Signs of technology gone mad: a shop window of enormous size displaying grotesquely oversized hats; a shop so tall that the customers have to be winched up seated on an escalator; a bridge over the Channel and a tunnel beneath it, the latter collapsing; aerial bombardment from a battleship held up by balloons; an airship colliding with the moon; gas street lighting substituted for the sun; the street is full of mud because the street sweeper walks on stilts and does not need it to be cleared; transport in steam-powered cars Signs of society collapsing because the masses are devoted to high culture: an apple-seller reads Byron's poems while a boy steals her apples; a butcher and a dustman play chess while a dog runs off with the butcher's meat; a trio of street musicians play concert music instead of popular music; a ballad-singer imitates opera stars; footmen ape their masters but smoke in the streets