Alice in Blunderland: An Iridescent Dream

								

understand it. Why should people buy water when they can get it for
nothing in the ocean?"
"You're like all the rest," groaned the Hatter. "Nobody seems to
understand but me, and somehow or other I can't make it clear to other
people."
"You might if you didn't talk through your hat," grinned the Cheshire
Cat.
"Then I'd have to stop being a public character," said the Hatter. "I'm
not going to sacrifice my career just because you're too ignorant to see
what I'm driving at. I don't mind telling you though, Alice, that
outside of poetry a Copperation is a Creature devised by Selfish
Interests to secure the Free Coinage of the Atlantic Ocean."


"Little drops of water,

    Plenty of hot air,
Make a Copperation

    A pretty fat affair,"
warbled the March Hare.
"O well," said Alice, "what about it? Suppose there is such an animal
around. What are we going to do about it?"
"We're going to gerraple with it," said the Hatter, with a valiant shake
of his hat. "We're going to grab it by its throat, and shake it down,
and shackle it so that in forty years it will become as tame as a fly
or any other highly domesticated animal."
"But how?" asked Alice. "You aren't going to do this yourself, are you?
Single handed and alone?"
"Yes," said the Hatter. "The March Hare and the White Knight and I.
We've started a city to do it with. We've sprinkled our streets with
Rough on Copperations until there isn't one left in the place.
Everything in town belongs to the People--street cars, gutters,
pavements, theatres, electric light, cabs, manicures, dogs, cats, canary
birds, hotels, barber shops, candy stores, hats, umbrellas, bakeries,
cakeries, steakeries, shops,--you can't think of a thing that the city
don't own. No more private ownership of anything from a toothbrush to a
yacht, and the result is we are all happy."
"It sounds fine," said Alice. "Though I think I should rather own my own
toothbrush."
"You naturally would under the old system," assented the Hatter. "Under
a system of private ownership owning your own teeth you'd prefer to own
your own toothbrush, but our Council has just passed a law making teeth
public property. You see we found that some people had teeth and other
people hadn't, which is hardly a fair condition under a Republican form
of Government. It gave one class of citizens a distinct advantage over
other people and the Declaration of Independence demands absolute
equality for all. One man owning his own teeth could eat all the hickory
nuts he wanted just because he had teeth to crack 'em with, while
another man not having teeth had either to swallow em whole, which
ruined his digestion, or go without, which wasn't fair.
"I see," said Alice.
"So it occurred to Mr. Alderman March Hare here," continued the Hatter,
"that we should legislate in the matter, and at our last session we
passed a law providing for the Municipal Ownership of Teeth, so that now