American Journalist Jules Verne The year is , the date th July and the place is the office block of the Managing Editor of the Earth Herald, the world’s largest newspaper. In this futuristic story written in , the writer describes how he visualizes the world a thousand years later – a world of technological advancements where newspapers are not printed but ‘spoken’. Read the following excerpt for a glimpse of this future world. That morning Francis Bennett awoke in rather a bad temper.
This was eight days since his wife had been in France and he was feeling a little lonely. As soon as he awoke, Francis Bennett switched on his phonotelephote whose wires led to the house he owned in the Champs-Elysees . This story speaks about the people of the twenty-ninth century who live in fairyland. Surfeited as they are with marvels, they are indifferent to the presence of each new marvel.
To them all seem natural. 10th - - him, washed, shaved, shod, dressed and buttoned from top to toe, on the threshold of his office. The day’s work was going to begin. Francis Bennett went on into the reporters’ room.
His fifteen hundred reporters, placed before an equal number of telephones, were passing on to subscribers the news which had come in during the night from the four quarters of the earth. In addition to his telephone, each reporter has in front of him a series of commutators , which allow him to get into communication with this or that telephotic line. Thus the subscribers have not only the story but the sight of these events. Francis Bennett questioned one of the ten astronomical reporters – a service which was growing because of the recent discoveries in the stellar world.
‘Well, Cash, what have you got?’ ‘ Phototelegrams from Mercury, Venus and Mars, Sir.’ ‘Interesting! And Jupiter?’ ‘Nothing so far! We haven’t been able to understand the signals the Jovians make. Perhaps ours haven’t reached them?
….’ ‘Aren’t you getting some result from the moon, at any rate?’ ‘Not yet, Mr