CHAPTER X 



ELECTRIC FISH 



I have spoken somewhere of the old country fairs at 

 which one used to see freaks and monsters of all sorts 

 exhibited. There were not only calves with two heads, 

 sheep with five legs, dog-faced men, and mermaids. 

 There were torpedo- women. You went into their 

 booths, and found a princess, a fairy, or an old witch, 

 according to the dress she happened to be wearing that 

 particular day. She would hold her hand out to you, or 

 touch your shoulder with the tip of a metal wand, and 

 you straightway felt the tingling of a slight electric 

 shock. The woman was standing on a support 

 electrified by a concealed battery, and contact with her 

 produced the shock. 



Not more than a few years ago, electricity was a 

 fluid known only to the physicists and found only in 

 their laboratories. The general public knew very little 

 about it. Now it has developed into a form of energy 

 of which the whole world makes use. The booths in 

 which the torpedo-women appeared were dimly lighted 

 by a few smoky flares. Those days are now over. 

 In the fairs of today we find festoons of electric bulbs. 

 Occasionally in our own homes, when repairing a short 

 circuit, or changing a bulb, we feel a shock like that 

 given us by the torpedo- woman. Everywhere about 

 the countryside we see pylons supporting wires which 

 carry electric energy to factory and cottage. The 

 scanty fluid of former days has been transformed into a 

 valuable and beneficent force, and it has been made 

 available throughout the length and breadth of the land. 

 Perhaps, when we think of its adaptability and the ease 



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