Electricity 



and cheap because it enters every house. Let a 

 centralized electrical service enjoy a like privi- 

 lege, and it will offer a current which is heat, 

 light, chemical energy, or motive power, and all 

 at a wage lower than that of any other servant. 

 Unwittingly, then, the electrical engineer is a 

 political reformer of high degree, for he puts a 

 new premium upon ability and justice at the 

 City Hall. His sole condition is that electricity 

 shall be under control at once competent and 

 honest. Let us hope that his plea, joined to 

 others as weighty, may quicken the spirit of civic 

 righteousness so that some of the richest fruits 

 ever borne in the garden of science and art may 

 not be proffered in vain. Flame, the old-time 

 servant, is individual; electricity, its successor 

 and heir, is collective. Flame sits upon the 

 hearth and draws a family together; electricity, 

 welling from a public source, may bind into a 

 unit all the families of a vast city, because it 

 makes the benefit of each the interest of all. 



But not every promise brought forward in 

 the name of the electrician has his assent or 

 sanction. So much has been done by electricity, 

 and so much more is plainly feasible, that a re- 

 flection of its triumphs has gilded many a baseless 

 dream. One of these is that the cheap electric 

 motor, by supply power at home, will break up 

 the factory system, and bring back the domestic 

 manufacturing of old days. But if this power 

 cost nothing at all the gift would leave the 

 factory unassailed; for we must remember that 

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