Every day hundreds of people, men and
women, perish in this way; and they are borne off to the great furnaces for the dead, and
consumed. The authorities assert that it is a marked improvement over the old-fashioned
methods; but to my mind it is a shocking combination of impiety and mock-philanthropy.
The truth is, that, in this vast, over-crowded city, man is a drug,--a superfluity,--and I
think many men and women end their lives out of an overwhelming sense of their own
insignificance;--in other words, from a mere weariness of feeling that they are nothing,
they become nothing.
I must bring this letter to an end, but before retiring I shall make a visit to the grand
parlors of the hotel. You suppose I will walk there. Not at all, my dear brother. I shall sit
down in a chair; there is an electric magazine in the seat of it. I touch a spring, and away
it goes. I guide it with my feet. I drive into one of the great elevators. I descend to the

drawing-room floor. I touch the spring again, and in a few moments I am moving around
the grand salon, steering myself clear of hundreds of similar chairs, occupied by
fine-looking men or the beautiful, keen-eyed, unsympathetic women I have described.
The race has grown in power and loveliness--I fear it has lost in lovableness.
Good-by. With love to all, I remain your affectionate brotherly
Gabriel Weltstein.



CHAPTER II.
MY ADVENTURE
My Dear Heinrich:
I little supposed when I wrote you yesterday that twenty four hours could so completely
change my circumstances. Then I was a dweller in the palatial Darwin Hotel, luxuriating
in all its magnificence. Now I am hiding in a strange house and trembling for my
liberty;--but I will tell you all.
Yesterday morning, after I had disposed by sample of our wool, and had called upon the
assayer of ores, but without finding him, to show him the specimens of our mineral
discoveries, I returned to the hotel, and there, after obtaining directions from one of the
clerks at the "Bureau of Information," I took the elevated train to the great Central Park.
I shall not pause to describe at length the splendors of this wonderful place; the wild
beasts roaming about among the trees, apparently at dangerous liberty, but really inclosed
by fine steel wire fences, almost invisible to the eye; the great lakes full of the different
water fowl of the world; the air thick with birds distinguished for