Our capitals are as clean and quiet and healthful as the
country, and these advantages are secured simply by the elimination of the
horse, an animal which we should be as much surprised to find in the
streets of a town as the plesiosaurus or the pterodactyl. All
transportation in the capitals, whether for pleasure or business, is by
electricity, and swift electrical expresses connect the capital of each
region with the villages which radiate from it to the cardinal points.
These expresses run at the rate of a hundred and fifty miles an hour, and
they enable the artist, the scientist, the literary man, of the remotest
hamlet, to visit the capital (when he is not actually resident there in
some public use) every day, after the hours of the obligatory industries;
or, if he likes, he may remain there a whole week or fortnight, giving six
hours a day instead of three to the obligatories, until the time is made
up. In case of very evident merit, or for the purpose of allowing him to
complete some work requiring continuous application, a vote of the local
agents may release him from the obligatories indefinitely. Generally,
however, our artists prefer not to ask this, but avail themselves of the
stated means we have of allowing them to work at the obligatories, and get
the needed exercise and variety of occupation in the immediate vicinity of
the capital.
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