LOVELY ANTHONY’S COMMUNION SERVICE ALL BY HIMSELF.—HOW
HE FORMED A SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF VICE, AND THE
PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL OF THE CLUB.—THEIR VICIOUS
METHODS OF PROMOTING VIRTUE.—THEIR SUCCESS AT DOG
CATCHING.
[Illustration]
EMINENT over all the crowd of Morality Cobblers and Dog Soulers and
Healers who sat in the Church of the Fleas and looked upon the Portrait,
was one whose brain had been particularly well embalmed and hermetically
sealed against the entrance of any new idea. This was Lovely Anthony
Thumpem Clubstock. He was a great admirer of the Portrait; and he
went daily into the church to hold Holy Communion with himself before
it. And thus he communed: “That is a most excellent likeness of the
Blessed Personage for it is _just like me_. Like me, he was the
All-Righteous, and, like me, he had but one desire—to suppress the
vice of the world; but he lacked method, and unfortunately had not _me_
with him to give him points. Oh, if it had pleased God to have sent me
on earth along with him, what a team we should have made; he with his
genius, and I with my method; why, we would have covered the earth
with righteousness, even as the waters cover the sea. Of course he
had his faults—as who has not? He was too much inclined to Mercy and
Forgiveness and all that sort of thing. He had too much heart, and it
ran away with him. Had I been with him—which, alas, I was not—I should
have been a corrective. Heart might have been less objectionable in his
time than now, but to-day nothing but the Strong Hand and the Heavy Club
can drive the degenerate dogs of this day to Virtue and Righteousness;
and I believe that were he on earth to-day his good sense would approve
a sterner policy of cleansing the earth of sin. Dogs to-day are so
fearfully depraved, so very vile, such dreadful despisers of Holy
Religion, such malignant scoffers at our reverend salaried barkers, and
are so viciously and stubbornly averse to going to heaven, that were
they to be let alone, or pushed with mere kindness, they would become
utterly evil and corrupt the earth.
“He seems to have had no nose for nastiness nor eye for discerning
indecency. But I have a splendid buzzard smeller that detecteth
the faintest taint afar off, and an eagle eye that instantaneously
discerneth indecency, even where it is not. He lacked the natural taste
to dabble with filth and scratch around cesspools. But I am not so. I
with my little mop and pail will clean the earth of evil for him. I will
suppress Vice and make the earth so lovely that were he to come back he
would grasp my paw and say, ‘Well, done Good and Lovely Anthony; thou
art unique; thou hast faithfully walloped and larruped the erring dogs
of earth back into my Fold of Love; thou hast performed the hitherto
impossible job of hammering virtue through their hides, and opening
with a club the buds of Holiness in their hearts; henceforth thou art
promoted; I will make thee Clubber Plenipotentiary to Hell, which no
doubt thou canst reclaim for me.’”
And Lovely Anthony, having sharpened his buzzard smeller and polished
his eagle eye, went and easily gathered together a gang of true
believers in the Gospel of the Club—for the land was full of them,
brain-embalmed and pig-headedly Bourbonish like himself—and he called
them the “Society for the Suppression of Vice,” and said unto them,
“Brethren, go ye out into the highways and the byways, and wheresoever
ye espy any depraved dog, hale him before the Suppressors, the police
dogs. But be very tender with the fleas that are on him, for they are
our life. Let your zeal for God effervesce above all considerations. If
any depraved and vicious dog hide himself away where it is difficult to
get at him, remember that his suppression is the _supreme aim_ of all
your efforts, and act accordingly. If ye cannot lay hold of him openly
and boldly, then transform yourselves, and garb yourselves like him and
act in all respects as a vicious dog like him, to gain his confidence
and draw him from his hole. Stick not at a lie or two, or at any breach
of the law to trepan him, or at any damnable and vicious thing which may
be necessary to suppress Vice and promote Virtue, for the bringing in of
the Kingdom of Heaven is of such tremendous consequence, that if we have
to borrow all the ordnance and weaponry of Hell to do it with, we will.
Our motto is, ‘The End always justifies the Means,’ and when the vice of
all dogs shall have been suppressed and the earth shall be pure again,
ye shall all be forgiven.
“If a dog be hungry and howl, suppress his howl, for his noise is
disturbing to the repose of the fleas; if he throw covetous glances at
any scrap of food that is not his by gracious permission of the fleas,
thump him, for covetousness is sin against God and the fleas. If he
be measly and have scabs for want of nourishment, smite him severely,
and tell him his scabs are an offense to respectable fleas, and such
exhibitions are by law prohibited. If by reason of poverty he be
ignorant, hit him a whack on the skull, and tell him that Ignorance is
the parent of Vice, and cannot be permitted at all. If he be amusing
himself with low and disreputable games, larrup him heavily and point
him to the Church where God has provided an infinitely better Feast for
the Soul than games, and cease not to batter him until ye have driven
him there. And, finally, if he excuse himself that he is plundered and
poor and wretched, and must do as he does, smite him on the mouth for
those wicked excuses, for they are blasphemy.”
So the Suppressors of Vice went out, abundantly armed with clubs, and
equipped with all manner of disguises and dog-catching devices and
traps and snares; and they found many dogs that were measly and scabby,
and were ignorant, and had dim moral eyesight, and stole, and amused
themselves with low games and excused themselves. And the Suppressors
exercised all their diligence, and all their arts and devices to
suppress and catch those dogs; but the only effect they produced was to
cause the dogs to use diligence and art and device to get out of their
way and into dark corners.
[Illustration]
Then did Lovely Anthony get mad and go out himself to set them an
Example, and did set wonderfully complicated traps by which he had great
dog-catching success. He would walk about pretending to be a scabby dog,
and very ignorant and blind, and would amuse himself with low games,
and would spread paper Laws before the dogs, and in their sight jump
through them and burst great holes in them and play devil generally, all
in order to encourage and tempt the vicious dogs to come out of their
hiding places and do likewise, when he would suddenly pounce on them and
hold them until he had called the police dogs, who would soundly thump
and larrup them.
All this kept Lovely Anthony the Dog Catcher, and his assistant Dog
Catchers, very busy and wonderfully well pleased and satisfied with
themselves; but as the thumping and larruping never filled the poor
dogs’ stomachs or lifted a solitary flea off their bodies, the dogs were
only made worse; for in addition to all their other woes, they had the
awful affliction of him and his on top. The only difference it made was
that it stimulated the cunning of the depraved dogs who grew more expert
at hiding away and fooling them.
As to Lovely Anthony the Dog Catcher, his brain having been properly
embalmed and eternally fixed, he only waxed more zealous in his
efforts; and he prophesied, with all the certainty of one that knew,
that sometime during next Eternity all bad and vicious dogs will have
been suppressed, and all others walloped into loving God; and all the
relations between dogs and fleas will have been harmonized according to
the eternal rights of fleas to suck blood.