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Alice in Blunderland an Iridescent Dream (version 2)-John Kendrick Bangs · Classic Comedy Library

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Chapter one of Alice in Blunderland. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Reading
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: by Lash Orlando. Alice in Blunderland An Iridescent Dream by
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: John Kendrick Banks, Chapter one, off to Blunderland. It was
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: one of those dull, drub depressing days when somehow or
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: other it seemed as if there wasn't anything anywhere for
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: anybody to do. It was raining outdoors, so that Alice
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: could not amuse herself in the garden or call upon
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: her friend, Little Lord Fauntleroy up the street, and downstairs,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: her mother was giving a bridge party for the benefit
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: of the m O Hot Tamail company, which had lately
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: fallen upon the days. Alice's mother was a very charitable
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: disposed person, and while she loathed gambling in all its forms,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: was nevertheless willing for the sake of a good cause
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: to forego her principles on alternate Thursdays. But she was
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: very particular that her little daughter should be kept aloof
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: from contaminating influences, So that Alice found herself locked in
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the nursery, and as I have already intimated, with nothing
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: to do, she had read all her books, The House
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: of Mirth, the novels of hall Caine and Marie Corelli.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: The operation for appendicitis upon her Dolly, while very successful,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: indeed had left poor Flaxilocx without a scrap or sawdust
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: in her veins, and therefore unable to play. And worst
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: of all, her pet kitten, under the new city law
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: making all feline's public property, had grown into a regular
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: cat and appeared only at meal times, and then in
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: so disreputable a condition that he was not thought to
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: be fit company for a child of seven. Oh dear,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: cried Alice impatiently, as she sat rocking in her chair,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: listening to the pattering of the rain upon the roof
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: of the Verandah, I do wish there was something to do,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: or somebody to do, or somewhere to go. The government
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: ought to provide covered playgrounds for children on wet days.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: It wouldn't cost much to put the glass cover on
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the park. A very good idea. I'll make a note
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: of that, said a squeaky little voice at her side.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Alice sprang to her feet in surprise. She had supposed
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: she was alone, and for a moment she was frightened,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: but a glance around reassured her. For strange to say.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Seated on the radiator, warming his toes was her old friend,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the Hatter, the Queer Old Chap she had met in
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: her marvelous trip through Wonderland, and with him was the
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: march Hare, the Cheshire Cat, and the white Knife from
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: looking last Land. Why you dear old things, she cried, you, hair,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know about these others, but I'm here, returned
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the Hatter. The others seemed to be here, but I
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: respectfully declined to make my solemn daffy davy on the subject,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: because my doctor says, I'm all the time seeing things
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: that ain't. Besides, I don't believe in swearing. We're here
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: all right. Put in the march Hare, I know, because
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: we ain't anywhere else. And when you ain't anywhere else,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: you can make up your mind that you're hair Well.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I'm awfully glad to see you, said Alice. I've been
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: so lonesome. We know, that, said the White Night. We've
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: been studying your case lately, and we thought we'd come
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: down and see what we could do. For you. The
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: fact is the Hatter here has founded a model city
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: where everything goes just right, And we came to ask
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: you to pay us a call a city, cried Alice. Yep,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: said the march hare. It's called Blunderland. And between you
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: and me, I don't believe anybody but the Hatter could
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: have invented one like it. His gigantic brain conceived the
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: whole thing. And I tell you it's a corker. Where
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: is it? Asked Alice. That's telling, said the Hatter. I
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: haven't had it copyrighted yet, and until I do, I
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: ain't going to tell where it is. You can't be
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: too careful but property these days, with corporations lurking around
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: everywhere to grab everything inside. What's a corporation? Asked Alice.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: What never heard of a co option? Demanded the hatter.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Mercy ever hear of the mumps or the measles or
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the whooping cop Yes, but I never knew they were
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: called corporations, said Alice. Well they ain't, but they know worse,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: so they ought to be, said the Hatter. Listen here,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what a corporation is, and putting his
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: hat in front of his mouth like a telephone. The
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: hatter recited the following poem through it.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: The corporation. A corporation is a beast with forty even
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: pause that doesn't ever pay the least attention to the laws.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: It grabs whatever comes inside, from handsome cabs to socks,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: and with a grin of mad delight, it turns them
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: into stocks. And then it takes a rubber hose connected
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: with the sea and pumps them full of h plus
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: two plus os of various degrees. And when they've swallen
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: up so stout you'd think they'd surely bust, they sells
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: them once again, and out they come at last a trust.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: And when the trust is ready for one last and
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: final whack, they let the public in the door to
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: buy the water back. See, said the hatter as he finished. No,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: said Alice, it sounded very pretty through your hat, But
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: I don't understand it. Why should people buy water when
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: they can get it for nothing in the ocean. You're
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: like all the rest, groaned the hatter. Nobody seems to
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: understand but me, and somehow or other, I can't make
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: it clear to other people. You might if you didn't
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: talk through your hat.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Grinned the Cheshire Cat. Then I'd have to stop being
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: a public character, said the hatter. I'm not going to
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: sacrifice my career just because you're too ignorant to see
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: what I'm driving at. I don't mind telling you, though, Alice,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: that outside of poetry, a corporation is a creature devised
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: by selfish interests to secure the free coinage of the
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Atlantic Ocean. Little drops of water, plenty of hot air
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: make a corporation a pretty fat affair, warbled the march Hare.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Oh well, said Alice. What about it? Suppose there's such
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: an animal around, what are we going to do about it?
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: We're going to grapple with it, said the Hatter, with
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: a valiant shake of his hat. We're going to grab
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: it by its throat and shake it down and shackle
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: it so that in forty years it will become as
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: tame as a fly or any other highly domesticated animal.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: But how asked Alice, You aren't going to do this yourself?
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Are you single handed and alone? Yes? Said the hatter.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: The march Hare and the white Knight, and aye, We've
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: started a city to do it with. We've sprinkled our
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: streets with rough on corporations until there isn't one left
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: in the place. Everything in town belongs to the people.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Street cars, gutters, pavements, theaters, electric light cabs, many cures, dogs, cats,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: canary birds, hotels, barber shops, candy stores, hats, umbrellas, bakeries, cakeries,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: stakeries shops. You can't think of a thing that the
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: city don't own. No more private ownership of anything from
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a toothbrush to a yacht. And the result is we
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: are all happy. It sounds fine, said Alice, though I
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: think I should rather own my own toothbrush. You naturally
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: would under the old system, assented the hatter, under a
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: system of private ownership owning your own teeth, you prefer
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: to own your own tooth thrush us. But our council
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: has just passed a law making teeth public property. You see,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: we found that some people had teeth and other people hadn't,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: which is hardly a fair condition under a republican form
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: of government. It gave one class of citizens a distinct
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: advantage over other people, and the Declaration of Independence demands
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: absolute equality for all. One man owning his own teeth
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: could eat all the hickory nuts. Heea wanted just because
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: he had teeth to crack him with, while another man
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: not having teeth had either to swallow a hole which
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: ruined his digestion, or go without, which wasn't fair, I see,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: said Alice. So it occurred to mister Alderman march Hare
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: here continued the hatter, that we should legislate in the matter.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: And at our last session we passed a law providing
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: for the municipal ownership teeth, so that now when a
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: toothless wanderer wants a hickory nutcracked, he has a perfectly
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: legal right to stop anybody in the street who has
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: teeth and make him crack the nut for him. Of course,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: we've had a little trouble enforcing the law. Alleged private
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: rights are always difficult to get around. Long continued possession
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: has seemed so to convince people that they have inherent
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: rights to the things they have enjoyed, that they put
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: up a fight and appeal to the Constitution and all that.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And even when you mention the fact, as I did
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: in a case that came up the other day, when
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: a man refused to bite on another chap's cigar for him,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: that the Constitution doesn't mention teeth anywhere in all its classes.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: They are not easy to convince. This fellow insisted that
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: his teeth were private property, and no city law should
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: make them public property. He's going to take it to
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, his teeth are in the custody
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: of the sheriff. And what has become of the man,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: asked Alice. He's in custody of the sheriff too, said
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: the hatter. We couldn't arrange it any other way except
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: by pulling his teeth, and he didn't want that. I
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: can't blame him, said Alice reflectively. I should hate to
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: have my teeth taken away from me. Oh, there's no
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: obfuscation about it, said the hatter. Confiscation, corrected the march Hare.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I wish you would get that word right. It's too
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: important to fool with, thank you, replied the hatter. My
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: mind is on higher things than mere words. However, as
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I was saying, there is no confuscation about it. We
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: don't take a man's teeth away from him without compensation.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: We pay him what the teeth are worth and place
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: them at the service of the whole community. Where do
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: you get the money to pay him, asked, allis we
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: give him a municipal bond? Explained the hatter. It is
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: a ten percent bond, costing two cents to print. When
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: he cracks a hickory nut for the public, the man
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: he cracks it for pays him a cent. He wrings
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: this up on a cash register. He carries pin to
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: his vest, and at the end of every week turns
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: in the cash to the city treasury. That money is
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: used to pay the interest on the bonds. The scheme
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: has the additional advantage that it makes a man's teeth
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: negotiable property, in the sense that, whereas under the old
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: system he couldn't very well sell his teeth, under the
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: new system, he can sell the bond if he gets
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: hard up. Moreover, the city government, having a quiet control,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: has to pay all his dentist's bills, supply tooth powder
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: and so on, which results in a great saving to
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: the individual. It hardly costs the city anything except for
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the youth inspector, who is paid one thousand, two hundred
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: dollars a year. But we can handle that easily enough,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: provided the people will use the public teeth in sufficiently
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: large numbers to bring in dividends. Anyhow, we have gone
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: in for it, and I see no reason why it
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: should not work as well as any other municipal ownership scheme.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: I should love to go and see your city, said Alice, who,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: though not quite convinced as to the desirability of the
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: municipal ownership of Teeth, was nevertheless very much interested. Very well,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: said the Hatter. We can go at once, for I
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: see the train is already standing in the station. The station,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: cried Alice, what station? But before the Hatter could answer, Alice,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: glancing through the window, caught sight of a very beautiful
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: train standing before the Verandah, and in a moment she
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: found herself stepping on board with her friends, while a
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: soft spoken guard at the door was handing her an
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: engraved card upon a silver salver, respectfully inviting Miss Alice
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: to step lively there. End of chapter one. Off to
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Blunderland read by Lash Rolander. Chapter two of Alice in Blunderland.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Reading by Lash Rolander. Alice in Blunderland,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: An Iridescent Dream by John Kendrick Banks, Chapter two, The
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Immovable Trolley. What an extra ordinary car, said Alice as
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: she stepped into the brilliantly lighted vehicle. It doesn't seem
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: to have any end to it, she added, as she
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: passed down the aisle looking for the front platform. It hasn't,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: said the hatter. It just runs on forever. Doesn't it
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: stop anywhere, cried Alice in amazement. It stops everywhere, said
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: the hatter. What I mean is it hasn't any ends
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: at all. It's just one big circular car that runs
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: all around the city and joins itself where it began
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: in the beginning. We call it the m O Express.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: M O standing for Municipal Ownership and Money, owed laughter.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Weasel that sat on the other side of the car.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Put that fellow off, said the march hare, indignantly, conductor
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: out with him. The conductor immediately threw the weassel out
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: to the window as ordered, and the hatter resumed. We
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: call it the Express because it's so fast, he continued.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: You'd hardly think it was going at all, observed Alice
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: as she noticed the entire lack of motion in the car.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: It isn't, said the hatter. It's built on a solid
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: foundation and doesn't move an inch, and yet at the
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: same time it runs all around the city. It was
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: my idea, he added proudly. But you said it was fast,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: protested Alice. And so it is, my child, said the
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: hatter kindly. It is as fast as though it was
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: glued down with mucilage. There's several ways of being fast,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: you know. Did you ever hear the ballad of the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Nancy Pidicue? No, said Alice. It's a sea song in
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: B flat, said the hatter. I will sing it for you,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: And placing his hat before his lips to give a
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: greater mellowness to his voice, the hatter sang the Ballad
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: of the Nancy PDQ, the good ship Nancy PDQ from
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: mopping Boston, mass when sailing over the mountain blue carvel
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: with apple sass, she sailed around on kit Bay, down
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: past the banks of Quok and on the brilliant summer's day,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: just off the coast of Mandal Lay. She landed in
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: the fog, so braced the top six, closed my lance
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: and stole around my crew, for the waves are steep
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: and the foggy is deep round the Nancy PDQ, as
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: in the foggy group around the nipeles blackest suit. She
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: ran against Long Island Sound outward the codfish toot, and
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: when the more rose over the scene, so smile and
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: sweet and blind, she poked an user sharping keen twas
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: freshly painted olive green. Deep in the bar of sand.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: So splice the garboard strakes my lass and reap the
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: starboard screw four sticks like star the sandy bar to
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: the Nancy PDQ. Oh the skippers wore with the eve
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: ho ho, and the crew replied he and then with
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: a shareful heave ho you, they pumped the bowsprit dry through.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: She's the mate crank with the sneeze. Hooray for this
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: old boat, she says, two, not before the breeze, but
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: on the bar by dingle. She's the fastest things that float,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: So up with the gallant flag. Myel lands with the
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: hippie pie ple row for the liner fastest, now outclassed
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: by the Nancy PDQ. Alice scratched her chin in perplexity,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: but the hatter never stopped. I got an idea from
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: that bad he rattled on if you want trains fast,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: you've got to build em fast. Yes, but if they
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: don't go, how does anybody get anywhere? Asked allis they
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: can get off and walk, said the hatter. And it's
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: a great deal less dangerous getting off a train that
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't move than of one that does. I can see that,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: said Alice. That Whissel, for instance, would have been badly
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: hurt if he had been thrown through the window of
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: a moving car. That's it, exactly, said the hatter, As
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Alderman march Hare puts it. We m o. People are
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: after the comfort and safety of the people first, last,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: and all the time. Everything else is a tertiary consideration.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Merely what's tertiary, asked Alice. Third, said the hatter to
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: come in third, it's a combination of turtle and dromedary.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Just at this moment, a man walking through the car
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: stopped and requested the hatter to crack a f Filbert
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: for him, which the hatter cheerfully did. The passer by
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: thanked him and paid him a cent, which the hatter
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: immediately rang up on a small cash register on his vest,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: as required by the laws of Blunderland. That's the way
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the municipal ownership of teeth works, said the hatter, as
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the man passed on, and then he resumed. This street
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: railway business, however, was a much harder proposition than the
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: municipal ownership of teeth. When we took the railways over,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: of course, we had to run em on the old
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: system until we learned the business. The first thing we
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: did was to get educated men for motormen and conductors.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Polite fellows, you know, who'd stop a car when you
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: asked them to, and when they started, wouldn't do it
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: with such a jerk that in nine cases out of
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: ten it was only the back door that kept the
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: car from being janked clean from under your feet, letting
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: you land in the street behind. I know, said Alice,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: like a game of snap the whip, exactly, said the Hatter.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Under the old method of starting a car, you never
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: knew when you were going home nights whether you'd land
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: in the bosom of your family or in a basket
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: of eggs somebody was bringing home from market. So we
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: advertised for polite motormen and conductors, and we got a
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: great lot of them, mostly retired druggists, floor walkers, poets,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: and fellows like that, with a few expoliticians thrown in
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: to give tone to the service, and we put them on.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: But they didn't know anything about motoring. Unfortunately, somehow or other,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: good manners and expert motoring didn't seem to go together,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: and in consequence we had a fearful lot of collisions.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: At first. I don't think there was a whole back
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: platform in the outfit. At the end of the week,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: no matter which way the car was gone, must have
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: been awful, said Alice. It was, said the Hatter, and
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the public began to complain. One man who got his
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: nose pinched between two cars sued us for damages, and
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: we had to return his fare. Finally, one day one
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: of the old bobtail cars got running away, and the
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: first we knew it banged into the car ahead and
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: went right through it, coming out in front, still going
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: like mad after the next car, and we knew something
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: had to be done. Mercy, cried Alice. I should think
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the passengers in the first car would have sued you
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: for that, They would have, said the Hatter, if they
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: could have scraped enough of themselves together again to appear
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: in court. It was a hard problem, said the march
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Hare the hardest ever, asserted the hatter. But the White
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Knight there gave me a clue to the solution. He
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: is our operation council, and I put it up to
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: him for an opinion, and after thinking it over for
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: two months, he reported. The only way to prevent collisions,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: said he is to cut the ends of the cars.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: That was it, wasn't it, judge, he added, turning to
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the White Knight. Yes, said the Knight. Only I put
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: it in poetry. My precise words were the only way
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: that I can find to stop this car colliding stump
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: is cutting off the end behind and likewise that in front. Splendid,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: cried Alice, clapping her handsiingly, that's fine, thank you, said
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: the White Knight. You see, miss Alice, I made a
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: personal study of collisions. The mayor here ordered a fresh
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: one every day for me to investigate. And I noticed
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: that whenever two cars bunked into each other, it was
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: always at the ends and never in the middle. The
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: conclusion was inevitable, the ends being the venerable spot abolished them.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: A very careful and conscientious public servant, whispered the march
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: hare aside to Alice. When we have municipal ownership of
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: the federal government. We're going to put him on the
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court bench. He means vulnerable when he says venerable.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: But you mustn't mind that. When we have municipal ownership
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: of the English language, will make the words mean what
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: we want them to. Then, of course the question arose
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: us how we could do this, said the Hatter. I
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: got the chief engineer of our Department of Public Works
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: to make some experiments, and would you believe it? When
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: we cut the ends on the cars, there were still
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: other ends left. No matter how far we clipped them.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: It was the same. It's a curious scientific fact that
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: you can't cut off the end of anything and leave
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: it endless. We tried it with a lot of things, cars,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: lengths of hose, coils of wire, rope, everything we could
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: think of, always with the same result. Ends were endless,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: but nothing else was. As a matter of fact, they
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: multiplied on us. One car that had two ends when
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: we began, was cut in the middle and then was
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: found to have four ends instead of two. That's so,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: isn't it, cried Alice. It unquestionably is, said the Hatter.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: And we were at our wits ends until one night
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: it came to me like a flash. I had gone
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: to bed on a park bench, according to my custom
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: of using nothing that is not owned by the city,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: for I am very serious about this thing. When just
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: as I was dozing on the whole scheme unfolded itself.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Built a circular car of cores, one big enough to
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: go all around the city. That would solve so many problems.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: With only one car, there be no car ahead, which
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: always irritates people who miss it and then have to
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: take it later. With only one car, there could be
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: no collisions. With only one car. We could get along
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: with only one motorman and one conductor at a time,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: thus giving the others time to go to dancing school
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: and learn good manners. With only one car, and that
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: a permanent fixture, nobody could miss it if it didn't move.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: We could economize on motive power and even bounce the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: motorman without injury to the service if he should happen
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: to be impued ino the board of aldermen. Nobody would
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: be run over by it. Nobody would be injured getting
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: on and off. It would didn't make any difference if
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: the motorman didn't see the passenger who wanted to get aboard.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Being circular, they'd always be room enough to go around,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and there'd be no front or back platform for the
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: people to stand on or get thrown off of going
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: around the curves. The expenses of keeping up the roadbed
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: would be nothing. The couse being motionless, the car wouldn't
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: jolt even if it ran over a thank your marm
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: a mile high. And best of all, a circular car
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: has no ends to collide with other ends, which makes
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: it absolutely safe. I never heard of a car colliding
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: with itself, did you No? I never did, replied Alice.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Nor I neither said the march hare. I don't think
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: it ever happened, and therefore I reason that it ain't
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: going to happen. And how do the people like it,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: asked Alice. Ah, they're getting to like it, replied the hatter.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: At first, they didn't want to ride on the thing
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: at all, They said, what you did that? They didn't
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: seem to be getting anywhere, and they hated to walk home.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: But after a while we proved to them that walking
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: was a very healthful exercise, and on rainy nights they
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: found the covered car a good deal of a convenience,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: especially when under the old system of private ownership of
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: umbrellas they had left their bumber shoots at home. Once
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: or twice, they lost their tempersent sassed the conductor, but
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: he put them in jail for lazy majesty a German
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: deceased that we have imported for the purpose. As an
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: officer of the government. The conductor has a right to
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: arrest anybody who sasses him as guilty of sedition, and
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: a night or two in jail takes the fun out
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: of that. Have you had any elections since you established it,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: asked Alice, whose father had once run for mayor, and
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: who therefore knew something about politics. No, said the hatter
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: with an easy laugh. But we will have one in
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: the spring. We shall be re elected, all right. How
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: do you know, asked Alice, if people don't like municipal ownership. Oh,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: but they do, said the march haer. You say, miss Alice,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: we have employed a safe majority of the voters in
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the various departments of our em o's system, their terms
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: expiring coincidentally with our own. So if they vote against us,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: they vote against themselves. It really makes municipal ownership self perpetrating.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: He means perpetuating, whispered the march haer Ah, said Alice.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: I see. Just then a heavy gong, like a huge
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: fire alarm sounded, and all the passengers sprang to their
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: feet and made for the doors. What's that, cried Alice timidly,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: as she rose up hurriedly with all the rest. Don't
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: be alarmed. It's only the signal that our time is up,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: said the hatter. We must get out now and make
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: room for others who may wish to use the cars.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Nobody can monopolize anything under our system. I will now
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: take you to see our gasen hot air plant. It
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: is one of the seven wonders of the world. And
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: the little party descended into the street. End of chapter two,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: The Immovable Trolley read by Lash Rolander. Chapter three of
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Alice in Blunderland. This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Reading by Lash Rolander,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Alice in Blunderland An Iridescent Dream by John Kendrick Bangs,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Chapter three, The Aromatic gas Plant. After the little Party
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: had descended from the marvelous trolley, concerning which the march
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Hare observed most properly that under private ownership, nothing so
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: safe and sane would ever have been thought of. They
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: walked along a beautiful highway bordered with rose bushes, orleanders
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: and uraniums, until they came to a lovely little park,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: at the entrance to which was a huge sign announcing
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: what it was, the Blunderland Gas Plant. To tell the truth,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Alice had not cared particularly to visit the gas works
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: because she had once been driven through what was known
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: at home as the gas House District on her way
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: to the ferry, and her recollections of it were not
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: altogether pleasant. As she recalled it. It was in a strather,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: squalid neighborhood, and the odors emanating from it were not
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: pleasing to what she called her oil factories. But here
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: in Blunderland all was different. Instead of the huge, ugly
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: retorts rising up out of the ground, surrounded by a
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: quality of air that one could not breathe with comfort,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: was as beautiful a garden as any one could wish
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: to wander through, And at its center there stood a retort,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: but not one that looked like a great iron skull
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: cap painted red. On the contrary, the municipally owned retort
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: had architecturally all the classic beauty of a Canadie library.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: We call it the retort courtious, said the hatter, pridefully
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: as he gazed at the structure, and smiled happily as
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: he noted, ALI is very evident admiration for it you
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: see in urban affairs as a mere matter of fitness.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: We believe in cultivating urbanity, my child, and in consequence,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: everything we do is conceived in a spirit of courtesy.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: The gas houses under private ownership have not been what
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: you would call polite. They were almost invariably heavy, rude,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: staring structures that reared themselves offensively in the public eye.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: And our first effort was to subliminate, illiminate, whispered the
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: march Hare. I beg your pardon, mister Hare, retorted the hatter.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: I did not mean eliminate, which means to suppress, but subliminate,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: which means to sublimify or make sublime. I guess I
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: know my own language. Excuse me, said the march Hare meekly.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I haven't studied the dictionary beyond the letter Q. Mister
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Mayer and I was not aware that the Common Council
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: had as yet passed favorably upon subliminate either. He added,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: with some feeling. That is because it was not until
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: yesterday that the Corporation Council decided that subliminate was a
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: constitutional word, said the Hatter, sharply, in view of his
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: report to me, which I wrote myself and therefore know
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: the provisions of he states that subliminate is a perfectly
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: just and proper word, involving no infringement upon the rights
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: of others, and in no wise impairing the value of
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: innocent vested interests, and is therefore legal. Therefore, I shall
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: use it whether the Common Council approves it or not.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: If they resolved that it is not a good word,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: I shall veto the resolution. If you don't like it,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: I'll send you your resignation. That being the case, said
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: the march I withdraw my objections, which observed the Hatter, triumphantly,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: turning to Alice, shows you, my dear young lady, the
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: very great value of the municipal ownership idea as applied
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: to the Board of Aldermen, as the White Knight put
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: it in one of his poetical reports printed in Volume
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: three hundred and forty seven of the Corporation Kansas Opinions
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: for October nineteen o six, page nine hundred and twenty six.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: A city may not own its gas, its barbershops, or cars.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: It may not raise asparagrass or run official bars. It
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: may not own a big hotel or keep a public hen,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: but it will always find it well to own its aldermen.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: When aldermen were owned by private interests, the public interests suffered.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: But in this town, where the city fathers belonged to
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: the city, they have to do what the city tells
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: them to or get out. It sounds good. Was all
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: that Alice could think of to say what I was
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: trying to tell you. When the alderman interpolated, the hutter
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: went on there he goes again, growled the march hare
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: was that the first thing we did when we took
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: over the gas plant was to sublimify the externals of
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: the works along lines of architectural and olfactorial beauty, both
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: to the eye and the nose, to organs of the
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: human structure that private interests seldom pay much attention to.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I ask myself two questions. First, is it necessary for
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: gas works to be ugly. Second, is it necessary for
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: gas works to be so odor viferous that the smell
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: of the automobile is a dream of fragrant beauty alongside
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: of it. To both these questions, the answer was plain.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Of course it ain't. Beauty can be plied to the
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: lines of a gas tank just as readily as to
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: the lines of a hippopotamus. And as for the odors,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: they are due to the fact that gas as it
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: is now made does not smell pleasantly. But there is
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: no reason why it should not be so manufactured that
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: people would be willing to use it on their handkerchiefs.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: I learned that Professor Burbank of California had developed a
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: cactus plant that could be used for a sofa cushion. Why,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: I ask myself, could he not develop a gas plant
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: that will put forth flowers the perfumer, which should make
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: that of the violet and the rosink into inoculated dissopitude.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: It hardly seems possible, does it, said Alice. To a
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: private mind, it presents insuperable difficulties, said the hatter. But
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: to a public mind like my own, nothing is impossible.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: If a man can do a seemingly impossible thing with
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: one plant, there is no reason why he shouldn't do
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: was seemingly impossible thing with another plant. So I immediately
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: wrote to Professor Burbank, offering him a hundred thousand dollars
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: in blunderlent deferred deventure gas improvement bonds a year to
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: come here and see what he could do to transmogrify
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: our gas plant. Oh, I'm so glad, cried Alice Dedtedly.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I should so love to meet mister Bourbank and thank
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: him for inventing the corless apple. You don't means the
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: corliss engine, do you, asked the White Knight. Well, I'm sorry,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: said the Hatter, but mister Bourbank wouldn't come unless we'd
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: pay him real money, which, although we don't publish the
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: fact broadcast, is not in strict accord with the highest
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: principles of municipal ownership. We contend that when people work
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: for the common wheel, they ought to be satisfied to
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: receive their pay in the commonwealth, and under the mo
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: O system, the most common kind of wealth is represented
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: by bonds. Consequently, we wrote again to mister Burbank and
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: expressed out regret that a man of his genius should
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: care more for his own selfish interests than for the
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: public will, And as a sort of sarcas on his meanness,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: I enclosed five of our two thousand, nine hundred and
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: sixty three guaranteed extension four percents to pay for the
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: two cent stamp he had put upon his letter. What
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: are the two thousand, nine hundred and sixty three guaranteed
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: extension four percents? Asked Alice. They are sinking fund bonds
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: payable in two thousand, nine hundred and sixty three. Only
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: we guarantee to extend the date of payment to three thousand,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: nine hundred and sixty three in case the sinking funds
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: has sunk so low we don't feel like paying them
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: in two thousand, nine hundred and sixty three, explain the hatter.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: It's an ingenious financial idea that I got from studying
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: the economic theories of doctor Wack, Professoral Repudiation, and other
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: political economists at the Whack Business College at Squantumville, Florida.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: It is the only economic theory I know of that
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: absolutely prevents stepped from becoming a burden, but that aside.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: When mister Bourbanks showed that he preferred fooling with such
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: futile things as pineapples and hollyhocks to the really uplifting
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: work of providing the people with gas that was redolent
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: of the spices of araby, I resolved to do the
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: thing myself. He is a man of really inventive genius,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: said the march Hare, anxious apparently to square himself with
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: the hatter again. Thank you Alderman, said the hatter. It
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: is a real pleasure to find myself strictly in accord
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: with your views once more. But to resume, miss Alice,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: ay as I say, I result tackle the problem myself, fine,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: said Alice. So you went in and studied how to
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: make gus the old way, and then not at all,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: interrupted the hatter, Not at all that would have been fatal.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: I found that everybody who knew how to make gus
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: the old way said the thing was impossible. Hence, I reasoned,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: the man who will find it possible must be somebody
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: who never knew anything about the old way of making gas,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: And nobody in the whole world knew less about it
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: than I. Manifestly, then I became the chosen instrument to
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: work the reform. So I plunged in, and you really
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: can't imagine how easy it all turned out. I had
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: no old prejudices in gas making to overcome, no set
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: finicky ideas to service obstacles to progress, and inside of
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: a week I had it. I filled the gas tanks
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: half full of cologne, and then pumped hot air through
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: them until they were chockfull. I figured it out that
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: Colonne was nothing more than alcohol flavored with axiomatic oils.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Aromatic interrupted the march hare forgetting himself for the moment.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: The Hatter frowned heavily upon the Alderman, and there is
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: no telling what would have happened had not the White
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Knight interfered to protect the offender. It is still an
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: open question, mister Mayor. He observed if axiomatic applied to
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: assent is constitutional. If an order should become axiomatic, we
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: could never get rid of it, you see. And I
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: think the Alderman has distinguished authority for his correction, which
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: oh very well said the Hatter let it go. I
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: prefer axiomatic, but the private predilections of an official should
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: not be permitted to influences of actions. I intend always
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: to operate within the limits of the law. So if
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: the law says aromatic aromatic, be it. I figured that
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: colony was nothing more than alcohol flavored with aromatic oils,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: and that inasmuch as both alcohol and oil burn readily,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: there was no reason why hot air passed through them
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: should not burn also and carry oil some of the
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: aroma as well. It certainly was a very pretty idea,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: said Alice. All the emu ideas are pretty, said the
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: march hare. It is only the question of reducing beauty
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: to the basis of practical utility that confronts us. And
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: how did it work, asked Alice, Very much interested, beautifully,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: said the hatter. Only it wouldn't burn. Just why I
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: haven't been able to find out. But in the matter
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: of perfume it was fine. People who turned on their
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: jets the first night soon found their houses smelling like
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: powers of roses, and a great many of them liked
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: it so much that they turned on every jet in
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: the house and left them turned on all day, so
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: that in the mere matter of consumption, twice as much
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: of my aromatic illuminating air was used in a week
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: as the companies had charged for under the old system,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: and we used the same meters too. In addition to
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: this as a mere life saving device, my invention proved
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: to have a wonderful value. In the first place, nobody
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: could blow it out and be found gas fixed durated
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: the next morning. Good word that so much more expressive
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: than the old privately owned dictionary word asphyxiated, said the
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: march Hare. The Hatter nodded his appreciation of the march
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Hare's compliment and admitted him once more to his good graces.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: And Moody could commit suicide with it the way they
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: used to do with the old kind of gas, because
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: you see, it was, after all, only hot air, which
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: is good for the lungs, whichever weigh it's going in
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: or out. We use hot air all the time in
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: our administration, and it is wonderful what results you can
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: get from it, he went on. But it wouldn't light,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: in fact, when anybody tried to light it, such was
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: the pressure. It blew out the match, which I regard
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: as an additional point in its favor. If we have
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: gas that blows out matches the minute the match is
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: applied to it, does not that reduce the chance of
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: fire from the careless habit some people have of throwing
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: lighted matches into the waste basket. It most certainly does,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: said the White Knight, gravely, and in such tones of
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: finality that Alice did not venture to dispute his assertion.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: We are all agreed upon that point, said the Hutter.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: But there were complaints, of course. Some people, mostly capitalists
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: who were rich enough to have libraries of their own,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: complained that they couldn't read nights because the gas wouldn't light.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: I replied that if they wanted to read, they could
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: go to the public library, where there were oil lamps
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: and electric lights. Besides, reading at night is bad for
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: your eyes. Others objected that they couldn't see to go
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: to bed. The answer to that was simple enough. People
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: don't need to see to go to bed. They may
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: need to see when they are dressing in the morning,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: but when they go to bed, all they have to
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: do is to take the clothes off and go. And
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: I added that people who didn't know enough to do
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: that had better have nurses. Finally, some of the chief
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: kickers got up a mass meeting and protested that the
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: new gas wasn't gas at all, and in view of
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: that fact, refused to pay their gas tax. Oh, said Alice.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: That was pretty serious. I should think it seemed so
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: at first, said the Hatter. But just then the beauty
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: of the municipal ownership scheme stepped in. I called a
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: special meeting of the common Council, and they settled the
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: question once for all good, cried Alice. How did they
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: do it? They passed a resolution, said the Hatter, unanimously
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: declaring the aromatic hot air to be gas of the
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: most excellent quality, and made it a misdemeanor for anybody
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: to say that it wasn't. I signed the ordinance, and
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: from that minute on our gas was gas by law, still,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: said Alice. Those people had already said it wasn't. Did
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: they back down? Most of M d D loved the Hatter,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: and the rest were fined five hundred dollars apiece and
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: sent to jail for six months. You see, we made
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: the law sufficiently retroactive to grab the whole bunch. Since
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: then there have been no complaints. Whereupon, the Hatter invited
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Alice to stroll through the gas plant with him, which
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: the little girl did and declared it later to have
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: been sweeter than a walk through a rose garden, which
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: causes me to believe that the mayor's scheme was a
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: pretty wonderful one after all, and quite worthy of a
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: hatter thrust by the wagaries of politics into the difficult
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: business of gas making. End of chapter three, The Aromatic
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: gas Plant read by Lash Rolando. Chapter four of Alice
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: in Blunderland. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. Reading by Lash Rulander. Alice
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: in Blunderland, An Iridiscent Dream by John Kendrick Banks, Chapter four,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: the City Owned Police. After Alice and her companions had
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: enjoyed the aromatic delights of the Blunderland gas Plant, the
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: Hatter and his cabinet went into executive session for a
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: few hours to decide where they should go next. The
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: interests of Blunderland were so varied that this was a
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: somewhat difficult matter to settle, especially as mister Alderman march Hare,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: who was a great stickler for the rights of the
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: honorable body to which she belonged, wished to have the
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: question referred to a special meeting of the Common Council.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: The White Knight as corporation Council, however, advise the Hatter
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: that there was no warrant in law compelling him to
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: accede to the Marcher's demand. The municipal ownership of Robeneck's
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: Act has not yet been passed, he observed. Consequently, visitors
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: to our city can be shown about in any way
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: in which the party in charge chooses to choose. All right,
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: if you say so, said marcher coldly. Only I'd like
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: to have that opinion in writing. Public officials nowadays are
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: too prune to deny prone I guess you mean, laughed
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: the Hatter gleefully. I prefer prune, said the marcher, with dignity.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Public officials are too prune nowadays to deny what they
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: say in private conversation. To encourage me to take any chances, certainly,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: returned the White Knight, I'll write it out for you
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: with pleasure. Whereupon, taking a piece of chalk from his pocket,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: he wrote with it on the side of a convenient
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: casht tank the following opinion Injury What to do next?
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: Opinion seven billion, five hundred forty three million, four hundred
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: sixty seven thousand, two hundred and twenty three liber twenty
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: nine gas tank number six. You can go to the
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: People's Shoe Shop or down to the new Town Pump.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: You can visit the Civic glue Shop or call on
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: the public chump. You can visit the Social Rooster or
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: sample municipal cheese. In short, you can do what you
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: choose their and go where you d dash, please, signed
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Yon Doe White Knight Corporation Console. Meanwhile, Alice had been
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: turned over to the chief of police to be cared for,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: and was charmed to discover that the individual was none
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: other than her own friend, the dormouse, whom she had
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: met in her trip through Wonderland at the Hatter's tea party.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: How did you ever come to be chief of police,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: she cried delightedly as she recognized him. I'm the soundest
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: sleeper in town, he replied with a jawn, so they
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: made me head of the force. You see, young lady,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: The great trouble with the average policeman is that he's
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: too wide away, and that leads to craft. When the
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: Hatter's Municipal Police Commission looked into the question, they found
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: that the cop who spent most of his time asleep,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: spent less of his time clubbing people who wouldn't hack
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: up with him on the profits of their business. Every
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: ossifer who has been convicted of pity larcensey in the past,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: the record show, has been a fellow who stayed awake
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: most of the time, And no ossifer has ever yet
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: been known to go in for craft or get a
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: record for clubbing innos and highwaymen over the head while
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: he was asleep, either on a park bench or in
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: an alleyway. Consequently, says they, mister dormouse, who wakes up
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: only on every fifth Thursday in February, will make the
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: best police ossifer in the bunch, and being the best
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: head ought to be Choo's chief. Hence, accordingly it became
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: thus moreover, I am a champion tea drinker. What's that
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: got to do with it? Demanded Alice. Everything, said the dormouse,
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: grubbing his eyes sleepily. Every blessed thing. Tea drinking is
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: one of our hardest duties under the new system, providing
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: for the municipal ownership of everything in sight, including the
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: cop on the corner. You see. When the city grabbed
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: up the bakries, and the trolleys, and the Grand Opera House,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: and the condensed milk factory, and the sawmills, and the
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: breakfast for jungles. All envy, hatred and malice disappeared. Everybody
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: loved his neighbor better than he did himself or his
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: wife's family, and consequently, hence there was therefore no crime,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: which left the policemen out of a job. The only
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: burglars left in town were the regularly appointed official safe crackers,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: representing the municipal ownership of pity and grand larcency. The
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: only gambling houses left were under the direct supervision of
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: the mayor, acting ex officio and the chairman of the
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Old Many Committee on Faroh and Roulette. The game of
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: bunco became a duly authorized official diversion under control of
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: the tax assessors, and the town toper, being elected by
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: popular vote, could get as leary as he pleased by
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: public consent. Life insurance agents became likewise public servants under
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: the General Ordinance of nineteen oh five, starting the civic
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: Tontine parlors, where people were compelled to buy life insurance
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: from the city itself at so much a yard a
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: yart cried Alice. Yep joined the dormouse. Policies were issued
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: anywhere from three inches to a yard long, each inch
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: representing a year. If you bought a mile of life insurance,
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: you were insured for as many years as there are
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: inches in a mile. I never could stay awake long
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: enough to figure out how much that is. But it's
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: several years. But what did the agents have to do,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: asked Alice. If people had to take it, they went
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: out and grabbed delinquents, said the dormouse. I shouldn't think
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: people would need life insurance for the benefit of their families.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: If everybody has everything he wants in blunderline and put
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: in Alice, they don't, said the dormouse, wrapping his head
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: with his club to keep from dropping off to sleep.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: It ain't for the benefit of their families. It's for
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: the benefit of the city. A city like this can
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: use benefits to great advantages most all the time. But
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: you see the results of municipalizing all sorts of crime,
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: from straight burglary up to life insurance resulted in the
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: police having nothing to do. There wasn't anybody to rest or,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: to quell or the club, and so they turned us
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: into a social organization, and that's where tea drinking comes
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: in strong. Every afternoon at five o'clock, tea is served
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: on every corner in Blunderland by the policemen unbeat They
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: have become quite a public function, but they are a
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: trifle hard on the police who don't care for tea,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: because we have to be very polite and take it
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: with everybody who comes up and be nice and chatty
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: into the bargain. In addition to this, we are required
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: to go to dances and take care of the wallflowers
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: and make ourselves generally agreeable. It is one of the
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: laws of Blunderland that all girls are born free and
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: equal in the pursuit of life, liberty and German favors.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: And when any of the Cherpsicoran force finds a girl
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: with red hair and snub nose with freckles on it,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: decorating the wall and being neglected at the cotillion, it
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: is his duty to plunge in and either dance with
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: her himself or put some willieboy under a rest until
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: he calls her out and gives her the time of
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: her life. You can't imagine what wonderful results this municipal
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: control of that social situation has done in the line
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: of popularizing plain girls. It sounds it's very interesting, Alice ventured,
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: I should think the girls would like it. They do,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: said the dormouse. The only objection to it comes from
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: the willie boys, But nobody cares much what they think
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: because there aren't many of them that can think. And
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: is that all you do, asked Alice. Oh no, indeed,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: said the dormouse. We keep reserves for breach parties at
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: the station all the time, so that if any taxpayer
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: ever needs a fourth hand to make up a game,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: all he has to do is to ring up headquarters
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: and get an ossifer to come up and play. In
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: addition to this, we look after old ladies who want
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: to go shopping and aren't strong enough to break through
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: the rush line at the bargain counters. And then once
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: in a while, somebody's baby will wake up at three
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning and demand the moon. When we
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: go up and intend to it, what cried Alice in amazement.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: You don't mean to say you give it the moon,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: Not exactly, said the dormouse. We just promise to give it.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: That's one of the strong points about musicipal ownership. It
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: is the easy's system to make promises. Under you ever knew,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: you can promise anything, and later, if you don't make good,
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: you can promise something better, and so on. It works
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: very well in a great many places. But that isn't
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: really what we go up to the house for. We
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: go up to relieve the poor tired parents who have
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: been working hard all day and are too weary to
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: walk up and down the floor with the baby. We
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: respond immediately to the call, grab up the baby and
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: walk the floor with him until he is quiet again.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Once last winter, a chap with three pairs of twins
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: six months, a year and a half and three years old, respectively,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: had to send for the patrol wagon. All six of
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: em waked up and began to squall at once, and
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: we sent seven ossifers and a sergeant enough to look
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: after them. They had to parade around that house from
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: two a m. Until seven thirty before those babies quit jelling.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: Just at this moment, the dormouse was interrupted in his
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: story by a raggedly dressed old man on a pair
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: of crutches, who begged an arms of him only a dollar, sir.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: He asked piteously. Only a dollar to relieve a terrible
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: case of distress. Certainly, Simpkins, said the dormouse kindly. I well,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: I'll be jiggered, he added, feeling through his pockets. I
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: must have left my money at home. Maybe this young
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: lady can help yard. Miss Alice, permit me to introduce
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: you to simple Skins. He's the most successful beggar in
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: nineteen counties. Glad to meet you, said Alice, shaking hands
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: with Simkins. Oh curtain, spare a dollar cold you, miss,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: whined the beggar. It will relieve a terrible case of distress. Ma'am.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: Why yes, said Alice, suddenly remembering that she had a
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: silver dollar in her pocket. Here it is, and she
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: handed it to Simkins, who thanked her profusely. How's business,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: asked the dormouse. Fine, said Simkins, executing a cheek. I've
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: collected eight hundred dollars since eleven o'clock this morning. Whereupon,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: forgetting his crutches, he made off up the street with
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: the agility of an antelope. Alice gazed after him in wonder.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: I I didn't suppose you had any beggars in Blunderland,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: said she. He's the only one, replied the dormouse. He's
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: the official beggar of the town. He gets twenty five
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars in tenth deferred reorganization certificates a year, which,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: if the certificates pay ten cents on the dollar, as
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: we hope, will turn out to be a good salary
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: in the end. But why does he beg who gets
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: the money? Asked Alice? The city, said the dormouse. Once
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: in a while, when the printing plant gets clogged up
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: with the large orders of bonds for our various enterprises,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: the city has to get hold of a few dollars
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: of real money, so they send Simpkins out for it.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: I believe he's out to day trying to raise the
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: interest on the sixteenth mortgage extension bonds on the municipal
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: cigarette plant, purchased a year before last. It's ten months
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: over you and the former owners have asked the government
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: to smoke up, oh, said Alice. Is the printing plant
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: clogged up? Unmercifully, said the dormouse, not to say, tea totally.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: They're preparing their Christmas is use in magazine form, and
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: that means a terrible lot of extra work. I don't
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: believe the way things look now that the city will
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: be able to print the money for last January's pay
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: roll until somewhere around the next fourth of July. And
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: if that's the case, poor old Simpkins will either have
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: to work over time or get half a dozen deputy
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: assistant beggars to put the town in funds. I'm expecting
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: to have the police put on that job at any minute.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: Alice was silent for a moment, and the dormouse went on,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: what do you think of the municipal ownership of the
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: police idea? He asked. It is fine, said Alice. But
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: I thought all cities own their police force. A great
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: many people think that, laughed the dormouse. But it isn't so.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: It is in New York and Chicago. I heard my
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: papa say so once, said Alice. Again. The dormouse laughed, Well,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: he said, I don't want to cast any asparagus on
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: your father's intelligence. But he's wrong. The police may own
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: New York and Chicago, but New York and Chicago don't
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: own the police, not by a long shot. Who does, then,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: demanded Alice. The lord only knows, laughed the dormouse. Some
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: people say John Doe, and other people say the man
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: higher up? But which it is, or who either of
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: em may be? I haven't the slightest idea maybe they
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: belong to the Copper Trust. And then, with a sly
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: wing at the little maid, the dormouse turned over and
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: went to sleep. End of chapter four. The City Owned
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: Police read by lash Rulander. Chapter five of Alice in Blunderland.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Reading by lash Rulander. Alice in
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: Blunderland An Iridescent Dream by John Kendrick bangs chapter five.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: The Municipaphone armed with the corporation Council's opinion, authorizing him
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: to do whatever he pleased. Next, the Hatter decided that
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: he would give Alice a demonstration of the workings of
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: the Municipaphone, which said, he proudly I consider to be
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: the most democraticizing thing I have ever invented. You can
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: talk all you please about universal brotherhood, unlimited sisterhood, and
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: the infinity of unclehood, but all of these movements put
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: together haven't done as much to promote the equality of
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: everybody as the municipaphone idea of mine. Ali thought the
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: cheshire cat screen expanded slightly as the hatters boke, but
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: she was not sure, although he most assuredly did wink
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: at her. I should admire to see it, she said,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: what is it? Just? It is the result of the
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: municipal ownership of the telephone, returned the hatter proudly. We
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: have taken over everything that works by electricity, electric lighting,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: the telegraph, the telephone. Even the thunder and lightning interrupted
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: the white night, and under our management everything runs so
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: smoothly that even the lightning doesn't strike anymore. That's a
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: great thing in municipal ownership. There aren't any more strikes
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: under it. What he says is true, my child, said
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: the hatter. And in time we expect to get the
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: thunder itself under control so that it will serve some
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: useful purpose. I don't know yet exactly what, but I'm
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: having experiments made in storage batteries which will catch and
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: hold the thunder, with the idea of saving the noise
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: it makes for firecrackers or presidential salutes or other things
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: and occasions where the fracturing of silence seems desirable. Surely,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: if we can take electricity, and, under suitable municipal supervision,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: make it serve as a substitute for a towel of dip,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: why shouldn't we extract the river verberance with which it
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: is throught to add to the general clangor of joyous occasions?
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: No reason at all, said Alice. I wonder no one
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: has ever thought of that before. Just think of all
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: the magnificent noises that go to waste in a thunder storm.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: You will discover in time, my dear child, that only
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: under the municipal ownership of brains such as we have here,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: can such great ideas be seized from the infinity of
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: nothingness and turned into an irresistible propaganda. Said the hatter loftily.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: He's the biggest scandal of the bunch, whispered the march Hare.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: But it isn't what we are going to do, but
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: what we have done that we propose to show you,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: continued the hatter, eyeing the march Hare coldly. And as
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: I have said, the municipal phone is my crowning achievement.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: Just come here and I will show you, the hatter
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: led Alice, to a nearby lamp post, and, pointing to
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: a little box fastened to the middle of the pillar,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: explained to her that that was the municipaphone. We have
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: them in every room in every house in the city,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: on all the lamp posts, hydrants, telegraph poles, in fact,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: everywhere where there's a chance or room enough to hang one.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: The hatter explained. It's just like a telephone, isn't it,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: said Alice, Only it looks like a hat instead of
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: a funnel. Exactly, said the hatter. But we don't call
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: it a telephone any more. The word telephone struck me
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: as being a misnomer. You don't tell the phone anything
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: when you talk in twit, you tell the person at
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: the other end of the line. And so I changed
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: its name to the municipa phone, which shows that it's
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: a phone that belongs to the city. Just a sort
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: of moral is the thing. I had the mouthpiece changed
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: to look like a hat instead of a funnel, because
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: funnels are apt to suggest alcoholic beaveridges, and sometimes people
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: who aren't at all thirsty are made so by the
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: mere power of suggestion. The hat, however, has always commended
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: itself to our greatest Statesman as a vehicle best suited
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: for the transmission of ideas, and I therefore adopted it.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: It is very pretty, commented Alice. Only I think a
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: few ribbons would improve it a little, possibly, said the Hatter.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: We haven't had time yet to look after the millinery
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: aspect of the situation, but we'll take that up our
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: next cabinet meeting. I thank you for the suggestion, but
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: you see how the thing works. This little book here
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: has a list of the names of everybody in town,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: with their municipaphone numbers attached. The lowly as well as
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: the high from the newsboy up to the bridge wist
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: set are all represented here, so that all are connected
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: in one way or another with each other. There is
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: no man, woman, or child so poor and humble of
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: birth that he or she cannot get into immediate relations
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: with the haughty and proud. Everybody is on speaking terms
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: with everybody else, and we have thereby riched socially as
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: condition wherein all men, though not related, are nevertheless connected.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: You frequently hear a wash lady remark that while she
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: has not met missus van Varick van Asterbilt or missus Williboyle,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: the crude oil personally. They are nevertheless connections of hers,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: if not by blood or marriage, at least by wire
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: which is stronger than either. Some day, instead of having
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: societies of the Cincinnati and Sons and Daughters of the Revolution,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: I hope to see associations of brothers and sisters of
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: the municipaphone, which shall become a factor of overwhelming solidarity
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: in all social and political affairs. It's a splendid scheme,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: said Alice. It is a tie of material strength which
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: binds together our first and last families, increasing the pride
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: of the latter and diminishing that of the former, until
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: we have at last reached an average of self satisfaction
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: which knows no barriers or of class distinction, said the hatter.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: But it wouldn't have worked if we hadn't formulated strict
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: rules by which every household in town is governed. One
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: of our rules is that the person called upon must
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: answer immediately and truthfully any question which the person at
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: the other end asks, and of course in perfectly polite language.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: For instance, suppose you try it yourself. Just string up
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: number eight three one one five Bloomingdale and ask for
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: missus s Van Livingstone Smith. She is the biggest swell
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: in town. Ask her anything that comes into your head,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: and you'll see how it works. Tell her you are
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: missus o flattery. The head wash lady of the municipal Laundry, Alice,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: took her place at the municipaphone and called eight three
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: one one five Bloomingdale, as instructed, Hallo, she said, hush,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: don't say that. Say ah there, interrupted the hatter. Hallo
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: comes under the head of profanity, which is against the law.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: Excuse me, said Alice. Ah there, she added, give me
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: eight three one one five Bloomingdale. Please Central name, please,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: said Central. Pretty to flattery, replied Alice. Address asked Central,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: top thirty seven, Municipal Laundry, said Alice. Occupation continued. The
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: other ringer laughed Alice. All right, there you are, said Central,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: making the desired connection. Is this missus s Van Livingstone Smith,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: asked Alice. Yes, said a sweet voice from the other
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: end of the line. What is it? I am pretty
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: to flattery, said Alice of the municipal Laundry, And I
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: wanted to ask, was your grandfather ever a monkey? It
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: was not a very polite question, but under the excitement
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: of the moment, Alice could think of nothing better to ask.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: I don't believe so, missus o'flatthery, came the sweet voice
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: in answer, I have looked over every branch of our
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: family tree, and there isn't a cocoa nut on it.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: Why are you looking for a missing grandfather of your own? No,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: smiled Alice. But I've read all the books in the
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: public library, and I thought he might have a tale
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: to tell that I would find amusing. Well, I'm very sorry,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: said the sweet voice. Grandfather died forty years ago, so
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: I don't believe he can help you. I would advise
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: you to go up to the monkey house and ask
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: one of your own brothers. Good Bye, good bye, said Alice. Well,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: asked the hatter with a grin, what do you think
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: of it? Why? It's perfectly wonderful, said Alice. If that
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: were to happen in New York, or even in Brooklyn
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: or Binghampton, Missus Es von Livingston Smith would have been
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: very indignant, not only over the question, but for the
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: mere fact that the eh wash lady dared ring her
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: up door. Exactly, said the hatter, with a bland smile
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: of satisfaction. This municipaphone controlled by strict rules which people
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: must obey. Is a great social leveler. But why did
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: Central want my name an address, asked Alice. Because Central
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: has to keep a record of all that everybody says
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: for the inspector of personal communications, explained the hatter. Every
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: word you and missus Smith spoke was recorded at the
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: Central office, and if either of you had used any
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: expression stronger than fudge or oh touch, you would have
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: been fined five dollars for each expression and repetition thereof.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: We expect to establish civic control of public and private
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: speech within the next year, and we have begun it
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: with supervision of the municipaphone, but cried Alice, if I
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: had said something that required a fine, wouldn't Missus o flatthery,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: who is innocent, have had to pay? Yes, said the Hatter.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: But in all cases where the public welfare where is concerned,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: private interests must yield. However great the hardship that is
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: one of the fundamental principles of municipal ownership, Missus o'flattery
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: would have to suffer in order that the great principle
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: involved in polite speech for all classes might prevail. The
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: strict enforcement of our anti gosh legislation has resulted almost
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: in the complete elimination of profane speech in Blunderland. So
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: much so, in fact, that in the new Dictionary we
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: are compiling such words as golramit, dodgastit, and kosh halemlocks
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: are being left out altogether. It is a great moral agency,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: said the White Knight. It increases the self respect of
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: the submerged, curbs the pride of the rich, and holds
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: in complete subjection those evil communications which corrupt good manners.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: And nothing but the result of municipal ownership put in
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: the march enthusiastically forgetting his crouch for a moment. It
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: has other advantages, too, said the Hatter, to which I
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: feel I should call your attention, these phones being in
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: every room in town, with which anybody may be connected
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: at any moment, and thus overhear what other people are saying.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: Gossip is gradually dying out, and people everywhere are more
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: careful of what they say, even in private. For nowadays
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: the walls literally have airs. To give you an example,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: I will connect you at once with the home of
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: the Duchess, whom you meet if you remember in your
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: journey through wonderland, and you may judge for yourself of
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: how useful this muniicipaphone is to us in ascertaining the
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: general trend of public opinion. The Hatter gave the order
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: to central and in a minute Alice to transfix that
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: the phone. Listening intently, she recognized the voice of the
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: Duchess immediately, for that old fool of a hatter. She
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: was saying, he's the biggest jackass from Dan to beershebaugh well,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: said the hatter. Can you hear her? Yes, giggled Alice,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: very plainly. What does she say, asked the hatter, simpering, Why,
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: said Alice, reading she she's talking about you, the dear Duchess,
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: ejaculated the hatter with a foolish smirk. I'm very much afraid, ahem,
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: that the Duchess has her eye on me, she has said, Alice.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: She's referring to you in the warmest tones. She thinks
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: you're big, great, the very greatest from Dan to bersheba
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: ah Me, sighed the hatter. If I were only a
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: younger man, they'll make a match of it. Yet, said
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: the White Knight in a soft whisper to Alice. Yes,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: sneered the march Hare, who had overheard jealously and a
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: fine old sulfur headed lucifer of a much It will
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: be too well. It is all very nice, said Alice,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: very anxious to change the subject. But I can't say that.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: I'm sure i'd like it. Why you can't have any
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: secrets from anybody? And why should you wish to my
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: dear child, asked the hatter, coming out of his dream
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: of romance. Why not so order your life that you
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: have no need for secrecy? Yes, said Alice, I suppose
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: that is better. But then, mister hatter, isn't there to
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: be any more private life not under municipal ownership? Said
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: the hatter, carried to its logical conclusion that with all others,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: so called private rights will be merged in the glorious
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: culmination of a complete, well rounded municipal life. It is
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: toward that grand civic eventuation that I and my associates
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: in this noble movement are constantly striving. Are you going
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: to have municipal control of marriage? Asked Alice slyly. The
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: Hatter blushed and smiled foolishly. I erham thinking about that,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: he said, with a funny little laugh. It would be
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: a most excellent thing. To do, for, in my opinion,
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: a great many people nowadays get married too thoughtlessly, just
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: because they happen to love each other, they go off
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: and get married. But under municipal control it would be
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: much more difficult for a man or a woman to
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: take so serious a step. For instance, if I had
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: my way, the Common Council would have to be asked
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: for permission for a man to marry. The question would
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: come up in the form of a bill, which would
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: immediately refer to the Committee of Matrimony, who would discuss
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: it very thoroughly before bringing it before the Council. If
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: a majority of the Committee considered that the application should
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: be granted, then the matter should be placed before the
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: whole Council, by which it should be debated in open
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: public sessions. The applicant having been invited to appear and,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: under cross examination by the District Attorney, demonstrate his fitness
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: to be married. All others, knowing any reasons why you
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: should not be married, should also have the opportunity to
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: appear and state their reasons for opposing the granting of
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: the application. I am inclined to believe that this would
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: put a stop to these hasty marriages which have given
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: rise to that beautiful proverb married in Camden repent at
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: South Dakota. I should think it would, said Alice. And
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: when do you propose to start this plan along? Well,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: you see, said the hatter with a jiggle. Before I
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: take final steps in the matter, I wish to have
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: a few words with the well, well you know who
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: I the Duchess. Alice ventured. Ah, you precious child, cried
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: the Hatter, tapping Alice on the shoulder, coiling. You must
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: not believe all you over hear the Duchess say about me.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: She is so prejudiced and blind to my faults. I
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: I'm almost sorry I connected you with her over the municipaphone,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: end of chapter five. The Municipaphone read by lash Rulander.
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: Chapter six of Alice in Blunderland. This is a LibriVox
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: Reading by lash Rulander. Alice in Blunderland An Iridescent Dream
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: by John Kendrick Bangs, Chapter six, the Department of Public Verse.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: I think, said the Hatter that before we go any
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: further we would better show miss Alice our municipal poetry factory.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: The whistle will blow very shortly and our divine afletos
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: dynamo will shut down. So if she is to see
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: that feature of our work, now is the time to
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: do it. Yes, said the marcher, Although the office is
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: in some confusion knowing to your recent municipal Order number
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: twenty three hundred and sixty seven making alabazam rhyme with
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: malinga toni and extending the number of lines in the
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: municipal quatrans from four to twenty three. The employees are
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: finding considerable difficulty in making twenty three line quatrans, and
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: at least of the force have gone home suffering from
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: acute attacks of brainstorm. Meetists el lu Mgot loved the hatter.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: A good brainstorm may result in a few of them
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: being struck. Come along, miss Alice, and we'll show you
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: our city poets at work. I don't think I understand,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: said Alice. What is a city poet? He bears the
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: same relation to municipal poetry that a white wing bears
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: to the street cleaning department, explained the hatter. Two years ago,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: the city took over all the verse making Enterprises of
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: Blunderland appointed a mus municipal Loorate and the Rice a
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: Commissioner of public Verse, and started him. Along with the department,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: he employs sixteen thousand, seven hundred and forty three poets
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: who provide all the poetry that is consumed by our people.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: It has resulted in great good for everybody. Poetry is
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: cheaper by eight cents a line than it used to be,
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: and as you may have guessed from what the march
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: Hare has just said, we give larger measure than was
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: the custom. Under the private ownership of Pegasus. Quatrans have
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: been increased from four lines to twenty three, and the
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: old stingy fourteen lines sonnet has been enlarged to fifty
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: four lines. We have also passed an ordinance requiring that
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: poems shall say what they mean, which is a vast
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: improvement on the old private control method, where under anybody
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: was allowed to write rhymes which nobody could understand, like
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: that thing of miss aratusa Spinks, for instance, called aspiration.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: Remember that I don't think I ever heard it, said Alice.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: Well it went this way, said the hatter, and striking
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: graceful attitude he recited the following lines, call'd aspiration my
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: arethusov spink down by the purple opalis, and sea flung
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: like a ribbon limp athward the sky. A rose lay
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: blooming on the restless lee, while sundry birds came shattering
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: sweetly by twas then my soul, that all too long
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: had slept a boat from out its siri decident nap
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: crept down where the pink cheeked crocus blossoms from out
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: fair Nature's over bounteous lap, and cried aloud, alas, what
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: hath betow'd? What dream is this that, like the ambient brook,
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: forbidst the mind to face the solemn goad and know itself?
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: Forsook the hatter. Paus'd well, said Alice, slightly puzzled. That's
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: all there was to it, said the hatter. It was
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: printed in one of our magazines, and within forty eight
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: hours the Ambulance from the Insane Asylum was called out
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: seven hundred and thirty seven times by people who had
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: gone crazy trying to find out what it meant. It
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: capped the climax. I called a special meeting of the
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: Common Council to take the matter up purely as a
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: matter of public health. And before I went to bed
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: that night, they had passed, and I had signed an
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: act giving the control of the verse industry to the
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: city and taking it out of the hands of irresponsible, unlicensed,
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: independent poets. And a good job it was, to said
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: the march hare. And you choose one of the best
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: poets in town for the commissioner, I suppose, suggested Alice. No,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: we didn't, said the hatter. I didn't want any moonshine
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: in a city department, and no poet is a good
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: business man. I picked out a very successful haberdasher in
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: the sixth ward for the delicate business of organizing the department,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: and he has done most excellent work. We found that,
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: just as a first class confectioner made a splendid manager
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: of our gas plant, and a successful hokey pokey merchant
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: had the required push to keep our trolley systems going,
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: so the haberdasher had the precise kind of genius to
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: manage the poets. He won't stand any nonsense from them,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: and any poem that he can't understand is immediately thrown
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: into the civic waste basket taken to the municipal ferry.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: And used for fuel to run the boats. I guess
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: we burn nineteen tons of refuse verse a day, don't we? Aldermen?
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: About that? On the average, said the march Hare. Sometimes
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: it gets as high as twenty ton, and occasionally it
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: falls off to sixteen. But using these rejected manuscripts in
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: place of coal has reduced the loss on the ferry
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: about thirty eight dollars a year in real money. How
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: much is that in bonds, asked Alice slyly. Oh, let's see,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: said the Hatter, his face getting very red. Well, I
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: should say on a basis of forty three two one
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: third percent, one thirty eight dollars would come to about
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: ninety seven thousand, three hundred forty seven point eighty three
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: insert debenture, ten percent certificates, exclusive of the cost of
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: printing advertising, and the number we give away a sample copie.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: Quite a saving, said Alice. Yes, said the hatter. We
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: save all we can. Economy in real money is our watchword.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: We never spend a cent where a bond will serve
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: the purpose. By this time, Alice and her hosts had
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: reached the building occupied by the Department of Public Verse, and,
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: upon entering its spacious doorway. The party were greeted by
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: the Commissioner, the haberdasher, to whom Alice was promptly introduced.
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: He reminded her very forcibly of her old acquaintance, Bill
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: the Lizard, but she was not sure enough on this
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: point to recall their previous meeting, when she had so
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: tactlessly kicked him up through the chimney flu of the
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: Wonderland Cottage. Well, mister Commissioner, said the hatter. How are
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: you getting along pretty well? Mister mayor, replied the Commissioner.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: We've just finished the six line couplet for the new
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: chewing Gumbonds. God, said the hatter. How does it go?
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: Rather neatly? I think, said the Commissioner, and he read
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: the following. We promise to pay despond some day if
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: of the stuff we got enough, and if we haven't prayed,
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: don't despond for we'll pay it off with another bond fine,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: said the hatter. You strike a very lofty note in that.
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: And how do the new Limericks work. We've finished number
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: three thousand, nine hundred and seven of series xcept B,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: said the Commissioner. I'll send for Wiggins who wrote it,
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: and let him read it to you himself. A pressure
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: of an electric button brought the smiling Wiggins into the office. Wiggins,
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: the mayor would like to hear that new limerick of yours,
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: said the Commissioner. Thank you, sir, said Wiggins. It runs
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: this way, your honor. There was an old lady named
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: Jane who sat on a fence at show Harry. A
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: rooster came by and crew like the Jews, but Jane
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: never scared for assent. That's great, said the hatter. Don't
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: you think so, miss Alice? Why yes, said Alice. But
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: does it rhyme perfectly, replied the hatter. That is under
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: our system. When we organized this department to facilitate business
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: and avoid the waste of time looking for rhymes, we
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: legalize such rhymes as Showharri and scent and buy and Jews.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: By that act, we found that where one man could
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: only turn out eight hundred limericks a day under the
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: old system, any able bodied poet can write three thousand
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: in the same number of ours. That's very good, Wiggins,
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: he added, turning to the workman, I shall recommend the
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: Commissioner to promote you to an inspectorship in the Sonnet World.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you, sir, said the poet, as he blushingly bowed
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: himself out. Here, said the commissioner, opening a door leading
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: into a long, darkened chamber. Here, young lady, is our
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: thinking department. Alice passed into the darkness and dimly made
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: out a half hundred long haired individuals sitting in comfortable
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: Morris chairs, their forefingers pressed hard against their brows, and
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: their eyes gazing fixedly out into space. These men and
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: women think the thoughts which our municipal poetry is designed
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: to express. The commissioner continued. A thought, once seized by
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: any one of them, is written down upon a path,
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: and then taken into this next room, where it is
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: classified and assigned to the line cutters, who turn out
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: the first draft in the rough. Then, when this is done,
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: it is sent to the rhyming room, where the lines
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: are made to end in rhymes, and finally it goes
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: to the polishing room, where the poem is made ready
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: for publication. It is a wonderful system, said the hatter.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: It not only improves the quality of our poetry, but
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: in campaign times it is a great help, since we
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: control absolutely all the campaign poetry. When I run for mayor,
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: next fall to succeed myself. There won't be a single
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: poem written on the other side. That ought to be
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: a great help, said Alice. Yes, said the hatter, it
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: will be. Every employee in this department will not only
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: vote for me, but will work for me as well.
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: Same way in the gas plant and the trolley. In fact,
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: in all the city departments. It is only another evidence
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: of the very great value of municipal ownership. It is
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: uncertainty in political time that upsets business. But with the
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: municipality in control of all these departments, from gas to poetry,
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: there is no uncertainty about who will win, so that
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: business is not unsettled by it. Wonderful, said Alice. By
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: the way, mister Commissioner, you'd better start the rhyming Bureau
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: on the search for rhymes to hatter at once, said
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: the mayor. We don't want to be caught unprepared at
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: the last minute. The least is being compiled now, replied
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: the commissioner. We already have mutter butter, tutter, smutter, patter, ratter,
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: spatter and scatter. Fine, shortled the hatter. Don't forget chatter,
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: put in Alice. Thank you, I'll make a note of it,
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: said the Commissioner, and snatter growled the march Hare gloomily,
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: who evidently felt that somebody ought to be looking for
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: rhymes to the march Hare as well. What does snatter mean?
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: Demanded the hatter, frowning. It is a corrupt, formful snatcher,
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: retorted the march Hare, one who snatches everything he can
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: lay his hands on, without regard to whether it's his
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: by divine right or not. I guess they can use
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: sit in poems calling attention to your civic virtues, except
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: by unanimous vote of the common council of a my
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: beetle snatter stays out of the municipal vocabulary, returned the
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: hatter coldly. Your own confession that it is corrupt is
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: enough to condemn it with me. I wouldn't use batter either,
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: mister Mayer, said the commissioner. Battery stow, and we haven't
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: got any worth mentioning. It is also to wax slam
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: bang bast smack, retorted the hatter. So your recommendation is
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: not accepted, seems to me. I can almost hear the
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: campaign clubs singing as they march. Oh, the noble noble hatter,
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: ain't he grand How is enemies to scatter through the land?
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: How is foemen he doth batter with their idle gloomy
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: chatter on this municipal matter? Beats the band oh gee
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: eaculated the march Hare. Do you call that poetry, sir?
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: I call it truth, returned the Hatter. And poetry is truth,
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: just as art is truth. And if you don't believe it,
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: all you've got to do is to try and run
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: against me next fall on that issue, I'll beat you
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: to a stand still. Of course you will sighed the
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: march Hare. But you wouldn't but for that last ordinance
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: you jammed through while I was off on my vacation.
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: What was that, demanded the Hattering. The election commission absolute
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: control over the votes and then appointing yourself election commissioner
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: ex officio, said the march Hare. I don't believe that
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: municipal control of the ballot is constitutional. Well, it will
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: be constitutional, said the hatter dryly, one, demanded the march Hare.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: When we secure municipal control of the constitution, said the hatter,
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: I'll make it constitutional if I have to rewrite the
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: whole blessed Constitution myself. Whereupon the Hatter walked majestically forth
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: into the street once more, and Alice and the march Hare,
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: together with the White Knight, followed meekly in his train.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: End of chapter six. The Department of Public Verse read
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: by Lash Rolando, after seven of Alice in Blunderland. This
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Reading by Lash Rolando. Alice in Blunderland
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: An Iridescent Dream by John Kendrick Bangs, Chapter seven, Ownership
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: of Children. What time is it, asked the Hatter, suddenly
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: turning to the White Knight. Six o'clock replied the White Knight,
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: looking at his watch. Mercy cried Alice. I had no idea.
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: It was so late. I shall have to run along home.
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: It's supper time. The Hatter laughed. Oh as for that,
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: he said, there's no hurry. Under our present system of
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: municipal ownership of everything. I can issue as mayor a
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: general order postponing the municipal supper hour to seven or
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: eight o'clock. Still, if you'd prefer to go home, I
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: don't want to, said Alice, cortiously, But I think i'd
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: better My mother would be worried not finding me in
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: the nursery. You see, I left home without telling anybody
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: where I was going. Again, the hatter laughed. What foolishness,
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: he ejaculated. That's the great trouble with the private ownership
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: of children. It worries their poor mothers, keeps him from
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: their daily bridge parties, interferes with that freedom of action
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: which is guaranteed to the individual by the contravention of
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: the United States Constitution. I guess you mean, suggested Alice.
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: It used to be the Constitution, returned the Hatter, But
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: now it is the contravention. It has been contravened so
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: often in the past last few years that our Reformed
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: Language Commission at Washington has named it accordingly. It simply
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: bears out what you said in your message approving the
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: Public Ownership of Children Act passed by the Common Council
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: last November, which I wrote for you, and consequently consider
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: a very able document, said the White Knight. The public
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: ownership of children, cried Alice, with a look of alarm
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: on her face. Yes, said the Hatter, just as the
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: nation has gone in for paternalists we here in Blunderland
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: have gone in for maternalists. The children here belonged to
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: the city. But Alice began, now, don't bother, said the
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: hatter kindly. It works very well. It has reduced children
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: to a state of scientific control which is as careful
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: and as effective as that of the street cleaning department
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: or the public parks. And it has emancipated the mother's
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: as well as materially decreased the financial obligation of the father's.
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: Alice lip quivered slightly, and she began to feel a
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: little bit afraid of the Hatter. I want to go home,
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: she whimpered. Certainly as you wish, said the Hatter. We'll
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: take you there at once. Come along. Reassured by the
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: Hatter's kindly manner, Alice took her companion's outstretched hand, and
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: they walked along the highway together until they came to
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: a handsome apartment house fronting upon a beautiful park, where
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: the Hatter pressed an electric button at one side of
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: the massive entrance. The response to the bell was immediate,
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: and Alice was pleased to find that the person to
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: answer was none other than the Duchess herself. Oh why,
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: how de do, said the Duchess, affably, glad to see
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: you again, Miss Alis. Thank you, said Alice. It is
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: very nice to be here. Do you live in this
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: beautiful building, yes, said the Duchess. You see, I've just
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: been appointed Commissioner of Maternity. I'm what you might call
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: the official mother of the town, since that great statesman
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: the Hatter here, the Duchess winked graciously at the march
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: Hare devised his crowning achievement in the municipal control of
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: the children, and appointed me to be the head of
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: the department. I've been stationed here, and a mighty good
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: old mother. She is eaculated the hatter, with fervor palaverer,
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: said the Duchess, coyly. Not at all, said the hatter.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: I speak not as a man, but as a mayor,
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: and what I say is to be construed as an
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: official tribute to faithful and deserving public servant. Ser Sir,
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: repeated the Duchess, haughtily in the American sense, said the hatter,
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: with a low bow, in the sense that the servant
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: is as good as, if not better than, the employer. Madam,
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: that man's a perfect dipsomaniac, said the march Hare diplomat.
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: Man diplomat, corrected the White Knight. A dipsomaniac is a
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: very different thing from a diplomat. Consuls may be dipsomniacs,
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: but a diplomat is a man worthy of ambassadorial honors.
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: Oh I see, said the march Haer. Well he's a
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: diplomat all right, All right, How are things going today, Duchess,
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: asked the hatter. Children happy? They will be in time,
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: said the Duchess. So many of them have been brought
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: up so far on the Ladies home journal system that
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: it is hard to introduce the new Blunderlent method with friction.
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: I was afraid of that, said the Hatter. How does
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: the compulsory soda water regulation work? Splendidly, said the Duchess.
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: Since I started it in January to make the children
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: drink five glasses of Anila cream soda every day as
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: a matter of routine and duty, sixty percent of them
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: have come to hate it. I think that by the
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: end of the year we shall have stamped out the
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: love of soda almost entirely, the same way with caramels
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: and other candies. In place of beef, we have caramels
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: for breakfast, gum drops for dinners, and marshmallows for tea regularly,
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: and last night seventeen of the children presented a petition
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: asking for beef steak, mutton chops and boiled rice. I
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: have a firm conviction that when the new law requiring
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: beef to be sold candy stores, and compelling those in
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: charge of the young to teach them that boiled rice
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: and how many are bad for the teeth, goes into effect,
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: we shall find the children clamoring for wholesome food as
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: eagerly as they do now for things that ruin their
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: little tummis. It's a splendid system. And how are you
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: meeting the matinee problem? Asked the march Hare, same way
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: said the Duchess. Every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon we make
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: them go to a matinee rain or shine, whether they
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: want to or not. And really it's pathetic to see
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: how some of the little deers pine for a half
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: holiday with a hoople. And since I forbade the janxters
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: to even look at the back of a geography or
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: a spelling book, it is most amusing to see how
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: they sneak into the library and devour the conterns of
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: those two books when they think nobody's looking. I caught
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: one of the boys reading an arithmetic in bed last night,
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: fully neglecting his jack Hawk Away books that I had
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: commanded him to read, and leaving his bim the Broncho
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: Buster or Buffalo absolutely uncut. Fine, chuckled the hatter. And now,
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: my dear duchess, will you oblige me by taking charge
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: of miss Alice. She has expressed a desire to go home,
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: and so I have brought her hair, certainly, said the Duchess.
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: I'll look after her. You'll excuse us, Alice, said the
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: hatter politely. We'd escort your further ourselves. But question has
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: come before the Municipal Ownership Caucus that we must settle.
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: Before the meeting of the Common Council to night, certain
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: of our members claimed that they have a right to
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: sell their votes for five hundred dollars apiece. Mercy, cried Alice.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: Why that is? That is terrible? It certainly is, said
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: the march hare ruefully. It's more than terrible. It's rotten. Here.
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: I've been holding out foot one thousand, two hundred fifty
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: dollars for mine, and these stuffers want to go in
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: for a cut rate that will absolutely ruin the business.
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: It's a very important matter, said the hatter. After all
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: ours striving to elevate the people, we don't want them
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: to make themselves too cheap. For my part, I don't
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: think they should let go of a vote on any
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: question for less than two thousand, five hundred. That's all right,
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: mister Mayre, said the White Knight. But you don't want
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: to frighten capital. You'd know. While you and I disagree
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: on that point, said the Mare, capital isn't at all
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: necessary to the success of our schemes. My watchword is bonds,
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: and as long as I have a printing press to
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: print them and a fountain pentus signem, I'm not going
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: to be influenced one way or another by a feeling
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: of subserviency to the capitalist class. Good Night, miss Alice.
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: Glad to meet you, and I hope you will have
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: a pleasant time with the Duchess. Here, he added, taking
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: a beautifully printed green and gold paper from his pocket.
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: Here is a blanket mortgage eighteen percent deferred debenture bond
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: on the Main Street Ferry of a par value of
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars payable in three thousand, four hundred
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: and fifty seven as a souvenir of your visit. A
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars, cried Alice for me, No, corrected the hatter,
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: A hundred thousand dollar bond. You don't get the money
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: until three thousand, four hundred and fifty seven, and not
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: then unless you present it in person to the city Treasurer,
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: with which Municipent give. The hatter respectfully bowed himself away
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: and made on, followed by the march Hare. Good Bye, Alice,
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: said the White Knight sympathetically, and then, thrusting a paper
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: in her hand, he leaned forward and whispered into the
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: little girl's ear. If you get into trouble, use this,
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: thank you, said Alice. What is it? It is a
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: temporary injunction issued by the Chief Justice, restraining anybody from
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: interfering with you, said the White Knight. You may need it.
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: And the kindly old Knight ran madly off up the
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: street after the Mare and the march Hare, and shortly
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: disappeared around the corner. Now, my little dear, said the Duchess,
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: we'll take you home. Seizing Alice by the hand, the
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: Duchess led the little traveler into the municipal nursery. Entering
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: the elevator, they went up and up, and up and up,
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: until Alice thought they would never stop. Finally, on the
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: hundred and seventeenth floor, the elevator stopped. Alice and the
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: Duchess alighted and entered a funny little flat, singularly enough
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: labeled with Alice's own name. This is it, said the Duchess.
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: There is your bedroom, Here is your parlor, and that
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: is the bathroom. The apartment has running soda, water, hot
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: and cold. You will find a refrigerator stock with peanut brittle, molasses, candy,
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: and sugar fruits. In the pantry. Your reading would consist
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: of Lucid de Lay's Bender, or How the Laundress Became
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: a Lady, The Works of Marie Corelli, Factory, Fanny the
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: Forger's Daughter, and any other unwholesome book you may want
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: from the House of Correction library. Play time will begin
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: at seven every morning, and you will be compelled to
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: dress and undrestalls until one, when your caramel will be
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: given to you, after which you will skip the rope
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: and read fairy stories until six. You must drink five
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: glasses of soda water every day, and will not be
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: allowed to go to bed before eleven o'clock at night.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: Hurry now and get your hair, must and your hands
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: thirty for dinner, the first course of whipped cream and
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: roasty chestnuts will be served promptly at six thirty. But
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: cried Alice, I don't want to stay here. I want
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: to go home. You are home, said the Duchess. This
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: is the municipal home of the children of Blunderland. But
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: I want my father and mother, whimpered Alice. The city
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: is your father, my child, and I am officially your mother,
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: said the Duchess. You are not, cried Alice. You're trying
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: to kidnap me. I'll I'll call the police. The police
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: can't rest a city, my dear child, and as for me,
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: as the commissioner of Maternity, I am immune from arrest,
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: laughed the Duchess. Well, I just won't stay, that's all,
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: cried Alice, stamping her foot angrily. I don't want a
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: city for a father, and I shan't have an official
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: mother in place a real one. The child ran toward
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: the door, but the Duchess was too quick for her,
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: seizing her by the arm. Let me go, shrieked Alice
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: never snapped the duchess, And then the little girl thought
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: of the piece of paper the White Knight had given her.
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: I guess that will make you change your mind, she said,
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: handing the injunction to her captor. The duchess ready careful,
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: her face paled, and she too stamped her foot. I'll
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: see about this, she roared angrily, and in a moment
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: she had gone, slamming the door so hard behind her
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: that the building fairly shot. A moment later Alice followed,
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: and in a short time was bounding down the stairway
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: as fast as her little legs would carry her toward freedom,
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: when all of a sudden she tripped and began to
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: fall down, down, down, Oh would she never stop? And
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: then bump Her fall was over and strange to relate,
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: The little maid found herself sitting on the floor, back
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: in her own nursery, in her own real home, with
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: her mother bending over her. Dear me, Alice, said her mother.
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: I hope you haven't hurt yourself. No, said Alice, Why
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: have I I really fallen? You must certainly have off
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: the sofa, laughed her mother. Where have you been, she
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: added in Wonderland again. No, said Alice in Blunderland this time,
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: which struck her father when he heard the story of
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: her adventures, later as a very apt and descriptive title
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: for the m O country. End of chapter seven, Ownership
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: of Children, and end of the book Alice in Blunderland
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: by John Kendrick Bangs read by lash Rolander. Thank you
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: for listening.