Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/33

 applying a vacuum to any desired spot. There is a very ingenious but rather noisy engine already in use for pumping the dust out of carpets, curtains and furniture. In the houses of the future handy contrivances of various shapes, all independent of any engine, will be found, furnished with elastic nozzles on the outside and with some sort of appliance capable of instantly exhausting the air within. Such a utensil wheeled over the floor will remove instantly every particle of dust from the surface and below the surface of the carpet, at the same time picking up any such débris as scraps of paper, pins, and other decidua of the previous day. A similar instrument, differently shaped, will clean the curtains, supposing curtains to be still in use at the time, and will dust the chairs and tables—though there will not be anything like so much dust as there is now, nearly all kinds of combustion being abolished. The kitchen fire will of course be an electric furnace: "o' my word we'll not carry coals." Lighting will all be electric, and no doubt wireless. The abolition of horse traffic in cities, and the use of the vacuum apparatus which will be continuously at work in ail streets, keeping them dry and free from mud, will practically remove the necessity for boot brushing, even supposing that we shall still wear boots: every man and woman in dressing will pass a vacuum instru-