Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/73

 the place has a history which is not unworthy of our now glancing at.

The Sub-system, to use the smart business phraseology, commenced centuries ago, and even long before it became, from sheer want of surface-room, the absolute necessity it is now. Companies were, long since, got up, to excavate underground abodes, which by the natural increase of heat as you descended, conducted people at once to temperate, semi-tropical, and tropical regions, without any of the trouble, cost, or danger of thousands of miles' journeys. Thoroughly healthful ventilation was easily devised, and what with bright electric light, and artificially imitated tropical scenery, these subterranean abodes came to be quite the rage of the time, especially with invalids and the superannuated, who thus escaped at will all the ceaseless thunder of business and progress upstairs.

But later on, when the sub-system had become a necessity of our crowded life, it was conducted more systematically. The whole land surface became by degrees literally honey-combed with sub-life, and tier was added to tier in the progressively downward excavation, as the ever-increasing numbers of human beings demanded more and more standing-room and house-room. These business sub-interests became