Evening Star Newspaper, September 29, 1935, Page 108

- Magasine Section Coming FEATURES 12 H. G. WELLs “Things to Come"" Part two of a serial of to- morrow which is of tremendous importance to every American family of today — by H. G. Wells, outstanding thinker and writer, who in “Things to Come” shows what may hap- pen to us.if War comes again. ROLAND PERTWEE **Seeds of Hatred™’ i In a fertile young heart a | seed of hatred was planted. It grew and discolored David Unity’s life; it caused unhap- piness in the lives of those who loved him. A ‘‘problem" story by a well known writer— Roland Pertwee. NORMA SHEARER “She Married Her Boss™ A winning smile and a bold front carried Norma Shearer | through months of near-starva- | tion to a place in the movies. | Then she asked Irving Thal- ] berg for a job. Jim Tully writes ' the story of the long road she ! _ walked to fame. WiLLFoRrD I. KING “What Are You Worth?” Most Americans are not broke; three-quarters of them are actually richer than they think they are. Dr. W. 1. King explains why the average indi- vidual underestimates what he is worth, and offers a question- naire to prove his statement. ed on a roof. Electric signs goingout. Special service men in badges herding people to shelter. Anti-aircraft gun being loaded by the light of a care- fully shaded lamp. Cabal and his wife in the children’s nursery. Cabal is buttoning on his air- man uniform. He looks at the sleeping children. Mrs. Cabal: “My dear, my dear, are you sorry we — had these chil- dren?”’ Cabal thinks long. “No. Life must carry on. Why should we surrender life to the brutes and fools?” Mrs. Cabal: ““I loved you. 1 wanted to serve you and make life happy for you. But think of the things that may happen to them. Were we sel- fish?” Cabal draws her to him: “You weren't afraid to bear them. We were children vesterday. We are anxious, but we are not afraid.” Mrs. Cabal nods acknowledgment but cannot talk because she would cry. The next day. Everytown is seen in abelated wintry dawn. Men come from the houses carrying parcels or suit- cases and go off towards the station. A young wi.fe says goodbye to her husband. who is waiting for a bus. A bus stops. Men get on the bus with their packages. There is a sort of forced cheerfulness — none of the elation of 1914. Passworthy is seen with Horrie in the front garden of his house. Horrie in his uniform of yesterday. Pass- worthy puts on an armlet. Horrie, pointing to the armlet: *“‘Are you an officer, daddy?"” Passworthy: “We've got to do our bit, sonny. We’ve got to do our bit."” “I'm an officer, too, daddy.” ““Thai’s the spirit, old son. Nothing else for it now. Carry on, sir. Carry on.”" The two salute each other in grave burlesque. He lifts his son and kisses him. He goes. Horrie taps his drum. First thought- fully and then with more confidence. He beats the drum, begins to hum and marches. Works himself up. Hums louder — sings wordlessly. CHAPTER 11 THE SECOND WORLD WAR The same country scene which has appeared earlier. Everywhere there are signs of war preparation. In the foreground a smooth-flowing river; suddenly the surface is broken as enormous amphibian tanks crawl up out of the water. A howitzer rears itself up from a peaceful field. Roadways choked with war ma- terial moving to the front. Long lines of tanks and caterpillar lorries. Long lines of steel-helmetted men. Great dumps of shells. A fantasia of war material in motion. i Chemical factory. Piles of cases being loaded. The manufacture of gas bombs. The workers all wear gas masks of ghoulish type. Guns being fired, tanks advancing, battleships firing a broadside, gas hissing out of cylinders. Squadron after squadron of air planes taking to the sky. Everytown with hostile airplanes in the sky. An explosion in the foreground. As the smoke clears, it reveals the suburban road in Everytown in which Pass- worthy lives; the shattered garden fence; and something small and dark far down the footpath. Little Horrie in sprawling dead. Everytown being bombed. Sirens, his panoply, whistles and hooters. Panic in the Square. Anti-aircraft firing rather helplessly. A tramcar runs down the street; it lurches and falls sideways. The facade of a gigantic general store falls into the street. The merchandise is scat- tered and on fire. Window dummies and wounded civilians lie on the pavement. Bomb bursting in crowded Square. Cinema crashing in ruins. A bomb bursts a gas main; a jet of lame; the fire spreads. Officials distributing gas masks, the crowd in a panic. Fight for masks. Official swept off his feet. Airplanes above Everytown dis- tribute gas like a smoke screen. The cloud slowly descends. People in offices and flats trapped by the gas pouring into the windows. The Two Airmen Enemy airman, a boy of 19, is in the air, distributing gas. He finishes THIS WEEK Things to Come Continued from page four his supply and banks to turn about, He looks up into the sky and dis- covers he is being attacked. John Cabal in his airplane, heading for the enemy airman. A one-sided fight between a bomber and a swift tighter. Enemy airman crashes. Cabal nose-dives but straight- ens out. Cabal landing with difficulty. He looks towards enemy airplane and then hurries towards it. Fire breaks out in the wrecked machine. Enemy airman staggers out as the flames spread. He is beating out the fire in his smouldering clothing. He staggers and falls. Cabal helps the enemy airman, who is as yet too stunned to be in anguish but knows he is done for. Cabal settles him fairly comfortably on the ground. Cabal: “Is that better? My God — but you are smashed up, my boy.” Cabal tries to make him comtortable. Finally he desists and stares at the epemy airman with a sort of blank amazement. “Why should we two have been murdering each other? How did we come to this?"”’ The gas is drifting nearer to them. The enemy airman points to it. “Go, my friend! This is my gas; it is a had gas. Thank you.” Cabal helps the enemy airman with his mask and adjusts it. There is some difficulty due to the airman’s broken arm. Enemy airman: “Funny it choked by my own poison.” They hear a cry and look up, see a little girl running betore the gas. She 1s already choking and presses a hand- kerchief to her mouth. The girl, very distressed, hesitates, not Kknowing which way to go. Enemy airman stares, then tears off his mask and holds it out to Cabal. “Here — put it on her.” Cabal hesitates. Enemy airman: “I've given it to others — why shouldn’t I have a whiff myself?” Cabal puts the mask on the girl, who resists, frightened; then under- stands and submits. Cabal goes off with the girl and then returns to see if the enemy airman has a pistol. He realizes that he has not, hesitates, then gives his own pistol to him: *“You may want this.” Enemy airman: ‘“‘Good fellow — but I'll take my dose.”” The enemy airman is left lying in the flickering light of his burning air- plane. Wisps of gas drift towards him. He looks atter Cabal and the girl. “I dropped the stuff on her. Maybe I've killed her father and mother. Maybe I've killed all her family. And then I give up my mask to save her. That’s funny. Oh! That's really funny. Ha, ha, ha! That — that’s a joke!” The gas drifts to him, and he starts to cough. He remembers some of Cabal’'s words: “What fools we air- men have been! We’ve let them make us fight for them like dogs. Smashed, trying to ksl her — and then I gave I'm her my mask! Oh, God! It’s funny. Ha, ha, ha!”’ His laugh changes to a cough of distress as the gas envelops him. The cough grows fainter, and vapor blots out the scene. He is heard again coughing and panting. Then comes a sharp cry, then a groan of sudden unendurable suffering. A pistol shot is heard. Silence. A succession of newspaper headings marks the prolongation of the war. The first newspaper has the same type of heading as the newspaper in Cabal’s study before the children’s party: EVENING NEWSLETTER. The weather forecast is no longer there. The date is May 20th, 1941. Price three-pence. In place of *‘Closing Market Prices” is ‘“‘Prohibition of Speculation,” but the paper still claims to be FINAL NIGHT EDITION. Headline across two columns: THE END IN SIGHT. Headline across two columns: THE RATIONING SCANDAL. Subhead underneath the first head- ing: Benefits of Blake’s Air Offensive. Text: “The immense efforts and sac- rifices of the air force during the great counter offensive of last month are bearing fruit.” A very roughly printed newspaper with blurs and discolorations replaces its predecessor. The newspaper marks a great deterioration in social effi- ciency. It is printed from worn-out type, and the lower lines fall away. THE WEEKLY PATRIOT No. 1. New Series. Feb. 2nd, 1952, Price one pound sterling. DRAWING TO THE END “It is necessary to press on with the war with the utmost determination. Only by doing so can we hope . . ."” A third paper replaces this: THE WEEKLY PATRIOT No. 754. March 1955. Price one pound sterling. THE UTMOST RESOLUTION NO SURRENDER A desolate heath. Something burn- ing far away. A sheet of decaying newspaper is fluttering in the wind. It catches on a thorn; the wind tears at the ill-printed sheet of coarse paper .-~ BRITONS BULLETIN Sept. 21st, 1966. Price four pounds sterling. “Hold on. Victory 1s coming. The enemy is near the breaking point. . .."” The wind tears the paper to pieces. The Tower Bridge of London in ruins. No signs of human life. Sea- gulls and crows. The Thames, partly blocked with debris, has overflowed its damaged banks. The Eiffel Tower, prostrate. The same desolation and ruin. Brooklyn Bridge destroyed. The tangle of cables in the water. Shipping sunk in the harbor. New York ruined. A sunken liner at the bottom of the sea. Pleasure sea fronts, Palm Beach, * the Lido, Blackpool, Coney Island in L.et the Moon Do Your Work! Continued from page five the tides that I have just described. By constructing a system of basins the tide can be made to circulate back and forth through the turbines be- tween the open sea and two con- nected reservoirs. One of these reser- voirs is kept empty while the other is being filled. The water in the first reservoir, which was filled at high tide, is allowed to flow into the second, churning the turbines on its way. Meanwhile the ocean tide recedes to its low point, and when sufficiently low the water accumulated in the lower reservoir may be allowed to flow back to the sea. With the coming in of the next ocean tide the upper reservoir will be replenished and the process continued. In this way the turbines may be kept continually turning. Next to burning our natural fuel resources, tidal power is probably the most feasible method of gaining energy. But not every seaport will have its tidal power plant. Com- paratively few places on the surface of the globe have estuaries so favorably formed as in the region of the Bay of Fundy. Next to the Bay of Fundy region, probably the best adapted location for tidal power is the Severn Estuary, in England. In 1925 a distinguished committee, duly appointed, investigated the pos- sibilities of a tidal development here. Calculations showed that the tides in the Severn River would yield nearly 10 per cent of the power which it was then anticipated England wouid re- quire by 1941. Between one and two billion kilowatt hours, or nearly 40 per cent of the anticipated output of Boulder Dam, was calculated ; but the cost of £50,000,000 was prohibitive. In some future day, should the cost of coal and oil rapidly rise as natural resources are depleted, then one may well look for further development in tidal power. Then at last the romantic moon, which has played many a role in song and legend, will have become commercialized to human ends. September 29, 1935 ruins. A\ few wild dogs wander through the desolation. Oxford University in ruins and the Bodleian Library scat- tered amidst the wreckage. The Wandering Sickness The Central Square of Everytown in ruins. A few ragged street vendors and a primitive market in a corner of the Square. A gigantic shell-hole in the middle. A group of people stand about a board on the wall. This is a notice board like the old album on which news was written in the Roman Forum. As the world relapses, old methods reappear. The board reads: NATIONAL BULLETIN August. 1968. WARNING! A NEW OUTRAGE! Enemy Spreading Disease by Airplane “*Our enemies, deteated on land and sea and in the air, have nevertheless retained a few airplanes which are dif- ficult to locate and destroy., These they are using to spread disease, a new fever of mind and body . . ."” A man in a worn and patched uni- form comes out of the Town Hall with a paper in his hand and turns towards the wall. A few people are attracted by his activity. He pastes up a new cyclostyled inscription : “The enemy are spreading the Wandering Sickness by airplane. Avoid sites where bombs have fallen. Do not drink stagnant water.” - A woman comes out of a house. She is ragged and tired, a pail in her hand. She goes to the gigantic shell-hole in the middle of the square. The woman descends with her pail. She wants some of the water. A man: “Didn’t you warning?”’ “No." Man, indicating the water: *Wan- dering Sickness.” The woman is struck by instant fear. Then she hesitates. “‘I have to go half an hour away for spring water.” The man shrugs his shoulders and goes. The woman is still hesitating. read the The hospital under the laboratory. A dim dark place. The sick are unat- tended. One of them— a man in a dirty shirt and trousers, barefooted and haggard — rises, looks about him wildly and darts out. The Square, outside the hospital. The sick man wandering. He stares blankly in front of him. He seeks he knows not what. People in the Square see him and scatter. The woman in the shell-hole discovers the wandering sick man is approaching her. She screams and scrambles away. A group of men and women run away from the sick man. A sentry with a rifle. Man to sentry: “Don’t you see?"” Woman: *‘He is carrying infection.” The sentry does not like his job, but he lifts his rifle. He fires. The wandering man collapses, writhes and lies still. The sentry shouts: “Don’t go near him. Leave him alone!” Dr. Harding’s laboratory. Harding is at his work bench, assisted by his daughter Mary. He is struggling desperately to work out the problem of immunity to the Wandering Sickness, which is destroying mankind. He is now a man of fifty; he is overworked, jaded, aged. He is working in a partly wrecked laboratory with insufficient supplies. The laboratory has already been shown earlier in the story. The rooms downstairs have been impro- vised as a hospital, to which early cases of the pestilence are brought. Harding's clothing is ragged and patched, his apparatus is more like an old alchemist’s, makeshift and very inefficient. There is no running water. though there is still a useless tap and a sink. Bottles, crucibles and suchlike hardy stuff have survived, but very little fine glass. Several of the windows are cracked and have been mended with paper. Harding mutters as he works. Mary is a girl of eighteen, dressed in a patched nurse’s uniform, with a red cross armlet. “Father,” she says, “why don’t you sleep a little?”’ Harding: ““How can I sleep when my work may be the saving of count- less lives?” A shot is heard without. Harding goes to the window, followed by Mary. He sees the dead man with the Wan- dering Sickness, lying in his blood. A man walks across the scene, elabo- (Continued on next page) | +