HELL AND CHAOS IN CANISVILLE.—TRAMP DOGS.—RISE OF THE
APOLOGIST PHILOSOPHERS.—WHATSOEVER IS IS RIGHT.—THEIR
PROVERB FOUNDRY.
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CHAOS reigned in Canisville. Hell seemed to have grown so hungry for
victims that it had not patience to wait for the coming down of the
dogs to _it_, in the natural course of time, but had gone up to devour
them on earth. Dogs everywhere were the property of the fleas, either
by direct settlement on their bodies or by deputy. All that were not
struggling by serving the Monstrous Fleas at the Handle were wandering
around carrying little fleas and hunting hard for bones and scraps. The
only exceptions were a few obstinate headed and obdurate hearted dogs,
who had said they would have freedom at any cost. They said they would
not turn that infernal Handle, neither would they carry and maintain
any fleas. So they defiantly went about picking up scraps, and when
the little fleas came hopping onto them, and demanding as their right
to suck out of them the nutriment the scraps gave them, those dogs did
snarl and reach around for them with their teeth and violently shake
them off.
Then did those little fleas complain unto McPoodle that there were
certain wicked dogs that objected to be bled; and McPoodle said he would
not stand it in his dominions; and the Monstrous Fleas when they heard
about it, said it was Robbery of the Little Brethren, and a contagious
Bad Example that might spread throughout Society; and they spake unto
their salaried barker in the Church, Tee de Little Wit Blatherskite,
that he speak over the big book that lay on the costly cushion, against
the sin of dogs stealing their own bodies away from the bites of the
fleas. And the barker did speak, and the good and well behaved dogs
who carried their fleas and bore their hunger piously did regard with
severity and high disapproval all those dogs that shook their fleas,
insomuch that the flea shakers found themselves in ill odor and did
withdraw themselves from dog society, and sought lonely places where
meat was scarce and fleas scarcer.
Yet did not those dogs repine. They tramped and vagabondized and reposed
in the sun and the dirt; they grew very hairy and very dirty and very
hungry. But they said they were never hungrier than they would have
been had they remained in Good Society, and spent their days hustling
for fleas, which, they said, was on the whole an advantage, as it was
much less awful to be idle and hungry than to work one’s life out for
others and be hungry all the same; and as for Public Opinion, why,
to be able to snooze in the sunshine, was worth any amount of Public
Opinion that left one’s stomach insolvent. They also became covered
with vermin, which the flea-covered and respectable dogs of Canisville
shuddered at; but the vagabond dogs said that carrying vermin was not
half as burdensome or half as injurious to the health as carrying fleas;
and as for getting their living without work, why, the Monstrous Fleas
did no work at all and were monstrously respectable, and _they_ were
going to be respectable too; all which reasoning the pious dogs said was
Sophistry, and tended to lower them still further in the estimation of
the big fleas and other Good Society.
Verily a chaotic state of things prevailed; and to the few sensible dogs
that ever and anon bobbed up from out-of-the way places to bark a bark
of protest, and then sink into oblivion or be stoned out of town, all
things seemed upside down.
But as there never was a time in all the world’s history when to the
Apologist Philosophers of the times things that were were not right,
even so at this chaotic time in Canisville there arose the usual
Apologist Philosophers who took things as they were, and out of them
built a wonderful economic philosophy most beautiful to behold, the only
trouble with which was that whenever anyone of the few sensible dogs
would come out of his hole of hiding and prod it with a little weapon
called Common Sense, the whole elaborate system would collapse and drop
into dust. Wherefore the Apologist Philosophers were aggrieved, and
appealed to the Authorities to make it a Felony for any unpopular dog
to go about prodding philosophical systems with Common Sense, or to
have about him any Common Sense, which was, they said, a carrying of
concealed weapons.
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These Apologist Philosophers were singular creatures and insufferably
self-conceited, because they had “got on in the world” as they called
it; that is, they were all lucky dogs who had managed to get fat by
lying in wait for and catching what they called “Chances,”—that is,
stray scraps of meat—and by always speaking a good word for the big
fleas, who rewarded them by giving them a few of their fellow dogs to
eat. Many of them made their faces smooth, and tied around their necks
white bands called “Chokers,” which gave them a singular appearance of
which they were very vain. But their most singular distinguishment was
that they wore opaquely green spectacles and walked on their fore feet
and the tips of their noses, with their hind legs and tails in the air.
This uncommon way of walking enabled them, they said, to get a view of
earthly things totally different from that obtainable by the ordinary
degraded way of going on all fours, and enabled them more distinctly to
see things _as they appeared_, which was, they said, the philosophical
method, as contra-distinguished from the low, vulgar, altogether
despicable and ought-to-be-prohibited Common Sense method of seeing
things _as they were_.
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The habit of these dogs was to promenade abroad by moonless and starless
night and “observe” through their opaquely green spectacles, and then
gather together by day in what they called a “School,” where, secluded
from noise and light and air, they boiled down their observations
and ran them into moulds, the results of which operation they called
“Maxims,” “Apothegms” and “Proverbs” which when cold they handed out to
other dogs to hawk about in the public places as free gifts to all dogs
to hang up in the chambers of their memories.
This Proverb Foundry, the big fleas said, was an excellent Institution
and was worthy of support as it did a vast amount of Good; for it
provided good things for dogs everywhere to put in their mouths, which,
as food was scarce, was a Blessed Charity, and, moreover, by giving the
dogs plenty to do mumbling these Proverbs and Maxims over and over in
their mouths, kept them out of the mischief of thinking, and preserved
their minds in a wholesome state of imbecility which was conducive to
Social Order and the Stability of Institutions.
These wise-appearing philosophers, seeing that bones were scarce and
dogs many, urged upon every dog the importance of getting ahead of every
other dog, by remembering that “The early bird gets the first worm.”
Seeing that in a crowd of struggling dogs, all the strong and lusty ones
came to the front and uppermost, they made that all right by inventing
the heartless motto for the guidance of the unscrupulous, “There’s
plenty of room at the top.” Observing that just through the gap in the
fence there is food for five dogs which one hundred and fifty are biting
and tearing to get at, they encouraged the dogs to bear in mind that
“Success in life comes only by push and enterprise.” Having noted that
he who gobbled up his meat the fastest got most into his inside in the
same time, they urged them to racing speed by the proverbs, “Time is
money,” “Procrastination is the thief of time,” and “Hurry Up is the
fastest horse.” Noticing that when anyone throws a scrap of meat to a
crowd of hungry dogs, the one which is first and smartest gets it, they
put the rule for such cases thus: “Opportunity once gone never returns.”
Having themselves got on by carefully watching when other dogs threw
away stale and mouldy meat that was not exceedingly well worth eating,
and hoarding the same in sly holes and corners, they glorified such
mean conduct by saying, “Frugality is the Mother of Wealth;” and when
they denied their hungry stomachs a scrap in order to have a larger
hoard, they erected their mean stinginess into a Philosophy of Life by
remarking that “A Penny saved is a Penny Earned.”
And so on and so on. In a thousand ways they taught that getting on
in the world is by “carving one’s way,” “compelling success,” biting,
scratching, crowding, knocking down and trampling on your fellows; and
they taught that _only the winner in the race_ is to be congratulated
on his efforts; that he who grabs and gets the bone is the one rightly
entitled to it; and that all who run and fall, and all who grab and
miss, should be voted immoral and sent to perdition.
And never a one of them ever made a proverb or a maxim that had in it
the remotest suggestion that there might be any other way for dogs
to live and be happy, save that by which they were now so miserably
perishing; for, as aforesaid, they were great philosophers.
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