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Camperdown

E-BookEPUBePub WasserzeichenE-Book
Englisch
Copycaterschienen am21.02.2022
Camperdown; or, News from our neighbourhood contains a collection of six engaging utopian and science fiction by American writer, horticulturist, and scientist, Mary Griffith. It includes her most celebrated novel, Three Hundred Years Hence. It focuses on Edgar Hastings, who falls into a deep sleep in 1835 and wakes up in the Utopian states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York in 2135. The book presents several other, equally innovative tales by the author. This fascinating work is the first known collection of utopian fiction written by an American woman. Contents include: Three Hundred Years Hence The Surprise The Seven Shanties The Little Couple The Baker's Dozen The Thread and Needle Storemehr
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Produkt

KlappentextCamperdown; or, News from our neighbourhood contains a collection of six engaging utopian and science fiction by American writer, horticulturist, and scientist, Mary Griffith. It includes her most celebrated novel, Three Hundred Years Hence. It focuses on Edgar Hastings, who falls into a deep sleep in 1835 and wakes up in the Utopian states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York in 2135. The book presents several other, equally innovative tales by the author. This fascinating work is the first known collection of utopian fiction written by an American woman. Contents include: Three Hundred Years Hence The Surprise The Seven Shanties The Little Couple The Baker's Dozen The Thread and Needle Store
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9788028233587
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Format HinweisePub Wasserzeichen
Verlag
Erscheinungsjahr2022
Erscheinungsdatum21.02.2022
SpracheEnglisch
Artikel-Nr.9914263
Rubriken
Genre9200

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe


What is the new principle, and who first brought it to light?

Why, a lady. The world owes this blessed invention to a female! I will take you into one of our small boats presently, where you can handle the machinery yourself. No steam, nor heat, nor animal power-but one of sufficient energy to move the largest ship.

Condensed air, is it?-that was tried in my time.

No, nor condensed air; that was almost as dangerous a power as steam; for the bursting of an air vessel was always destructive of life. The Recorder of Self-Inflicted Miseries mentions several instances of loss of life by the bursting of one of the air machines used by the manufacturers of mineral waters. If that lady had lived in this century, her memory would be honoured and cherished; but if no memorial was erected by the English to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a reproach could not rest upon us for not having paid suitable honours to the American lady.

Why, what did lady Mary Wortley Montagu do? said Hastings: I recollect nothing but that she wrote several volumes of very agreeable letters-Oh, yes, how could I forget-the small-pox! Yes, indeed, she did deserve to have a monument; but surely the English erected one to her memory?

Did they?-yes-that old defamer of women, Horace Walpole, took good care to keep the public feeling from flowing in the right channel. He made people laugh at her dirty hands and painted cheeks, but he never urged them to heap honours on her head for introducing into England the practice of innoculation for the small-pox. If this American lady deserved the thanks and gratitude of her country for thus, for ever, preventing the loss of lives from steam, and I may say, too, from shipwreck-still farther was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu entitled to distinction, for the very great benefit she bestowed on England. She saved thousands of lives, and prevented, what sometimes amounted to hideous deformity, deeply scarred faces, from being universal.-Yes, the benefit was incalculable and beyond price-quite equal, I think, to that which the world owes to Dr. Jenner, who introduced a new form of small-pox, or rather the small-pox pure and unadulterated by any affinitive virus. This modified the disease to such a degree, that the small-pox, in its mixed and complicated state, almost disappeared. The Recorder of Self-Inflicted Miseries states, that after a time a new variety of the small-pox made its appearance, which was called varioloid; but it was quite under the control of medical skill.

Well, you live in an age so much in advance of mine, and so many facts and curious phenomena came to light during the nineteenth century, that you can tell me what the settled opinion is now respecting small-pox, kine-pox, and varioloid.

The settled opinion now is, that they are one and the same disease. Thus-the original disease, transferable from an ulcer of the cow s udder to the broken skin of a human being, produced what is called the kine or cow-pox. This virus of the kine-pox, in its original state, was only capable of being communicated by contact, and only when the skin was broken or cut; but, when combined with the other poison, infected the system by means of breathing in the same atmosphere. The poison from the ulcer called cow-pox was never communicated to or by the lungs, neither was the poison which had so strong an affinity for it communicated in that way: but when the two poisons united, and met in the same system, a third poison was generated, and the small-pox was result. But here we are discussing a deep subject in this busy place-what gave rise to it?-oh, steamboats, the new power now used, Lady Mary Wortley, and Dr. Jenner.

I presume, said the attentive Hastings, that Dr. Jenner fared no better than your American lady and Lady Mary Wortley.

You are much mistaken, said Edgar. Dr. Jenner was a man, which in your day was a very different circumstance. I verily believe if it had been a woman who brought that happy event about, although the whole world would have availed itself of the discovery, her name would scarcely be known at this day.

Hastings laughed at his friend s angry defence of women s rights, but he could not help acknowledging the truth of what was said-there was always a great unwillingness in men to admit the claims of women. But it was not a time, nor was this the place, to discuss so important a subject; he intended, however, to resume it the first leisure moment. He turned his eye to the river, and saw vessels innumerable coming and going; and on the arrival of one a little larger than that which he first saw, the crowd pressed forward to get on board as soon as she should land.

Where is that vessel from? said Hastings; she looks more weather-beaten than the rest-she has been at sea.

Yes; that is one of our Indiamen. Let us go to her, I see a friend of mine on board-he went out as supercargo.

They went on board of the Indiaman, and although it had encountered several storms, and had met with several accidents, yet the crew was all well and the cargo safe. The vessel was propelled by the same machinery-there was neither masts nor sails!

How many months have they been on their return? said Hastings.

Hush! said his friend Edgar; do not let any one hear you. Why, this passage has been a very tedious one, and yet it has only occupied four weeks. In general twenty days are sufficient.

Well, said Hastings, after this I shall not be surprised at any thing. Why, in my time we considered it as a very agreeable thing if we made a voyage to England in that time. Have you many India ships?

Yes; the trade has been opened to the very walls of China: the number of our vessels has greatly increased. But you will be astonished to hear that the emperor of China gets his porcelain from France.

No, I am not, now that I hear foreigners have access to that mysterious city, for I never considered the Indian china as at all equal to the French, either in texture or workmanship. But I presume I have wonders to learn about the Chinese?

Yes, much more than you imagine. It is not more than a century since the change in their system has been effected; before that, no foreigner was allowed to enter their gates. But quarrels and dissensions among themselves effected what neither external violence nor manÅuvring could do. The consequence of this intercourse with foreign nations is, that the feet of their women are allowed to grow, and they dress now in the European style. They import their fashions from France; and I see by the papers that the emperor s second son intends to pay this country a visit. They have English and French, as well as German and Spanish schools; and a great improvement in the condition of the lower classes of the Chinese has taken place; but it was first by humanizing the women that these great changes were effected. Their form of government is fast approaching that of ours, but they held out long and obstinately.

Their climate is very much against them, observed Hastings; mental culture must proceed slowly, where the heat is so constant and excessive.

Yes; but, my dear sir, you must recollect that they have ice in abundance now. We carry on a great trade in that article. In fact, some of our richest men owe their wealth to the exportation of this luxury alone. Boston set the example-she first sent cargoes of ice to China; but it was not until our fast sailing vessels were invented that the thing could be accomplished.

I should think it almost impossible to transport ice to such a distance, even were the time lessened to a month or six weeks, as it now is.

You must recollect, that half of this difficulty of transporting ice was lessened by the knowledge that was obtained, even in your day, of saving ice. According to the Recorder, who sneered at the times for remaining so long ignorant of the fact, ice houses could be built above ground, with the certainty that they would preserve ice. It was the expense of building those deep ice houses which prevented the poor from enjoying this luxury-nay, necessary article. Now, every landlord builds a stack of ice in the yard, and thatches it well with oat straw; and the corporation have an immense number of these stacks of ice distributed about the several wards.

I have awakened in delightful times, my friend. Oh, that my family could have been with me when I was buried under the mountain.

Young Hastings, seeing the melancholy which was creeping over the unfortunate man, hurried him away from the wharf, and hastened to Chestnut street. Our hero looked anxiously to the right and to the left, but all was altered-all was strange. Arcades now took precedence of the ancient, inconvenient shops, there being one between every square, extending from Chestnut to Market on one side, and to Walnut on the other, intersecting the smaller streets and alleys in their way. Here alone were goods sold-no where else was there a shop seen; and what made it delightful was, that a fine stream of water ran through pipes under the centre of the pavement, bursting up every twenty feet in little jets, cooling the air, and contributing to health and cleanliness. The arcades for the grocers were as well arranged as those for different merchandize, and the fountains of water, which flowed perpetually in and under their shops, dispersed all impure smells and all decayed substances.

All this is beautiful, said Hastings; but where is the old Arcade-the original one?

Oh, I know what you mean, said Edgar; our old Recorder states...
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