The new game

On all the roofs of Paris, on all the balconies, you see poles growing telegraphs connected by metal wires, which does not improve the appearance of the buildings from an aesthetic point of view, but which gives them a scientific air. And this scientific air is the style of the time.

In the houses live civilized people who want to take advantage of new discoveries science to know, in the morning, the weather without having to put with your nose to the window, and to know, at noon, the stock market prices without needing to go to the Stock Exchange, and to hear, in the evening, a little tune on the violin without needing to go to a concert, or a little monologue by M. Poincaré without having to eat complicated things in a political banquet.

It's frightening what a man of forty-five can have seen come out, like wonders science ! He saw the invention of the bicycle, the automobile, the phonograph, cinematography, aviation; today he hears wireless telephony. But, if he is reasonable, he is not prouder for that because the marvels of science do not improve not the fate of Humanity, and it is a strange error to take for an improvement which is a complication.

I seem to have seen happy people in my childhood. Their life was not perfected by mechanical tricks. They had less nerves than we don't have any; they had more personal ideas, and fresher sentiments ; they knew peace of mind and heart.

Today, in the moments when we don't bother, there is always something something that bothers us. As compensation, we always have a new toy.

I know a guy who didn't get mad twenty years ago because his neighbor from the floor below played him the Valse de Faust, on the piano, four hours a day. He invoked the law in vain and wished the death of his neighbor. This music performed by an obstinate and invisible musician seemed to him abominable, tyrannical.

One day, some mischievous devil invented the phonograph. "Wave of science!" exclaimed the man... Isn't this music coming out of a box magic?

He bought a phonograph, like everyone else. And, six hours a day, he feasted and regaled his guests with the Valse de Faust. Then he got tired of the phonograph, like everyone the world. He swung his device and resumed throwing tantrums when a late phonograph at the nearby bistro sent him puffs of Strauss's waltz

Gold The same mischievous devil has just invented wireless telephony. "Marvel of science!" exclaims our man again. This music that comes from the Eiffel Tower, isn't it magic?

Like everyone else, he has planted telegraph poles on his balcony, and he is enjoying of the Valse de Faust, because that air comes from there. Eiffel Tower. It's easy to predict what's going to happen. In six months, the good man will be fed up with the radio concert, and his wife will put some laundry to dry On the wires of the cordless telephone, installed on the balcony. Like everyone else.

The Parisians will then walk in the streets decked out in sheets, underpants and of liquettes, like Toulon. And they will exclaim with admiration "Marvel of science!" Thanks to the invention of the cordless telephone, everyone can now do their laundry. At home, like in the provinces.

G. DE LA FOUCHARDIERE.