IN THE YEAR 2889

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which Mr. Smith has to perform. Very fortunately for him, thanks to the
progress of hygiene, which, abating all the old sources of
unhealthfulness, has lifted the mean of human life from 37 up to 52
years, men have stronger constitutions now than heretofore. The
discovery of nutritive air is still in the future, but in the meantime
men today consume food that is compounded and prepared according to
scientific principles, and they breathe an atmosphere freed from the
micro-organisms that formerly used to swarm in it; hence they live
longer than their forefathers and know nothing of the innumerable
diseases of olden times.

Nevertheless, and notwithstanding these considerations, Fritz Napoleon
Smith's mode of life may well astonish one. His iron constitution is
taxed to the utmost by the heavy strain that is put upon it. Vain the
attempt to estimate the amount of labor he undergoes; an example alone
can give an idea of it. Let us then go about with him for one day as he
attends to his multifarious concernments. What day? That matters little;