Read Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts: And Bizarre Information Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers' Hysterical Society
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts: And Bizarre Information (52 page)
EXCERPTS FROM WATKINS’S PREDICTIONS
“Man will see around the world. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span. American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient. The instrument bringing these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound into its appropriate
place. Thus the guns of a distant battle will be heard to boom when seen to blaze, and thus the lips of a remote actor or singer will be heard to utter words or music when seen to move.”
“The American will be taller by from one to two inches. His increase in stature will result from better health, due to vast reforms in medicine, sanitation, food, and athletics. He will live fifty years instead of thirty-five as at present—for he will reside in the suburbs.”
“Hot and cold air from spigots. Hot or cold air will be turned on from spigots to regulate the temperature of a house as we now turn on hot or cold water from spigots to regulate the temperature of the bath . . . Rising early to build the furnace fire will be a task of the olden times. Homes will have no chimneys, because no smoke will be created within their walls.”
“No mosquitoes nor flies. Boards of health will have destroyed all mosquito haunts and breeding grounds, drained all stagnant pools, filled in all swamp-lands, and chemically treated all still-water streams. The extermination of the horse and its stable will reduce the house-fly.”
“Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today. Such wholesale cookery will be done in electric laboratories . . . equipped with electric stoves, and all sorts of electric devices, such as coffee-grinders, egg-beaters, stirrers, shakers, parers, meat-choppers, meat-saws, potato-mashers, lemon-squeezers, dishwashers, dish-dryers and the like. All such utensils will be washed in chemicals fatal to disease microbes.”
“There will be no street cars in our large cities. All traffic will be below or high above ground when brought within city limits. In most cities it will be confined to broad subways or tunnels, well lighted and well ventilated, or to high trestles with “moving-sidewalk” stairways leading to the top. These underground or overhead streets will teem with automobile passenger coaches and freight wagons, with cushioned wheels. Subways or trestles will be reserved for express trains. Cities, therefore, will be free from all noises.”
“Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later. Even today photographs are being telegraphed over short distances. Photographs will reproduce all of Nature’s colors.”
“Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today. Farmers will
own automobile hay-wagons, plows, harrows, and hay-rakes. A one-pound motor in one of these vehicles will do the work of a pair of horses or more . . . Automobiles will have been substituted for every horse vehicle now known . . . The horse in harness will be as scarce, if, indeed, not scarcer, then as the yoked ox is today.”
“Everybody will walk ten miles. Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium . . . A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.”
“Submarine boats submerged for days will be capable of wiping a whole navy off the face of the deep.”
“To England in two days. Fast electric ships, crossing the ocean at more than a mile a minute, will go from New York to Liverpool in two days. The bodies of these ships will be built above the waves. They will be supported upon runners, somewhat like those of the sleigh. These runners will be very buoyant. Upon their undersides will be apertures expelling jets of air. In this way a film of air will be kept between them and the water’s surface. This film, together with the small surface of the runners, will reduce friction against the waves to the smallest possible degree.”
“Telephones around the world. Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn. By an automatic signal they will connect with any circuit in their locality without the intervention of a ‘hello girl.’”
“Automatic instruments reproducing original airs exactly will bring the best music to the families of the untalented. In great cities there will be public opera-houses whose singers and musicians are paid from funds endowed by philanthropists and by the government. The piano will be capable of changing its tone from cheerful to sad. Many devices will add to the emotional effect of music.”
A
abalone,
107
Abdul-Jabar, Kareem,
177
aboveboard
,
312
Academy Awards,
4
accidents,
34
,
151
,
167
,
199
,
210
,
220
accordion,
19
Ace bandages,
22
Adam,
67
Adam’s apple,
135
Adams, Evelyn Marie,
20
Adams, John Quincy,
163
,
185
,
250
addict
,
179
Adidas,
22
admiral
,
123
agnostic
,
14
AIDS,
353
air freshener,
74
air guitar,
286
Air Supply,
286
air travel,
144
aircraft,
295
aircraft carriers,
107
airlines,
227
Ajax pixies,
159
alchemy,
77
Alden, Ginger,
334
Ali, Muhammad,
153
allergies,
393
alligators,
12
allowance,
70
alphabets,
290
aluminum cans,
92
amber,
31
American Automobile Association,
9
American Guano Company,
346
,
347
ampersand,
45
Anableps fish,
10
Anaheim Angels,
11
And the Sea Will Tell
,
347
Andes,
309
Andrews, Julie,
4
Andrews, Tommy Lee,
366
anemia,
350
Angel Falls,
42
angels,
67
animal crackers,
69
Anka, Paul,
273
Anne, Queen,
326
antlers,
319
Apollo
,
38
April Fools’ Day,
79
Aratus of Sicyon,
93
Archimedes,
313
Arctic terns,
125
area codes,
51
Aristotle,
136
armor,
65
Arnasto, John,
99
Arnaz, Desi,
101
Arnold, Kenneth,
381
art,
306
Arthur, Chester A.,
120
artichokes,
212
Ashley, Erik,
380
aspartame,
69
assembly line,
228
Astaire, Fred,
109
asteroids,
162
asthma,
48
astronauts,
135
,
248
,
261
,
356–361
Atchoo!
,
85
Atlantic Ocean,
294
atmosphere,
36
“Auld Lang Syne,”
38
autobiography,
93
automobile assembly line,
228
Avis, Warren,
160
Avis Rent-A-Car,
160
Aztecs,
8
B
B.O
.,
276
babies,
168
Bach, J. S.,
19
back pain,
113
bacon,
297
bad breath,
33
bagels,
11
baggage handling,
144
bagpipe bands,
19
Bahamas,
42
Baker Island,
346
ballpoint pens,
116
Balthazard, Victor,
365
banana peels,
149
Band-Aids,
116
Bank of America,
156
banyan tree,
157
barber polls,
78
Barkley, Charles,
177
barnacles,
71
Barnum, P. T,
73
Bartholdi, Frédéric Auguste,
29
Baruch’s observation,
139
basket case
,
323
basketball,
177
Baskin, Burton,
245
Baskin-Robbins
31
Flavors,
245
Bassett Furniture,
213
Batman,
153
“Battle Hymn of the Republic,”
38
Battle of Waterloo,
98
Bausman, Jane,
53
Bayard, Thomas,
63
beat the rap
,
312
beavers,
105
Becton Dickinson Company,
22
beer cans,
27
Beethoven, Ludwig van,
19