CHAPTER VI
THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC VERSE
"I think," said the Hatter, "that before we go any further we wouldbetter show Miss Alice our Municipal Poetry Factory. The whistle willblow very shortly and our Divine Afflatus Dynamo will shut down, so ifshe is to see that feature of our work now is the time to do it.
"Yes," said the March Hare, "although the office is in some confusionowing to your recent Municipal Order Number 20,367 making _Alabazam_rhyme with _Mulligatawney_, and extending the number of lines in themunicipal quatrains from four to twenty-three. The employees are findingconsiderable difficulty in making twenty-three-line quatrains and atleast half the force have gone home suffering from acute attacks ofbrainstormitis."
"It'll do em good," laughed the Hatter. "A good brain storm may resultin a few of them being struck. Come along, Miss Alice, and we'll showyou our City Poets at work."
"I don't think I understand," said Alice. "What is a city poet?"
"LARGER MEASURE THAN WAS THE CUSTOM"]
"He bears the same relation to Municipal Poetry that a White Wing bearsto the Street Cleaning Department," explained the Hatter. "Two years agothe City took over all the Verse-making enterprises of Blunderland,appointed a Municipalaureat, otherwise a Commissioner of Public Verse,and started him along with a Department. He employs 16,743 poets whoprovide all the poetry that is consumed by our people. It has resultedin great good for everybody. Poetry is cheaper by eight cents a linethan it used to be, and, as you may have guessed from what the MarchHare has just said, we give larger measure than was the custom underthe private ownership of _Pegasus_. Quatrains have been increased fromfour lines to twenty-three, and the old stingy fourteen-line sonnet hasbeen enlarged to fifty-four lines. We have also passed an ordinancerequiring that poems shall say what they mean, which is a vastimprovement on the old private control method whereunder anybody wasallowed to write rhymes which nobody could understand--like that thingof Miss Arethusa Spink's, for instance, called Aspiration. Rememberthat?"
"I don't think I ever heard it," said Alice.
"Well it went this way," said the Hatter, and striking a gracefulattitude he recited the following lines called:
ASPIRATION
_By Arethusa Spink_
Down by the purple opalescent sea, Flung like a ribbon limp athwart the sky, A rose lay blooming on the restless lea, While sundry birds came chattering sweetly by. 'Twas then my soul that all too long had slept, Awoke from out its iridescent nap,
crept Down where the pink-cheeked crocus blossoms From out fair Nature's over-bounteous lap, And cried aloud "Alas! What hath betode? What dream is this that like the ambient brook Forbids the mind to face the solemn goad And know itself forsook!"
The Hatter paused.
"Well?" said Alice, slightly puzzled.
"That's all there was to it," said the Hatter. "It was printed in one ofour Magazines and within forty-eight hours the ambulance from the InsaneAsylum was called out 737 times by people who had gone crazy trying tofind out what it meant. It capped the climax. I called a special meetingof the Common Council to take the matter up purely as a matter of publichealth, and before I went to bed that night they had passed and I hadsigned an Act giving the control of the Verse Industry to the City andtaking it out of the hands of irresponsible, unlicensed independentpoets.
"And a good job it was too," said the March Hare.
"And you chose one of the best poets in town for the Commissioner, Isuppose?" suggested Alice.
"No we didn't," said the Hatter. "I didn't want any Moonshine in a CityDepartment and no poet is a good business man. I picked out a verysuccessful Haberdasher in the Sixth Ward for the delicate business oforganising the Department, and he has done most excellent work. We foundthat just as a first class confectioner made a splendid manager of ourgas plant, and a successful Hoki-Poki merchant had the required push tokeep our trolley systems going, so the Haberdasher had the precise kindof genius to manage the poets. He won't stand any nonsense from them,and any poem that he can't understand is immediately thrown into theCivic Waste-Basket, taken to the Municipal Ferry and used for fuel torun the boats. I guess we burn nineteen tons of refuse verse a day,don't we, Alderman?"
"About that--on the average," said the March Hare. "Sometimes it gets ashigh as twenty tons and occasionally it falls off to sixteen--but usingthese rejected manuscripts in place of coal has reduced the loss on theFerry about thirty-eight dollars a year in real money."
"How much is that in bonds?" asked Alice slyly.
"O--let's see," said the Hatter, his face getting very red, "well--Ishould say on a basis of 43-1/3% to one, thirty-eight dollars would,come to about $97,347.83 in third debenture ten per cent. certificates,exclusive of the cost of printing, advertising, and the number we giveaway as sample copies."
"Quite a saving," said Alice.
"Yes," said the Hatter. "We save all we can. Economy in real money isour watchword. We never spend a cent where a bond will serve thepurpose."
"GREETED BY THE COMMISSIONER, THE HABERDASHER"]
By this time Alice and her hosts had reached the building occupied bythe Department of Public Verse, and upon entering its spacious doorwaythe party were greeted by the Commissioner, the Haberdasher, to whomAlice was promptly introduced. He reminded her very forcibly of her oldacquaintance Bill the Lizard, but she was not sure enough on this pointto recall their previous meeting when she had so tactlessly kicked himup through the chimney flue of the Wonderland Cottage.
"Well, Mr. Commissioner," said the Hatter, "how are you getting along?"
"Pretty well, Mr. Mayor," replied the Commissioner. "We've just finishedthe six line couplet for the new Chewing Gum Bonds."
"Good," said the Hatter. "How does it go?"
"Rather neatly I think," said the Commissioner, and he read thefollowing:
We promise to pay This bond some day If of the stuff We've got enough. And if we haven't, pray don't despond, For we'll pay it off with another bond.
"Fine," said the Hatter. "You strike a very lofty note in that. And howdo the new Limericks work?"
"We've finished number 3907 of series XZV," said the Commissioner. "I'llsend for Wiggins who wrote it and let him read it to you himself."
A pressure of an electric button brought the smiling Wiggins into theoffice.
"Wiggins, the Mayor would like to hear that new Limerick of yours,"said the Commissioner.
"IT RUNS THIS WAY, YOUR HONOUR"]
"Thanky sir," said Wiggins. "It runs this way, your honour.
"There was an old lady named Jane Who sat on a fence at Schoharie. A rooster came by And crew like the deuce But Jane never scared for a cent."
"That's great," said the Hatter. "Don't you think so, Miss Alice?"
"Why yes," said Alice, "but--does it rhyme?"
"Perfectly," replied the Hatter, "that is, under our system. When weorganised this Department to facilitate business and avoid the waste oftime looking for rhymes we legalised such rhymes as Schoharie and centand by and deuce. By that act we found that where one man could onlyturn out 800 Limericks a day under the old system, any ablebodied-poetcan write 3,000 in the same number of hours. That's very good,Wiggins," he added turning to the workman. "I shall recommend theCommissioner to promote you to an Inspectorship in the Sonnet works."
"Thanky sir," said the Poet, as he blushingly bowed himself out.
"OUR THINKING DEPARTMENT"]
"Here," said the Commissioner, opening a door leading into a long,darkened chamber, "here, young lady, is our Thinking Department."
Alice passed into the darkness and dimly made out a half a hundredlong-haired individuals sitting in comfortable Morris chairs, theirforefingers pressed hard against their brows and their eyes gazingfixedly out into space.
"These men and women think the thoughts which our municipal poetry isdesigned to express," the Commissioner continued.
"A thought onceseized by any one of them is written down upon a pad, and then takeninto this next room where it is classified and assigned to the linecutters who turn out the first draft in the rough. Then when this isdone it is sent to the rhyming room where the lines are made to end inrhymes, and finally it goes to the Polishing room where the poem is madeready for publication."
"It's a wonderful system," said the Hatter. "It not only improves thequality of our poetry, but in campaign times it is a great help, sincewe control absolutely all the campaign poetry. When I run for mayor nextfall to succeed myself there won't be a single poem written on the otherside."
"That ought to be a great help," said Alice.
"Yes," said the Hatter. "It will be. Every employee in this Departmentwill not only vote for me but will work for me as well. Same way in thegas plant and the trolley--in fact in all the City Departments. It isonly another evidence of the very great value of Municipal Ownership. Itis uncertainty in political times that upsets business, but with theMunicipality in control of all these Departments from Gas to Poetrythere is no uncertainty about who will win, so that business is notunsettled by it."
"Wonderful," said Alice.
"By the way, Mr. Commissioner, you'd better start the Rhyming Bureau onthe search for rhymes to Hatter at once," said, the Mayor. "We don'twant to be caught unprepared at the last minute."
"The list is being compiled now," replied the Commissioner. "We alreadyhave, Matter, Batter, Tatter, Smatter Patter, Ratter, Spatter andScatter."
"Fine!" chortled the Hatter.
"Don't forget Chatter," put in Alice.
"Thank you--I'll make a note of it," said the Commissioner.
"And Snatter," growled the March Hare gloomily, who evidently felt thatsomebody ought to be looking for rhymes to March Hare as well.
"What does snatter mean?" demanded the Hatter frowning.
"It's a corrupt form for snatcher," retorted the March Hare. "One whosnatches everything he can lay his hands on, without regard to whetherit's his by divine right or not. I guess they can use it in poemscalling attention to your Civic Virtues."
"Except by unanimous vote of the Common Council over my veto Snatterstays out of the Municipal Vocabulary," returned the Hatter coldly."Your own confession that it is corrupt is enough to condemn it withme."
"I wouldn't use batter either, Mr. Mayor," said the Commissioner."Batter is dough and we haven't got any worth mentioning."
"It is also to whack, slam, bang, bust, smack," retorted the Hatter,"so your recommendation is not accepted. Seems to me I can almost hearthe campaign clubs singing as they march:
"O the noble, noble Hatter, Ain't he grand! How his enemies do scatter Thro the land! How his foemen he doth batter With their idle gloomy chatter On this Muni--cipal Matter Beats the band!"
"O Gee!" ejaculated the March Hare. "Do you call that poetry?"
"Sir, I call it truth," returned the Hatter, "and poetry is truth justas art is truth, and if you don't believe it all you've got to do is totry and run against me next fall on that issue. I'll beat you to astand-still."
"Of course you will," sighed the March Hare. "But you wouldn't but forthat last ordinance you jammed through while I was off on my vacation."
"What was that?" demanded the Hatter.
"Giving the Election Commission absolute control over the votes, andthen appointing yourself Election Commissioner ex-officio," said theMarch Hare. "I don't believe that Municipal Control of the ballot isconstitutional."
"Well, it will be constitutional," said the Hatter drily.
"When?" demanded the March Hare.
"When we secure Municipal Control of the Constitution," said the Hatter."I'll make it Constitutional if I have to rewrite the whole blessedConstitution myself."
Whereupon the Hatter walked majestically forth into the street oncemore, and Alice and the March Hare together with the White Knightfollowed meekly in his train.