“Thus will I keep all these dogs befooled, and fuddled and muddled, so that nothing short of the direst and most unforeseen accident will enable them to see the joke.
“And if any dog, by reason of these hard lines, shall growl and make a fuss, and go to illegally taking any of his natural rights, or in any other way make himself obnoxious to you, and ye grow weary and want him killed, all ye need do is to express your desire and it shall be done. I will promptly set my innumerable Circulators to prophesy falsely against him, to sneer him down, to ridicule him down, to write him down, and make Public Opinion ripe for the police dogs to grab him, and throttle him and extinguish him; for I, the Great I Am, am an Accuser, Judge and Jury, at your service.”
And all the Committee and all the Monstrous Fleas rejoiced and were glad, and said unto the Phenomenon: “Go forth and do as thou hast said; be a lying and bamboozling spirit unto all these dogs and Heaven bless thee.”
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The Great Daily Press Fulfills All its Promises.—Universal Idiocy.—More Liberty and a Bigger Flag.—Liberty Takes the Form of a Statue.—Police Exemplification of Liberty.—A New Song.
SO the Many Headed went forth and was a lying spirit, morning and evening, in the mouths of all its prophets. And it wrought well the will of the Bamboozlers and the Monstrous Fleas, in deceiving and fooling the dogs; for under its subtle ministrations as an Angel of Light, the dogs rapidly grew limp and idiotic in body and mind, and lost all power of discernment between right and wrong, and good and evil, and all taste for everything but idiotic pastimes, and silly, trashy and horrible stories, which it daily poured into their ears. Yea, so thoroughly were their minds debauched, enervated and enfeebled that when the few—the very few—surviving dogs of thought and sense, came unto them and begged them to give a thought or two now and then to their poor, miserable and lost condition, and the way to remedy it, the dogs said such talk was a great weariness, and forthwith rolled over and went to sleep.