Alice in Blunderland Part 5

"He's the only one," replied the Dormouse. "He's the official Beggar of the Town. He gets $25,000 in Tenth Deferred Reorganisation Certificates a year--which, if the Certificates pay ten cents on the dollar, as we hope, will turn out to be a good salary in the end."

"But why does he beg? Who gets the money?" asked Alice.

"The City," said the Dormouse. "Once in a while when the Printing Plant gets clogged up with large orders of Bonds for our various enterprises, the City has to get hold of a few dollars of real money, so they send Simpkins out for it. I believe he's out to-day trying to raise the interest on the Sixteenth Mortgage Extension Bonds on the Munic.i.p.al Cigarette Plant purchased year before last. It's ten months overdue and the former owners have asked the Government to smoke up."

"Oh!" said Alice. "Is the Printing Plant clogged up?"

"Unmercifully," said the Dormouse. "Not to say teetotally. They're preparing their Christmas issues in Magazine form, and that means a terrible lot of extra work. I don't believe the way things look now that the City will be able to print the money for last January's payroll until somewhere around the next Fourth of July, and if that's the case poor old Simpkins will either have to work overtime or get a half-dozen Deputy a.s.sistant Beggars to put the town in funds. I'm expecting to have the Police put on that job at any minute."

Alice was silent for a moment, and the Dormouse went on.

"What do you think of the Munic.i.p.al Ownership of the Police idea?" he asked.

"It's fine," said Alice. "But I thought all Cities owned their police force."

"A great many people think that," laughed the Dormouse. "But it isn't so."

"It is in New York and Chicago--I heard my Papa say so once," said Alice.

Again the Dormouse laughed.

"Well," he said. "I don't want to cast any asparagus on your father's intelligence, but he's wrong. The Police may own New York and Chicago, but New York and Chicago don't own the police--not by a long shot."

"Who does, then?" demanded Alice.

"The Lord only knows," laughed the Dormouse. "Some people say John Doe, and other people say the Man Higher Up, but which it is, or who either of 'em may be, I haven't the slightest idea. Maybe they belong to the Copper Trust."

And then with a sly wink at the little maid the Dormouse turned over and went to sleep.

CHAPTER V

THE MUNIc.i.p.aPHONE

Armed with the Copperation Counsel's opinion authorising him to do whatever he pleased next, the Hatter decided that he would give Alice a demonstration of the workings of the Munic.i.p.aphone.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "YOU CAN TALK ALL YOU PLEASE"]

"Which," said he proudly, "I consider to be the most Democraticising thing I have ever invented. You can talk all you please about Universal Brotherhood, Unlimited Sisterhood, and the Infinity of Unclehood, but all of these movements put together haven't done as much to promote the equality of everybody as that Munic.i.p.aphone idea of mine."

Alice thought the Cheshire Cat's grin expanded slightly as the Hatter spoke, but she was not sure, although he most a.s.suredly did wink at her.

"I should admire to see it," she said. "What is it, just?"

"It is the result of the Munic.i.p.al Ownership of the Telephone," returned the Hatter proudly. "We have taken over everything that works by electricity--electric lighting, the telegraph, the telephone----"

"Even the thunder and lightning," interrupted the White Knight. "And under our management everything runs so smoothly that even the lightning doesn't strike any more. That's a great thing in Munic.i.p.al Ownership. There aren't any more strikes under it."

"What he says is true, my child," said the Hatter, "and in time we expect to get the thunder itself under control so that it will serve some useful purpose--I don't know yet exactly what, but I am having experiments made in storage batteries which will catch and hold the thunder with the idea of saving the noise it makes for fire-crackers, or Presidential salutes, or other things and occasions where the fracturing of silence seems desirable. Surely if we can take electricity and under suitable Munic.i.p.al supervision make it serve as a subst.i.tute for a tallow dip, why shouldn't we extract the reverberance with which it is fraught to add to the general clangour of joyous occasions?"

"No reason at all," said Alice. "I wonder no one has ever thought of that before. Just think of all the magnificent noises that go to waste in a thunderstorm."

"You will discover in time, my dear child, that only under the Munic.i.p.al Ownership of Brains such as we have here, can such great ideas be seized from the infinity of nothingness and turned into an irresistible propaganda," said the Hatter loftily.

"He's the biggest gander of the bunch," whispered the March Hare.

"But it isn't what we are going to do, but what we have done that we propose to show you," continued the Hatter, eyeing the March Hare coldly. "And as I have said, the Munic.i.p.aphone is my crowning achievement. Just come here and I will show you."

The Hatter led Alice to a nearby lamp-post, and pointing to a little box fastened to the middle of the pillar explained to her that that was the Munic.i.p.aphone.

"We have them in every room in every house in the City, on all the lamp-posts, hydrants, telegraph poles, in fact everywhere where there is a chance or room enough to hang one," the Hatter explained.

"It's just like a telephone, isn't it?" said Alice. "Only it looks like a hat instead of a funnel."

"Exactly," said the Hatter, "but we don't call it a telephone any more.

The word telephone struck me as being a misnomer. You don't tell the 'phone anything when you talk into it. You tell the person at the other end of the line, and so, I changed its name to the Munic.i.p.aphone, which shows that it's a 'phone that belongs to the City. Just to sort of moralise the thing I had the mouth-piece changed to look like a hat instead of a funnel, because funnels are apt to suggest alcoholic beverages and sometimes people who aren't at all thirsty are made so by the mere power of suggestion. The hat, however, has always commended itself to our greatest statesmen as a vehicle best suited for the transmission of ideas, and I therefore adopted it.

"It is very pretty," commented Alice. "Only I think a few ribbons would improve it a little."

"Possibly," said the Hatter. "We haven't had time yet to look after the millinery aspect of the situation, but we'll take that up at our next Cabinet meeting. I thank you for the suggestion. But you see how the thing works. This little book here has a list of the names of everybody in town with their Munic.i.p.aphone numbers attached. The lowly as well as the highly, from the newsboy up to the Bridge Whist set, are all represented here, so that all are connected in one way or another with each other. There is no man, woman, or child so poor and humble of birth, that he or she cannot get into immediate relations with the haughty and proud. Everybody is on speaking terms with everybody else, and we have thereby reached socially a condition wherein all men though not related are nevertheless connected. You frequently hear a wash-lady remark that while she has not met Mrs. Van Varick Van As...o...b..lt or Mrs.

Willieboy de Crudoil personally, they are nevertheless connections of hers if not by blood or marriage at least by wire, which is stronger than either. Some day instead of having Societies of the Cincinnati, and Sons and Daughters of the Revolution I hope to see a.s.sociations of Brothers and Sisters of the Munic.i.p.aphone which shall become a factor of overwhelming solidarity in all social and political affairs.

"It's a splendid scheme," said Alice.

"It is a tie of material strength which binds together our first and last families, increasing the pride of the latter, and diminishing that of the former until we have at last reached an average of self-satisfaction which knows no barriers of cla.s.s distinction," said the Hatter. "But it wouldn't have worked if we hadn't formulated strict rules by which every household in town is governed. One of our rules is that the person called upon must answer immediately and truthfully any question which the person at the other end asks, and of course in perfectly polite language. For instance, suppose you try it yourself.

Just ring up Number 83115, Bloomingdale, and ask for Mrs. S. Van Livingston Smythe. She's the biggest swell in town. Ask her anything that comes into your head, and you'll see how it works. Tell her you are Mrs. O'Flaherty, the Head Wash-Lady of the Munic.i.p.al Laundry."

Alice took her place at the Munic.i.p.aphone and called 83115 Bloomingdale, as instructed.

"h.e.l.lo!" she said.

"Hush! Don't say that--say Ah there!" interrupted the Hatter. "h.e.l.lo comes under the head of profanity, which is against the law."

"Excuse me," said Alice. "Ah there!" she added. "Give me 83115 Bloomingdale, please, Central."

"Name, please," said Central.

"Bridget O'Flaherty," replied Alice.

"Address?" asked Central.

"Tub 37, Munic.i.p.al Laundry," said Alice.

"Occupation?" continued the other.