en pneumatic transmitters before him answering to the general
classes of goods, each communicating with the corresponding department
at the warehouse. He drops the box of orders into the tube it calls
for, and in a few moments later it drops on the proper desk in the
warehouse, together with all the orders of the same sort from the
other sample stores. The orders are read off, recorded, and sent to be
filled, like lightning. The filling I thought the most interesting
part. Bales of cloth are placed on spindles and turned by machinery,
and the cutter, who also has a machine, works right through one bale
after another till exhausted, when another man takes his place; and it
is the same with those who fill the orders in any other staple. The
packages are then delivered by larger tubes to the city districts, and
thence distributed to the houses. You may understand how quickly it is
all done when I tell you that my order will probably be at home sooner
than I could have carried it from here."

"How do you manage in the thinly settled rural districts?" I asked.

"The system is the same," Edith explained; "the village sample shops
are connected by transmitters with the central county warehouse, which
may be twenty miles away. The transmission is so swift, though, that
the time lost on the way is trifling. But, to save expense, in many
counties one set of tubes connect several villages with the warehouse,
and then there is time lost waiting for one another. Sometimes it is
two or three hours before goods ordered are received. It was so where
I was staying last summer, and I found it quite inconvenient".[2]

"There must be many other respects also, no doubt, in which the
country stores are inferior to the city stores," I suggested.

"No," Edith answered, "they are otherwise precisely as good. The
sample shop of the smallest village, just like this one, gives you
your choice of all the varieties of goods the nation has, for the
county warehouse draws on the same source as the city warehouse."

As we walked home I commented on the great variety in the size and
cost of the houses. "How is it," I asked, "that this difference is
consistent with the fact that all citizens have the same income?"

"Because," Edith explained, "although the income is the same, personal
taste determines how the individual shall spend it. Some like fine
horses; others, like myself, prefer pretty clothes; and still others
want an elaborate table. The re