CHAPTER XXXIII.
Shows There’s Nothing Like Patriotism to Humbug, Starve and Swindle the Masses with; and Nothing Like Statistics to Lie with.—The Great Gee Whizz Appears, Seeking Some One to Sell Its Services to.—The Bamboozlers Hire It.
Illustration: DECORATIVE LETTER ‘I’.
IT was many days before the force of the Great Bamboozle spent itself. Though the scramble and scratching for bones was even fiercer than ever; and though the infernal grind at the Handle of the Blood Mill grew daily more hellish, and the cruel greed of the bloated Monstrous Fleas grew daily more adamantine and pitiless; though robbery, murder, death by starvation and suicide grew daily more common, the dogs had been so thoroughly hypnotized that they perversely sought everywhere for a cause for all these things save in the right place.
They had graduated so well in the course of patriotism they had recently been put through that in their midnight meetings together, to bark and talk over their distressful condition, theyput up a fac-simile of the great Flag of Canisville and ordered that every meeting be opened by genuflexion to the Flag of Freedom and Prosperity, and closed by prostration to the Flag of Liberty and Plethoric Stomach; and further ordered that all speeches, arguments and discussions should proceed upon certain indubitable and undiscussible premises called Sacred Truths. They were:
(1.) This is a Free Country.
(2.) Our Flag is the Flag of Liberty.
(3.) All Good is indigenous to Canisville.
(4.) All Evil comes from Abroad.
And they ordained that all doubt of these Sacred Truths was mortal sin that could never be atoned for, neither in this world nor in that which is to come; and that any dog who in any speech, argument or discussion should step off these premises, and by assertion, hint or insinuation, or even careless construction of his sentences, should convey or cause to be conveyed, the understanding or impression, in any degree, however faint, that this country was not or might not be a Free Country; that this Flag was not or might not be the Flag of Liberty; that all Good was not or might not be indigenous; and that all Evil did not or possibly might not come from Abroad, should be instantly killed or fearfully mutilated. And they furthermore proclaimed that they desired it to be known to all the world that the dogs and fleas of Canisville and their Common Flag were so unutterably sacred and superior to the rest of the world that any insult or ridicule to either would be regarded as acasus belli.
But in time the gnawings of their never ending hunger began to perplex them sorely. How it was that God had, according to the words of his prophets Grandadhat, Mak Tinley, Dephool Flea, De Little Wit Blatherskite and the rest, given them the greater blessing of a Country and a Flag, and had withholden from them the lesser one of Victuals, bothered them very much. Of course they were ready at a moment’s notice, when called on,to die for their Country and Flag when either was in danger, but why they were dying every day without any notice, without being called on, and when neither Country nor Flag was in danger, caused them to scratch their heads. And as for that Average of one thousand mouthfuls of good Victuals per dog that Mak Tinley’s Statistics incontrovertibly gave them, they couldn’t make it out at all; for to make the Averageoutthey had to make the Victualsin, and that they could not do for the life of them.
This was how they would discuss the question. One hungry dog would meet another on the street and thus would they say:
First Dog.“Good morning, brother.”
Second Dog.“It is not a good morning.”
First Dog.“Whyfore, brother? Art thou not in health?”
Second Dog.“No dog in Canisville is in health. Art thou?”
First Dog.“Verily, no. I’m hungry.”
Second Dog.“That’s strange. So am I; and yet, the great prophet Mak Tinley, on Bamboozle Day, showed us incontrovertibly that Statistics give every dog of us an Average of one thousand mouthfuls of Good Victuals.”
First Dog.“He did, and we all know that he is the most truthful of the Only Original Truth Speakers; and yet I speak the truth, too, when I state thatmyAverage is about one mouthful per every thousand days.”
Second Dog.“That’s aboutmyAverage, too. I have examined myself; I have felt of my stomach, and I cannot find those one thousand mouthfuls of mine. Lord, I wish I could, I do indeed.”
First Dog.“Well, brother, it may be there is some fault or sin in us that prevents the Blessed Statistics from giving us the blessing. It may be that there is some wicked way within us; some secret sin that hinders the entrance of the Average into our stomachs. As the blessed Blatherskite saith: ‘These things are received by Faith, not by Sight.’”
Second Dog.“That’s so, brother; it is certainlynotby Sight in our case. I do believe we have not Faith enough.”
And so they would part, one praying to God to give him a larger Faith, and the other praying Him to never mind the Faith but to give him a larger Average.
So the demon, Doubt, again began to creep abroad in Canisville.
Therefore the Bamboozling Committee, carefully noting the perplexed headshakings and the other sure signs of another outbreak of the thinking contagion, did wisely take other precautions to forestall it.
And there was a day when they and some of the Monstrous Fleas were devising further bamboozlements for the dogs, and a Phenomenon came also among them.
And the Committee said unto the Phenomenon: “Who art thou, and whence comest thou?”
Then answered the Phenomenon, and said: “I am the Great Many Headed Daily Press with the Immense Circulation; I am four hundred square miles of nastiness; and I come from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.”
And the Committee said: “And what doest thou here, Great Daily Press?”
And the Great Many Headed answered, and said: “I am the Great Gee Whizz, having a Larger Circulation than all the other Gee Whizzes combined. I am the bold, fearless, outspoken and independent champion of truth, honesty, uprightness and good government, and the terror of evil doers; and I am going about just now seeking an owner whom I may serve.”
“What are thy terms?” asked the Bamboozling Committee, seeing here a possibly great aid in the Cause.
“My terms are one only,” replied the Phenomenon, “and are that my master shall be the highest bidder for my services.”
“And what wilt thou do for us if we hire thee?” asked the Committee.
“Absolutely what ye ask me to do; for he that hireth me is my god until a higher bidder appeareth, when I instantly transfer my allegiance.”
“What we desire done now,” said the Bamboozlers, “is the invention of handy bamboozlements to fill up the time between one Bamboozle Day and another.”
“Good!” exclaimed the Great Gee Whizz. “Bid high and I am yours, and ye shall never regret your bargain.”
So the Bamboozling Committee asked the Monstrous Fleas present to put up great wealth and buy him for their service, which service, they reminded the Monstrous Fleas, was the Public Service.
And the Monstrous Fleas there and then bid enormously high for him, and bought him; and the Phenomenon did there and then contract himself, body and soul, unto the Bamboozling Committee and their backers, the Monstrous Fleas, to execute their will in all things until a higher bidder for his services should appear.
And they said: “O, thou Great Gee Whizz, wherewith wilt thou persuade the dogs and bamboozle them, for they be many?”
And the Phenomenon said: “Said I not unto you that I am the Great and Everlasting Gee Whizz, and have a Greater Circulation than all the other Gee Whizzes combined? Do I not employ a mighty army of invisible Circulators to go and be everywhere amongst the dogs? Behold! I will be a lying spirit in the mouths of all these my prophets, and they shall persuade the foolish dogs that they have found a Savior and a Deliverer in me.
“I will be their Champion. I will be everywhere about them, above and below, and will cluck-cluck with a most anxious solicitude over them, even as a hen cluck-clucketh over her chickens, or as Satan over them that are sealed unto him. I will be a Holy Shekinah unto them—a pillar of dust and cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night; and they shall march andhalt obediently as I give them the sign. I will weep and ululate with them in their miseries and hunger, and none shall come within leagues of me in my denunciations of the cruel and unjust fleas that suck their blood. I will rage against you and enrage them, and then with sound of gong and big drum, and a raising of flags, I will give to eat unto the hungriest of them, and they shall know that I am the Great Many Headed Gee Whizz and Champion of the poor and the oppressed. Thus shall I be a god unto them, going before them, and they shall swear by me, and meekly follow whithersoever I go; andI will go your way every time.
“I will daily and eveningly point out to them that their woes are due not tofleas, but only tobadfleas; and every morning and evening I will announce that I, the Great Gee Whizz, having a Greater Circulation than all the other Gee Whizzes combined, have a brand-new great scheme on hand, that shall infallibly deliver them from all their woes; and every day I will astound them with a great new disclosure of some gigantic and overshadowing wickedness of the bad fleas, which I alone, the great Gee Whizz, have exclusively discovered; and I will keep them forever believing that they are just on the very point of having all their wrongs righted, and that bymyengineering and the might ofmypower, a great avalanche of Good Victuals is about to fall upon them. Thus will I be their Champion and serve you.
“All the news of the day that is of no importance, and is not thought-provoking, I will give to them, clothed in the garb of Strict Truth; but all and any news that it may not be expedient unto you to give them, I will suppress or so garble it that its power to injure you shall be nullified; for you and I will own and guard all the avenues of information, and we will make them all converge to and pass through a sifter and a filter that I will devise, so that these fool dogs shall get nothing but nice, pure, wholesome, well-selected stuff.
“Moreover, my Bamboozle shall every day give them wholesome amusement. From the tropically fertile dunghills of my Circulators’ prostituted brains, I will gather and scatter amongst them every morning and evening, whole bouquets of the rankest literary toadstools, skunk cabbage and stinkweeds, which they will take, on the strength of their faith in me as the Great Gee Whizz, for the choicest of flowers. Thus will I pervert their noses and they shall utterly lose all discernment. Oh, I will pour trashy, sickly, foolish, unclean and horrific blood-and-thunder stories into their disordered brains until sober truth shall be insipid unto them, and they shall come to hate everything but that which raises their hair with horror and gives them the shivers and creeps and blood curdles. Thus will I soften their brains and imbecilitate their minds, so that they shall be as putty to your moulding.”
“Enough, enough,” cried Mountebank Dephool Flea. “Thou art my sort to a dot. If thou canst do only half what thou proposest, thou wilt be worth to us thy weight in gold.”
“Aye, aye,” cried all the rest of the Bamboozling Committee, and the Monstrous Fleas, in chorus, “thou art indeed a Flea Savior, sent of God in the nick of time to deliver us; perform but a tenth of these thy promises to us, and we will make thee as fat and wealthy as the most monstrous of us.”
“Aha!” laughed the Phenomenon, “ye know not the greatness and extent of my power. Ye have devised bamboozlements, which in the simplicity of your hearts, ye think are very fine; but they are transient and evanescent, and of themselves will surely fail; for they lack the essential conditions of successful bamboozlement, namely,semi-daily continuance. Bamboozlements, to be enduring, must be applied daily; and therein do I prove my inestimable value to you, for I am the Great Many Headed Semi-Daily Press, the Everlasting Three-Hundred-and-Sixty-five-Days-a-Year Gee Whizz, and the Immense Circulator.
“But I will do more than the things I have already promised. I will amuse them with foolish nonsense. I will everyday give them something to guess. I will offer a basketful of rich grub to the dog that cometh nearest to solving a problem; like this, for instance: A dog, originally fifty pounds weight, that has had but one mouthful of meat per day for six months, and nothing at all for the last three days, is chucked into the hopper with an initial velocity of ten feet per second, and at an angle of forty-five degrees; how many somersaults will he describe before he is lost to sight, how much will he weigh, and how many hairs will there be on his body? Or I will offer to give a prize unto the lady flea, that in the opinion of the dogs, is the most beautiful and popular. Or I will get up a standing-on-one-leg-the-longest contest, with a nice meaty bone to reward the victor. Or I will offer a reward to the dog that shall come nearest to guessing which of all my contemporary Gee Whizzes is the biggest liar. All these diversions will keep them ever on thequi vive, to get prizes; and when every hungry dog sees there is a chance for a good big bone for a mere guess, he will never have time or inclination to think on the General Misery Question.
“But finally, I will teach them that their great and solemn duty is to belaw abidingand that violence is wrong. Ye shall make all the laws; and I will teach them to belaw abiding. Ye shall enact that all dogs are to be bitten and bled at the will and pleasure of the fleas, and I will teach them that to belaw abidingis the highest duty of dogs; ye shall enact that no dog has rights which any flea is bound to respect; and I will teach the dogs that only byobeying the lawcan they obtain their rights. Ye may trample all laws in the mire, for ye have the police dogs to enforce your right of trampling; and I will teach them that no dog can hope to retain the love of God and the sympathy of the Great Public, if he goes to trampling on the law. Ye shall enact that it is illegal for dogs to eat, and I will teach them to belaw abiding. Ye shall enact that hunger in dogs is illegal, that any dog who shall either legally or illegally ask for or try to obtain food or drink, or any other of his naturalrights, shall be deemed guilty of a crime; and I will teach them that it is the first duty of dogs to belaw abiding, as were the Fathers and Prophets of our country; and toobey the law, as all fleas and good citizens do.
“Thus will I keep all these dogs befooled, and fuddled and muddled, so that nothing short of the direst and most unforeseen accident will enable them to see the joke.
“And if any dog, by reason of these hard lines, shall growl and make a fuss, and go to illegally taking any of his natural rights, or in any other way make himself obnoxious to you, and ye grow weary and want him killed, all ye need do is to express your desire and it shall be done. I will promptly set my innumerable Circulators to prophesy falsely against him, to sneer him down, to ridicule him down, to write him down, and make Public Opinion ripe for the police dogs to grab him, and throttle him and extinguish him; for I, the Great I Am, am an Accuser, Judge and Jury, at your service.”
And all the Committee and all the Monstrous Fleas rejoiced and were glad, and said unto the Phenomenon: “Go forth and do as thou hast said; be a lying and bamboozling spirit unto all these dogs and Heaven bless thee.”
Illustration: 30 PIECES OF SILVER.