Chapter XVIII (Virtus And Victuals) (Virtus And Victuals). Virtus And Victuals. - The Conductometer. - Terrible Fate Of Those Who Teach Unrevealed Religion And Blasphemously Attempt To Save Bodies Rather Than Souls.

IN spite, however, of the efforts of the mighty crowd of Vice Suppressors, Sin Killers, and Depravity Squelchers, putters down of this, that and t'other, and preventers of t'other, that and this, the depravity of the dogs went on increasing. The poor dogs were harassed on all sides and suffered a grand battue, but the Church and the salaried barkers on whose behalf the battue was undertaken, bagged very little of the game; hundreds slipped through the well organized ranks of the beaters and clubbers and got themselves away to out-of-the-way holes and corners where they perversely went down and down and down in the depths of depravityThey had grown utterly disheartened in the everlasting and ferocious struggle for a living; and in spite of the good missionaries who told them they must walk in the Fear of God, they grew feckless and said the Fear of God fills no bellies, that the Fear of God was all very well when you had a good pile of good victuals laid by in the kennel, but when you hadn't, the Fear of Hunger was the only Fear it was incumbent upon a poor dog to fear.

The good missionaries were much shocked, of course, with such manifestation of disregard for what they called " higher things" and begged of them to read the little tract called the "Way of Life," but these depraved dogs did grievously and irreligiously retort that Victuals was the only "Way of Life" they cared for, and did turn their tails and depart, and they were no more heard of in Good Society.

But there were divers perverse dogs that would neither 'walk in the "Way of Life" and the "Fear of God," nor go down in the depths of depravity. By the merest good luck they managed to feed fairly well, and this, they said, was the only reason why they did not become as depraved as their fellow dogs.

These were very philosophical dogs in their way. They boldly declared that the foundation and nine tenths of the superstructure of all the virtue and good conduct in the - world is plenty of good honest victuals; and that that particular form of irregular conduct in dogs called Crime is neither vice nor wickedness, necessarily, but is, mostly, Nature's blind and instinctive rebellion and protest against the deprivation, by Law, of victuals and other natural rights. Therefore, said they, as the conduct called Crime is the direct creation and result of Law, it is very funny that the Law should disown and declare it illegal.

These philosophical dogs had constructed what they called a Conductometer, by which they illustrated the working of their theory.

This was an ordinary living dog whose stomach had been made visible through the said dog having accidentally, one day, got in line with a thing called a "gun " in the hands of an animal of the human species called a "Sport," who had "touched it off" just for fun, and blown a hole in the poor dog's ribs.

This dog these philosophers found writhing in pain; and they dragged him away and hid him to nurse and heal him.

And one said, "Why not utilize this Providential Opening through which to scientifically observe the relationship between Victuals and Virtue, about which there is so much dispute nowadays? "

And the proposition seemed good unto them; and it was so, that they stretched over the aperture a transparent membrane, 6n which they marked a graduated scale whose zero was located at half fairness of the stomach; and the; called the instrument a "Conductometer."

Into this stomach they injected, by means of a funnel, a specially prepared, nutritious food, and by means of the scale they observed the relationship of the dog's behavior to the food in his stomach.

Now, it was observed that when the quantity of his food was at the zero line, he was just an ordinary dog, with just ordinary moral ideas; but for every degree above zero he improved, and for every degree below he deteriorated.

When they injected two or three above-zero degrees of food into him, his eye brightened, and bis moral perceptions grew more acute. At this point they asked him, "What is thine opinion of the Commandment' Thou Shalt not Steal?' "

And he replied "It is an excellent one ; no dog ought to steal."

Then they filled him up one or two more degrees, and asked him the same question. " It is shocking to steal," said he, "and the dog that does not know the difference between meum and tuum ought to be made to know it with a club."

FULL.

Then they filled him full up. And a glow of most beautiful intelligence came into his eye; a most reposeful calm came over his frame; a heavenly peace overspread his countenance, and he displayed a decided propensity to piety, and an irresistible tendency to hold forth like a fat-salaried barker, on the virtue of Contentment with one's earthly lot, Trust in God and the beauties of Law and Order. "What now is thine opinion of the Commandment? " they asked.

"Oh, the unutterable wickedness of Theft and Crime,11 he replied, "it is abominable; it is damnable; no law can be too stringent and severe against it; and any one guilty of breaking the Law ought to be hanged, drawn and quartered, and fed to the beasts of the field and the buzzards and vultures of the air as a prey and as a warning to others. Oh! The very contemplation of Crime makes me shudder; do, oh do, change the painful subject;" and a strong spasm of pain thrilled his frame from nose to tail. But when they allowed his supply of stomach furniture to run low, the glow of most beautiful intelligence went out of his eye, the most reposeful calm came off his frame, the heavenly peace went off his countenance, and the propensity to hold forth, like a fat-salaried barker, on Contentment and Trust in God, left him.

EMPTY.

And when his supply registered one degree below zero, they asked him "What is thine opinion of the Commandment 'Thou Shalt not Steal ?'"

And he replied, absent-mindedly, "Steal? Steal? Well; it is not right - to be caught at it"

But as it fell lower and lower, the dimness of his moral vision increased, until at the lowest - the starvation point - his eyes glared and bulged with a ferocious insanity; and when asked then, "Is it wrong to steal? What is the difference between meum and tuum he viciously cursed and snarled and snapped at his questioners, and replied that he did not comprehend their idiotic jargon, he wanted something to eat.

All which, these philosophers said, demonstrated that Vice, Crime and Sin (so-called) are merely symptoms of Want and Poverty, and vacuity of the alimentary canal; and they boldly asserted that a good sound Gospel of Comfort and Plenty, earnestly preached would do more in five minutes to cleanse the earth of sin and fill it with righteousness, than all the barkings of all the salaried barkers, and all the sin suppressing machinery of clubs and ropes in the world would do in five thousand years.

And when these words came to the ears of the salaried barkers and the Sin Suppressors they were greatly scandalized, and said they had never heard such blasphemous and ungospel talk. It was actually bringing into contempt the sacred machinery of vice squelching, which had been incorporated by the State, hallowed by the Church, and had grown through long years and by the expenditure of great wealth and invention, to the proportions of a National Institution, and a great Vested Interest. It was actually insinuating, most wickedly, that there was a short, simple and direct way of attaining an object, which was a gross insult to the memory of the heaven-anointed Clubstocks, Elder Berrys, Blatherskites and other sanctified ones whose genius had invented the present elaborately involuted, convoluted, conglomerated and roundabout way of getting at it. But, above all, it was a direct blow at the livelihood of thousands of good and moral dogs who were given, employment, at good feed, to operate the machinery, who would, if this new-fangled and highly irreligious Gospel of Victuals were adopted, be thrown completely - yes, completely, brethren - out of work.

So the Vice Squelchers and the barkers and the eminent fleas had some of these new gospellers arrested; and they set certain lewd Dogs of Belial to witness against them that they had blasphemed Religion, and had plotted a great plot to kill off the fleas, and inaugurate an awful Society and Civilization of Flea-less Dogs.

Then the judges ordered horns and hoofs and spiked tails and dragons' teeth to be fitted upon them, and that they be brought before the multitude; in whose sight they painted them blacker than hell, and told the mob that these dogs were dragons and devils. Whereupon the deceived and enraged multitude did set up a great cry " Hang them! Hang them! Hang them!"

So they were delivered over to the police dogs, who carried them away and hanged them.

Thus were they suppressed.