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.
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 assemblies when 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 the
_novelty_ of 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 it _did_ present 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]
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 of poor, 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 were _Public_ Servants, _their_
servants, and _not_ the servants of the dogs at all, as the _Public_
meant 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]
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 be
_touched_ by 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 in _self 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 fleas gave 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 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 gates
For aye and ever be our queen.”