From him I learnt that this, with another
method I will presently describe, is the sole means of distant
communication employed in Mars. Those who have not leisure or do not
care to visit one of the offices, never more than twelve-miles distant
from one another, in which the public instruments are kept, can have a
wire conveyed to their own house. Almost every house of any pretension
possesses such a wire. Leading me into the next apartment, my friend
pointed out an immense number of instruments of a box-like shape, with
a slit in which a leaf of about four inches by two was placed. These
were constantly ejected and on the instant mechanically replaced. The
fallen leaves were collected and sorted by the officers present, and
at once placed in one or other of another set of exactly similar
instruments. Any one possessing a private wire can write at his own
desk in the manual character a letter or message on one of these
slips. Placing it in his own instrument, it at once reproduces itself
exactly in his autograph, and with every peculiarity, blot, or
erasure, at the nearest office.
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