Editing Steam Elephants (section)

==London, January 1903 — The World of Steam Elephants==

[[File:Steam Elephants BW logo.png|left|thumb]][[File:The World of Steam Elephants.gif|frame|right|alt=Animated clips in the style of illustration of a Victorian scientific romance. They are from the 1958  film Invention for Destruction by Karel Zeman|<center>As seen through the [[Projecting Kinetoscope|projecting kinetoscope]]<ref>Shots from [[Recommended films|Invention for Destruction]], Karel Zeman, 1958</ref></center>]]
King [[Edward I (and VII) (1841 - )|Edward I and VII]] is in his 60s, after a reign almost as long, having been unexpectedly elevated to the throne as an infant when the traitor John Francis [[The Assassination of Queen Victoria|slew his mother]]. Over six decades, the world is greatly changed.

Although horse-drawn vehicles are still most common, they share the streets with the chariots of progress. Larger towns have steam or electric trams, and [[Steam Elephant|steam elephants]] have almost universally usurped the role of beasts for heavier tasks. Man has taken to the skies by [[aeronef]] and [[dirigible]] (or for a few, widely considered crazy, [[Projectile Travel Machine|projectile travel]]). For long journeys, aerial transport is still challenged by the railways on land, [[Chain Boat|chain ships]] on rivers, and steamships and [[Steam Wing|steam wings]] at sea. It is even possible that space will be conquered by the recent development of the experimental [[æthernef]].

Such waxing mastery of road, wave and air heralds the ''Twentieth Century'', a new dawn grown from [[the Golden Age of Science]], in which we may finally expect to be relieved all of war, poverty and disease.   
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