Page:Fifty years hence, or, What may be in 1943 - a prophecy supposed to be based on scientific deductions by an improved graphical method (IA fiftyyearshenceo00grim).pdf/39

 1925 those States will have been compelled by pressure of public opinion to enact and enforce laws more thoroughly protecting women. This we must read in connection with the chart showing centralization of government and uniformity of legislation in America, and with that one showing the increase of Roman Catholicism in the State of Illinois, and in its neighbor Missouri.

"In the same way I here show graphically the evolution of recorded speech, from thought-writing by pictures—as practised among the American tribes, particularly those of Mexico and Central America, in China and the valley of the Nile—to sound-writing as first done by rebuses, and the cuneiform method of syllabic writing in the Valley of Mesopotamia; then alphabets proper, first non-phonetic as adopted by the Hebrews, Greeks and Romans, and by ourselves; then phonetic, which the rapidly increasing rate of increase of the yellow lines representing the phonetic principle shows will soon become universal.

"This method—scientific, accurate and complete, in conception and execution—has enabled me to foretell accurately the condition of