Chapter XII: Part 12

(_Aiming at the fly and missing it._) Ah! Ah! Could the world wish for anything more--more enlightening? Our hearts tell us! Oh, dear! Our dear Astronomers and College Philosophers stand in absolute accord as to this! Wonderful! Wonderful! (_Turning to the Musnud._) I am sure that you, my dear fellow Moonshees and Savants, must be greatly impressed and inspired by this! It is what we all so much wish to hear, always! (_PODUNKUS rolls over on his side, while the Moonshees turn over and murmur “Excellent! Exquisitely put! Couldn’t be better!” The Union Astronomers and College Philosophers now march off singing, “Hail! Hail! The Gang’s all here!” the Philosophers weeping on each other’s necks for joy while the Astronomers wig-wag the song with their telescopes. The Moonshees, Zadkiels, etc., squeak feebly for souffle._)

(_Enter forty-eight divisions of five hundred each of Descendant Sons and Daughters of Ancient and Honorable Anti-Vice Crusaders, Prison Visitation Leaguers, Moral Prophylaxers, Anti-Contraceptionists, Eugenic Sires and Women Magazine Editors, in green, yellow and blue burnouses and pink papier-maché casques, fox-trotting as they come. An immense banner of Chinese silk and Australian wool mixed [symbolic of the general sequacity, tranquillity, plasticity, yet not to say florescence or flaccidity which now hovers over all the world] is carried before. This same contains a pale representation of a jail, such as existed in former centuries when the world was evil, but now [in the picture], in order to symbolize the present peace and progress of the world, crumbled and covered with vines and spiderwebs, while four angels of peace, one at each corner, hold up palms of victory. They are preceded by cage-cars containing each one Specimen of Ossified and Ancient White-Slaver, Gambler, Thief and Predatory Rich. As they approach, the Loobies, Gaberlunzies, Nizys and Zanys bustle hither and thither among the audience, the former reading, the latter calling for silence and explaining the exact significance of the symbol while they ladle out souffle. On and before the Musnud the Hoddy-Doddys and Dizzards hover over NOXUS and the Moonshees, who have fallen into a sound sleep. Two thousand members of the Inter-Federated Association of Inter-Asiatic Descendant Sons and Daughters of Ancient and Honorable Eugenic Sires approach first, the men wearing green Zouave trousers, white silk overcoats and blue shakos. They carry lilies. The ladies are wrapped in nine layers of pink asbestos each one inch thick and carry poisoned hatpins. After charging and counter-charging they form a square in front of the Musnud, the ladies stacking hatpins, the men presenting lilies._)

SHISHMASH HASH HASH

(_Tumbling back from the entryway where he has been supervising the general formation of the new division._) Your Referendunces! Your Referendunces! Look, oh look! The Inter-Federated Association of Inter-Asiatic Descendant Sons and Daughters of Eugenic Sires crave the honor of approaching and testifying before this great Court as to what Progress has done for them! Your Referendunces!

THE ONE HUNDRED HODDY-DODDYS

(_Ranging in a line and presenting arms with their feather-dusters._)

Oh, never, never has there been
A sight to equal this, we ween!
Glorious!

(_They clog, and chatter their teeth._)

THE MEMBERS OF THE INTER-FEDERATED ASSOCIATION OF INTER-ASIATIC DESCENDANT SONS AND DAUGHTERS

(_Pirouetting and bowing to each other._)

’Tis six full centuries at least
Since un-Eugenic weddings ceased;
And now each youth and maid you see
Is married full Eugenic-ly.
In us behold the perfect fruitage
That followed on the former brute-age!

(_They ring-around-the-rosy._)

NOXUS PODUNKUS

(_Lifted to a sitting position by the Dizzards, tickled with feather-dusters, beaten with wind-bags and doused with ice-water until he opens his eyes._) What a sight!--A beautiful sight, I mean! My word! O never, my celebrated and associated Referendunces (_he turns to them_) have I seen so much beauty and virtue! Never! So much modesty! So much--much--everything! Really this is the worst--I mean best--I ever saw! This in itself is a complete refutation of that foul charge, once so common, that the world was in danger of not progressing. Look! Behold! O Progress, where is thy sting? (_He collapses, calling for souffle, but is bolstered up and ice-water poured over him._)

ONE HUNDRED EUGENIC MAIDS

(_In pink Mother Hubbards and green Quaker bonnets. Stepping forward and sinking on one knee, hands on their chins. They sing._)

It is our duty to attest
How by Eugenics we are blest!
O ’tis a wondrous art divine,
Which causes all the world to shine!

NOXUS PODUNKUS

(_Leaning over the railing and eying them closely._) Really! This is the limit--I mean almost too much--too much! Sweet maids! Dear sweet maids! This spectacle of the perfect fruitage of Progress under the great moral care of our forefathers--blessed be the name of the ever-to-be-remembered Anthony!--(_he bows, and the audience with him_)--is all but too much! Progress can do no more! I would, if any service which the mere sight of you does not render--could render--ask you the Twelfth and final Question, but what would be the use? How well we know the import of your message, even before you speak! How well we know the import of you yourselves--wonderful creatures that you are! (_They bow their heads._) This vast assemblage, which in itself is a testimony to the value of Eugenics, understands full well that by the practice of Eugenics alone all weakness, vice, crime, art, philosophy (_except that which our dear Union Astronomers and Federated Philosophers instinctively know and proclaim_), the need of white-slave laws, saloons, the theater--all, all have long since been done away with, so that we have now--the most of us, I am glad to say--not even so much as an historic memory of them. Indeed, as we all know, on this once most unsafe but now safest of planets (_applause lasting seventeen minutes_), men and women are now as safe and perfect and pure as ever our worthy forefathers could have dreamed of or desired. Why, to look at you alone is enough! (_He sighs and rests._)

Dear Eugenic citizens and citizenesses, without taxing you further with these deep and brain-racking questions, so sacred to us all of course, the one message of this great Court to you is to go and do as you have always done: think no more than is absolutely necessary. Don’t tax your brains. This, our great Federation of Commission-Ruled Republics, is here to do all that for you (_the Moonshees stir_). The less we know the better, as we all know. (_Long and loud applause lasting eighteen minutes._) In former and darker, and therefore sadder, times, there were many who thought differently. But they and all those who were a part of them have long since been disposed of. (_Long and uproarious applause._) And is not, I now ask you, the world happier, fairer, sweeter to the eye and the mind? (_Cries of “Hear! Hear!” and “Yea! Yea!” lasting two hours._) Now, dear Eugenic citizens, you need only consider how thoughtless you are and therefore how happy in these sweet exercises and games such as we see here to-day which contribute only to the sustenance, docility and fertility of man, to know how true all this is. Be thoughtless. Be happy. And by so being, as I always think, you contribute and testify to the efficiency of Truth, Virtue, Justice, Mercy, Sobriety, Love, Beauty, Simplicity, Peace--(_he collapses from sheer exhaustion._)--Souffle! Souffle! (_A bucket of souffle is brought and administered._)

THE ONE HUNDRED MAIDS

(_Wishing not to tire their noble Referendunces, singing in chorus._)

O, sweet Eugenic thought--to know
That our dear Noxus loves us so!

(_They fall back in the ranks._)

(_Enter fifteen thousand Descendant Sons and Daughters of Ancient and Honorable Anti-White Slavers of the pre-Federated Period_ (A. D. 1870-1927), _in green-and-white kilts and galligaskins, with perukes and billy-cocks on their heads. They march swiftly forward, an expression of grim determination--historically correct--on their faces, and pause before the Musnud. Over their left arms, after the fashion of the world’s great Anti-White-Slave Leaders and in accordance with historical descriptions of the same, hang immense mantles of dark green bed-ticking intended to shield naked fleeing white slaves. Over their shoulders are carried papier-maché broadaxes of the kind known to have been used by all Anti-White-Slavers, male and female, in felling the enemy. These they occasionally brandish as they walk. At their belts hang lanterns, files, skeleton keys, medicine kits containing concentrated food pills, digitalis and the like, all intended for the rescue and resuscitation of overcome white slaves. Their eyelids and mouths are painted a bright cerise to give a look of extra vigor and force, and as they walk, one hundred abreast, they peer to right and left in the most searching and secretive and yet detecting way from beneath their hands, and occasionally flash their dark lanterns on the surrounding spectators._)

SHISHMASH HASH HASH

(_Leaping up and cracking his heels nine times before descending._) Your Referendunces! Your Referendunces! We have here the only living Descendant Sons and Daughters of Ancient and Honorable American Anti-White Slavers--the organization which in its day gave rise--laid the foundation, as it were, of our present great and perfect World Federation, over which at present your Referendunces are so ably presiding. It claims to be the only existing organization that preserves in all their purity the customs, manners and instincts of the original pre-Federated Anti-White-Slavers of seven and eight centuries since. I beg of your Referendunces--I beg of you!--on this very special occasion--I know you are tired--Will your Referendunces be pleased to receive them? (_He runs swiftly around in a ring and falls over three extended feather-dusters. NOXUS PODUNKUS groans. The Moonshees moan._)

THE ONE HUNDRED ZANYS

(_Dancing on before them and rattling their wind-bags._) The Anti-White-Slavers! The Anti-White-Slavers! Look! Behold!

THE FIFTY DIZZARDS

(_Beating the Moonshees with feather-clubs and whistling between their teeth._) Awake! Awake! (_The Moonshees stir feebly and call for souffle. By the aid of a dozen gallons of ice-water_ NOXUS PODUNKUS _is once more aroused and now surveys the approaching procession, which marches about the arena and back to the Musnud._)

NOXUS PODUNKUS

(_Scratching his left ear and surveying the assembled throng._) What--more? Oh! Well, welcome, noble citizens! Welcome! I see by your brows that you possess the unconquerable love of Liberty, Virtue, Truth, Justice, Beauty, etc., so necessary to the happy maintenance of our present Federated condition. (_He collapses and more souffle is administered. Recovering._) Stick to it! What supreme comfort it must be to you and your exceedingly courageous ancestors to know that our very happy present condition is almost entirely due to them--their noble deeds of valor performed in order that we might become so--so--(_he coughs_). What supreme deeds would not you now, I am sure (_they brandish their battleaxes_) gladly perform were it not that fortunately all provocation had long since been done away with. (_Loud cheering. All the Nizys, Zanys, Hoddy-Doddys, etc., walk on their hands._) Night after night in the wilds of the great cities of those far-off centuries, now so happily past, did your forefathers fearlessly and tirelessly seek out the enslavers of resisting and lovely womanhood and battle to the death with those who would have corrupted our worthy sires--I mean siresses--Souffle!--(_he imbibes_)--performing astounding and now almost unbelievable feats of valor, felling the vile and rapacious enslaver to the plain and chopping him to bits, leaving us, their humble descendants, little if anything to do save revere and historically represent the marvels which they then performed. (_Immense and prolonged cheering. Eight thousand wireless messages are sent forth._) Literature, by their aid, as we all well know, has at last been completely done away with. (_Riotous applause._) Profane art in all its forms and all its seductive wiles has long since ceased. (_The audience shouts for one hour._) The vile newspapers of ancient days (_innumerable swells of booing and cat-calling_), wont to chronicle only the private and social vices of unregenerate man, now, thanks to the unremitting toil of those who had only the moral regeneration of the world in view, its true spiritual progress (_prolonged and enduring applause_), chronicle only the sweet messages of hope and cheer by which we sustain each other in our happy state--Souffle! Souffle! (_He dips his head in a pannier. The audience cheers for one hour._) Now we are not troubled with politics, armies, or any vile evidences of commercial strife and contest. (_More applause._) Nothing disturbs us in any way! Could we ask more? (_Cries of “Hear! Hear!”_) As I was saying to those dear creatures who just left, our beloved Eugenic citizens and citizenesses, we need now only concern ourselves with the simple arts of peace and pleasure as we here see manifest in this great assemblage. On you, therefore, more than on any other group which at this time could come before this august Court to testify to the Truth, Peace, Virtue, Sequacity and Docility of our present world-realm, devolves, as lineal descendants of these our great sires, the sweet task of keeping bright the memory of their great deeds. I am sure that you, my dears and dearesses, by maintaining so earnest a stand against all thought of any kind, by persisting in your aversion to moral heresies of all sorts and indeed learning and science in every form, and by your persistent and industrious mutilation and destruction of all profane facts, so long the curse of society (_loud cries of “Down with all facts!”_), will succeed--I know you will!--in keeping the world as fresh and pure and innocent as on the day it was made. (_Cries of “Yes, yes,” and “we will, we will.” Applause for one hour._) Souffle! Souffle! (_He is fed._)--Cruel, disturbing thought, that one great curse of humanity in its earlier ages must never be allowed to trouble us again. (_Immense applause._) And since, by what processes of hardy non-thinking only our revered ancestors know, profound peace has at last been reached, I caution you, O my fellow-citizens, let not a single irritating disturbing fact ever again impinge upon the sweet idealism and mental slumber which now reigns. Behold our happy Dizzards! (_They wiggle their stuffed clubs._) Could any of the so-called and boasted mental processes of former ages have produced them? (_They walk on their hands._) And our dear Zanys! (_They rattle their wind-bags._) What would our great peaceful Federation be without them? (_They beat each other over the head._) Or our graceful Nizys! (_They take up wash-boilers of souffle and ladle it right and left solemnly._) The gentility and wholeheartedness of their service! (_They playfully pelt each other with cones filled with souffle._) Or our kindly Hoddy-Doddys! (_They vault._) What more could humanity desire in the shape of perfect and helpful men? (_They leap on each other’s backs and fall gracefully to the floor._) When I contemplate these, and this great audience (_profound applause lasting seventeen minutes_), and these our assembled cohorts of Virtue, Truth, Justice, Mercy (_more applause, lasting one hour_), come here from all parts of the known world to testify to the great fundamental truths which have made them so, I--(_At this point the great audience rises en masse and cheers for one hour, seventeen and one-half minutes and thirteen seconds. Rival groups of Descendant Sons and Daughters of Ancient and Honorable Anti-White-Slavers, Anti-Vivisectionists, Anti-Contraceptionists, Billysundays, Eugenic Sires, Anti-Saloon Leaguers, Watch and Ward Guards, King’s Daughters, Free and Accepted Boy Scouts, etc., rush forward and seize upon the cages containing the only remaining specimens of Gambler, Saloon-keeper, Predatory Financier, Philosopher, Magdalen, Vivisectionist, Madam, Nietzschean and other early examples of now nearly or quite extinct miscreants or papier-maché representations of the same, and haul them before the Musnud amid the cheering, hee-hawing, cat-calling of the audience. The Zanys, Nizys, Dizzards, Loobies, Hoddy-Doddys, Gaberlunzies and Fuddys, forgetting their regular duties, spin, squeal, play at leap-frog, beat each other with feather-dusters and wind-bags. Various regiments of Descendant Sons and Daughters of Ancient and Honorable Feminists, Professors of Christian Economy, Prohibitionists, Socialists, etc., who have not yet had the privilege of parading and testifying before the Musnud, crowd the entryways, swarm the aisles and so obstruct the peaceful and orderly development of the proceedings of the Court that, in view of this and because ordinarily the proceedings consume from twenty to thirty days anyhow, so great is the anxiety of all to testify to the magnificent progress of the world since vice and crime have been done away with_, NOXUS PODUNKUS, _now thoroughly awake and after due counsel with the ninety-nine other Moonshees, Savants, Roctor-Proctors, Pundits, Theorists, Zadkiels, Seers, Oracles, Solons, Nestors, Gamaliels, Daniels, etc., also disturbed in their slumbers, decides that, all things considered, and notwithstanding, it were as well if the taking of testimony were to be discontinued for this day, and to this end, after various signs, grunts, squeals, motions to the Zanys, Dizzards, Nizys, Loobies, Hoddy-Doddys, Gaberlunzies, Fuddys, etc., the latter are brought to their senses and through them the audience calmed._)

(_It was then that_ NOXUS PODUNKUS, _speaking for the Musnud, announced that the proceedings for this day were hereby ended and that the Court stood adjourned until the following morning at ten o’clock; after which SHISHMASH_ HASH HASH, _as Master of Ceremonies, Chairmaster, etc., led the outgoing throng with a magnificent example of rotary hand-spring motion. At this point, also, owing to lack of space and by reason of the fact that enough is as good as a feast, the humble recording Dramatist quits and the curtain is hereby drawn on this historic scene. For those, however, who desire a fuller report of the same, it may be found in Volumes MMCCCIII, MMMMMMMMCCCLLVI, Proceedings of the Federated Court of Progress [Moline-Emporia-Sedalia Sittings] for the years 3913-’14-’15_, NOXUS PODUNKUS _presiding_; SHISHMASH HASH HASH, _Secretary and Master of Ceremonies._)

Curtain.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] J. C. Vogt: “The Nature of Electricity and Magnetism on the Basis of a Simplified Conception of Substance.”