CHAPTER XXXIV.
The Great Daily Press Fulfills All its Promises.—Universal Idiocy.—More Liberty and a Bigger Flag.—Liberty Takes the Form of a Statue.—Police Exemplification of Liberty.—A New Song.
Illustration: DECORATIVE LETTER ‘S’.
SO the Many Headed went forth and was a lying spirit, morning and evening, in the mouths of all its prophets. And it wrought well the will of the Bamboozlers and the Monstrous Fleas, in deceiving and fooling the dogs; for under its subtle ministrations as an Angel of Light, the dogs rapidly grew limp and idiotic in body and mind, and lost all power of discernment between right and wrong, and good and evil, and all taste for everything but idiotic pastimes, and silly, trashy and horrible stories, which it daily poured into their ears. Yea, so thoroughly were their minds debauched, enervated and enfeebled that when the few—the very few—surviving dogs of thought and sense, came unto them and begged them to give a thought or two now and then to their poor, miserable and lost condition, and the way to remedy it, the dogs said such talk was a great weariness, and forthwith rolled over and went to sleep.
And it was so that the Great Gee Whizz went up rapidly in the favor of the Monstrous Fleas, who, in gratitude to it as their Savior, gave it large quantities of blood to drink, so that it grew as big and bloated as any one of the most monstrous of them, and was given the place of honor in their assemblieswhen they and the Bamboozlers held special praise meetings to laugh and wink at each other.
And the Bamboozlers instructed the Great Gee Whizz to keep up thenoveltyof its dog befoolments, and be sure and never present the same trick twice over.
And the Great Gee Whizz was grieved because the Bamboozlers seemed to think it needed any suggestion to this end; and it suggested back to the Bamboozlers, that in fertility of resources in bamboozlements, it could give points to them. Therefore, the Bamboozlers did shut up, and did no more offer suggestions to the Great Gee Whizz, the Prince of Prestidigitateurs, Equilibrists and Acrobats.
For there was one trick itdidpresent every day; a trick which in its mature judgment was all the more utterly bamboozling and confounding to the dogs, by its eternal sameness of repetition. It was this:
Every morning the Many Headed appeared on high, in full sight of the dogs and held a Solemn High Punch and Judy Show. Concealing its body from sight behind a draping which was figured with the Flag of the Free, it caused a few of the Bamboozlers, whom it had previously instructed, to pull certain strings attached to the necks of its various heads, when all the said heads went to hissing and spitting at and punching each other, and calling each other the vilest names. Each and every head called each and every other a liar, a coward, and a traitor to the ever blessed and beloved dogs, and a paid tool and toady of the bad fleas. Each one yelled that it alone was the Only Original Truth Speaker, and had an Immensely Greater Circulation than all the others combined.
Oh, it was a goodly show, and fooled the dogs mightily, and divided them up into sects and parties, and kept them eternally busy cursing each other, and swearing, each, by the particular head which each decided was the Genuine Friend and Champion of the dogs. And not one of the poor fools could see that all of the heads belonged to the same body.
Illustration: SOLEMN HIGH PUNCH AND JUDY SHOW.
So what with their much work and little food, and the daily bamboozlements of the Many Headed, and the brain-softening exercises of the Special Bamboozle Days, the dogs became a gaunt mob of skinny, drivelling idiots, of flea-covered bodies and eclipsed minds. So that when the noise of the bang and thump instruments, and the marching dogs, and the waving of the pretty cloths called them to the next Bamboozle day, they came with tottering steps, and lolling tongues, and wheezing breath, and protruding eyes. They did not run—they could not. They came from a sense of duty to the Flag of the Free, which the Bamboozlers had made of immense size; for they said a great and growing country could only be fittingly typified by a great and growing Flag, and as Freedom and Prosperity had increased under the fostering care of Heaven, until they had filled the whole earth about Canisville, it was meet and merely grateful to God that the Flag fill the whole heavens too. It was verily a heavens filling Flag, and it was raised on the tallest and stoutest pole that could be procured from all the country roundabout; for to-day was to be one of the maddest and gladdest days of all the mad and glad days.
For Liberty in Canisville had grown so large and universal, and the fame thereof had so gone over the pond, that a lot of Monstrous Fleas over there, had got a lot of idiotic dogs there to make them a great, hollow, copper idol of the form of a grotesque looking female of human kind, which the said Monstrous Fleas said was a Statue of Liberty, which they, in the name (they said), and with the compliments, of the free and hungry dogs of that land, had sent over to the Monstrous Fleas of Canisville, to be received in the name of the free and hungry dogs of Canisville, and set up at the gates of Canisville, as a great visible sign that there was one great Free Country in the world unto which the oppressed, hungry and flea-bitten dogs of all nations might run and be saved.
And it was a glorious time. The Greatest Gee Whizz of All had, with a great cyclone of noise and wind, got thousands ofpoor, hungry, fool dogs to pinch their bellies to raise wealth enough to buy a pedestal to put the great hollow copper idol on.
The wind and thump instruments made a mighty noise; the pretty cloths fluttered gaily; and the poor dogs, thrilled into enthusiasm by the sights and sounds, wagged their tails and cheered as much as their shortness of wind and contracted stomachs allowed. Then, at the sound of trumpet and booming of guns, the copper idol was borne along in a grand procession of fat, eminent, wealthy and Monstrous Fleas, and guarded by a large body of police dogs.
Now, the police dogs, it was noticed, had grown quite corpulent and greasy and consequential since the first Bamboozle Day, and presented quite a contrast to the rest of the dogs, for the fleas had found out that eternal good feeding is the price of police loyalty. True, they were only dogs, and were veritable slaves in the presence of Pup McPoodle, and the wealthy and Monstrous Fleas, who told them to distinctly understand that they werePublicServants,theirservants, andnotthe servants of the dogs at all, as thePublicmeant fleas only, and they were not to give them any of their bark, on pain of being relegated to the ranks of the dogs that had to scratch for a living; but as they were rotund of belly, and sleek and large, and in all other respects quite different from the common mob of dogs, they regarded themselves as of a different caste, and their sleekness, rotundity, and well-to-do-ism as superior-holiness marks differentiating them from the other dogs; and although they knew that the victuals which fed them were all forcibly taken from the meagre supplies which the other dogs scratched up, they ignored the fact, and held their noses up as high and consequentially as ever they could, and mortally hated any other dog to touch them.
Illustration: THEY FELL ON THOSE DIRTY DOGS, AND BEGAN TO CLUB THE LIFE OUT OF THEM.
And the Jubilation was great; the great Flag of Liberty was floating its proudest; songs to Liberty were floating to Heaven; her Statue was being led gloriously along, rearing aloft her head to Heaven in magnificent symbolism of the majesty and freedom of the nation of dogs, over whom she was now erected to be Goddess, when a slight accidental crowding amongst the dogs, caused some of the dirty and ill-smelling ones to be crowded so close to the police dogs as actually to touch them.
Now, here was a dreadful occurrence. According to the holy religion of the police dogs, to be even looked at by an ordinary working, grub-hunting dog, is defilement that requires forty days of sequestration and purification, with much fasting and prayer; but to betouchedby one—actually touched—involves the total and irreparable loss of Paradise beyond the grave.
Oh, here then, was a wholesale touching of these sacred animals, by an unsanctified and unwashen mob of beastly and measly working dogs of the lowest caste. Horror! Peste! Blood!! Thunder, Lightning and Death!!! For one paralyzing instant they stood petrified with horror and terror; and then the full realization that they had by this horrible defilement suddenly forfeited all hope of Heaven and eternal bliss, rushed over their brains, and, like demons, they fell on those dirty dogs, and began to club the life out of them. The unfortunates, shrieking and howling, fled with all the speed their diminished breath and vitality were capable of, with the police dogs in hot pursuit, laying about them right and left inself defence.
Having thus, in some slight degree, purged away their defilement, and left on the scalps of those dirty dogs, many bloody gashes, as souvenirs of Glorious Liberty, the police dogs, panting from their victory, returned to their places; and the songs, the procession and the worship of Liberty were resumed; the Goddess was stood up on her pedestal; the Bamboozlers ranted and raved about Freedom their rantingest and ravingest, the Great Many Headed Daily Press flitted hither and thither and everywhere, boosting up the hungry dogs to the proper pitch of Patriotic Pride; the Heavens opened, and Freedom as an Eagle, with specially wiped bill and claws, came down and perched on the Goddess’ uplifted arm; the assembled fleasgave a great shout, and, led by Tee de Little Wit Blatherskite, Dephool Flea, Grandadhat, and the rest of the Bamboozlers, gathered around the Flag, and sang:
“Now pray we for our Country,That Canisville long may beThe Holy and the Happy,And the gloriously Free.Who blesseth Her is blessed;So peace be in her walls,And joy in all her palaces,Her kennels, hovels and halls.“Now pray we that the Bamboozlers,Our rulers long may be,And Canisville, dear old Canisville,Still be famed for Liberty.In Freedom and Religion,May she be foremost seen,And the Goddess at our Country’s gatesFor aye and ever be our queen.”
“Now pray we for our Country,That Canisville long may beThe Holy and the Happy,And the gloriously Free.Who blesseth Her is blessed;So peace be in her walls,And joy in all her palaces,Her kennels, hovels and halls.“Now pray we that the Bamboozlers,Our rulers long may be,And Canisville, dear old Canisville,Still be famed for Liberty.In Freedom and Religion,May she be foremost seen,And the Goddess at our Country’s gatesFor aye and ever be our queen.”
“Now pray we for our Country,That Canisville long may beThe Holy and the Happy,And the gloriously Free.Who blesseth Her is blessed;So peace be in her walls,And joy in all her palaces,Her kennels, hovels and halls.
“Now pray we for our Country,
That Canisville long may be
The Holy and the Happy,
And the gloriously Free.
Who blesseth Her is blessed;
So peace be in her walls,
And joy in all her palaces,
Her kennels, hovels and halls.
“Now pray we that the Bamboozlers,Our rulers long may be,And Canisville, dear old Canisville,Still be famed for Liberty.In Freedom and Religion,May she be foremost seen,And the Goddess at our Country’s gatesFor aye and ever be our queen.”
“Now pray we that the Bamboozlers,
Our rulers long may be,
And Canisville, dear old Canisville,
Still be famed for Liberty.
In Freedom and Religion,
May she be foremost seen,
And the Goddess at our Country’s gates
For aye and ever be our queen.”