If it has been possible for us to realise the most perfect and the most intense social life that has ever been seen, it is thanks to the extreme simplicity of our strictly so-called wants. At a time when man was "panivorous" and omnivorous, the craving for food was broken up into an infinity of petty ramifications. To-day it is confined to eating meat which has been preserved in the best of refrigerators. Within the space of an hour each morning, a single member of society by the employment of our ingenious transport machinery feeds a thousand of his kind. The need of clothing has been pretty nearly abolished by the softness of an ever constant climate, and, we must also admit it, by the absence of silkworms and of textile plants. That would perhaps be a disadvantage were it not for the incomparable beauty of our bodies, which lends a real charm to this grand simplicity of costume. Let us observe, however, that it is fairly customary to wear coats of asbestos spangled with mica, of silver interwoven and enriched with gold, in which the refined and delicate charms of our women appear as though moulded in metal, rather than completely screened from view. This metallic iridescence with its infinite tints has a most delightful effect. These are, however, costumes that never wear out. How many clothiers, milliners, tailors, and drapery establishments are thereby abolished at a single stroke! The need of shelter remains, it is true, but it has been greatly reduced. One is no longer obliged to sleep at "starlight-hotel". When a young man grows weary of the life in common which has hitherto sufficed him in the spacious working-drawing-room of his fellows, and desires for matrimonial reasons to have a dwelling to himself, he has only to apply the boring-machine somewhere against the rocky wall and his cell is excavated in a few days. There is no rent and few articles of furniture. The joint-stock furniture, which is magnificent, is almost the only one of which the pair of lovers make use.