"They can get off and walk," said the Hatter. "And it's a great deal less dangerous getting off a train that doesn't move than off one that does."

"I can see that," said. Alice. "That weasel, for instance, would have been badly hurt if he had been thrown through the window of a moving car."

"That's it exactly," said the Hatter. "As Alderman March Hare puts it, we M. O. people are after the comfort and safety of the people first, last and all the time. Everything else is a tertiary consideration merely."

"What's tertiary?" asked Alice.

"Third," said the Hatter. "To come in third. It's a combination of turtle and dromedary."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "REQUESTED THE HATTER TO CRACK A FILBERT FOR HIM"]

Just at this moment a man walking through the car stopped and requested the Hatter to crack a filbert for him, which the Hatter cheerfully did.

The pa.s.ser-by thanked him and paid him a cent, which the Hatter immediately rang up on a small cash register on his vest, as required by the laws of Blunderland.

"That's the way the Munic.i.p.al Ownership of Teeth works," said the Hatter as the man pa.s.sed on, and then he resumed. "This street railway business, however, was a much harder proposition than the Munic.i.p.al Ownership of Teeth. When we took the railways over of course we had to run 'em on the old system until we'd learned the business. The first thing we did was to get educated men for Motormen and Conductors--polite fellows, you know, who'd stop a car when you asked 'em to, and when they started wouldn't do it with such a jerk that in nine cases out of ten it was only the back door that kept the car from being yanked clean from under your feet, letting you land in the street behind."

"I know," said Alice. "Like a game of snap the whip."

"Exactly," said the Hatter. "Under the old method of starting a car you never knew, when you were going home nights, whether you'd land in the bosom of your family or in a basket of eggs somebody was bringing home from market. So we advertised for polite motormen and conductors, and we got a great lot of them, mostly retired druggists, floor-walkers, poets and fellows like that, with a few ex-politicians thrown in to give tone to the service, and we put them on, but they didn't know anything about motoring, unfortunately. Somehow or other good manners and expert motoring didn't seem to go together, and in consequence we had a fearful lot of collisions at first. I don't think there was a whole back platform in the outfit at the end of the week, no matter which way the car was going."

"Must have been awful," said Alice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "BANGED INTO THE CAR AHEAD"]

"It was," said the Hatter, "and the public began to complain. One man who got his nose pinched between two cars sued us for damages and we had to return his fare. Finally one day one of the old bobtail cars got running away, and the first we knew it banged into the car ahead and went right through it, coming out in front still going like mad after the next car, and we knew something had to be done."

"Mercy!" cried Alice. "I should think the pa.s.sengers in the first car would have sued you for that."

"They would have," said the Hatter, "if they could have sc.r.a.ped enough of themselves together again to appear in court."

"It was a hard problem," said the March Hare.

"The hardest ever," a.s.serted the Hatter. "But the White Knight there gave me a clue to the solution--he's our Copperation Council--and I put it up to him for an opinion, and after thinking it over for two months he reported. The only way to prevent collisions, said he, is to cut the ends off the cars. That was it, wasn't it, Judge?" he added, turning to the White Knight.

"Yes," said the Knight, "only I put it in poetry. My precise words were

"The only way that I can find To stop this car colliding stunt Is cutting off the end behind And likewise that in front."

"Splendid!" cried Alice, clapping her hands in glee. "That's fine."

"Thank you," said the White Knight. "You see, Miss Alice, I made a personal study of collisions. The Mayor here ordered a fresh one every day for me to investigate, and I noticed that whenever two cars bunked into each other it was always at the ends and never in the middle. The conclusion was inevitable. The ends being the venerable spot, abolish them.

"A very careful and conscientious public servant," whispered the March Hare aside to Alice. "When we have Munic.i.p.al Ownership of the Federal Government we're going to put him on the Supreme Court Bench. He means vulnerable when he says venerable, but you mustn't mind that. When we have Munic.i.p.al Ownership of the English Language we'll make the words mean what we want 'em to."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE CHIEF ENGINEER"]

"Then of course the question arose as to how we could do this," said the Hatter. "I got the Chief Engineer of our Department of Public Works to make some experiments, and would you believe it, when we cut the ends on the cars, there were still other ends left? No matter how far we clipped 'em, it was the same. It's a curious scientific fact that you can't cut off the end of anything and leave it endless. We tried it with a lot of things--cars, lengths of hose, coils of wire, rope--everything we could think of--always with the same result. Ends were endless, but nothing else was. As a matter of fact they multiplied on us. One car that had two ends when we began was cut in the middle, and then was found to have four ends instead of two."

"That's so, isn't it!" cried Alice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT CAME TO ME LIKE A FLASH"]

"It unquestionably is," said the Hatter, "and we were at our wits' ends until one night it came to me like a flash. I had gone to bed on a Park Bench, according to my custom of using nothing that is not owned by the city, for I am very serious about this thing, when just as I was dozing on the whole scheme unfolded itself. Build a circular car, of course.

One big enough to go all around the city. That would solve so many problems. With only one car, there'd be no car ahead, which always irritates people who miss it and then have to take it later. With only one car, there could be no collisions. With only one car we could get along with only one motorman and one conductor at a time, thus giving the others time to go to dancing school and learn good manners. With only one car, and that a permanent fixture, n.o.body could miss it. If it didn't move we could economise on motive power, and even bounce the motorman without injury to the service, if he should happen to be impudent to the Board of Aldermen; n.o.body would be run over by it; n.o.body would be injured getting on and off; it wouldn't make any difference if the motorman didn't see the pa.s.senger who wanted to get aboard. Being circular there'd always be room enough to go around, and there'd be no front or back platform for the people to stand on or get thrown off of going round the curves. The expenses of keeping up the roadbed would be nothing, because, being motionless, the car wouldn't jolt even if it ran over a thank-you-marm a mile high, and best of all, a circular car has no ends to collide with other ends, which makes it absolutely safe. I never heard of a car colliding with itself, did you?"

"No, I never did," replied Alice.

"Nor I neither," said the March Hare. "I don't think it ever happened, and therefore I reason that it ain't going to happen."

"And how do the people like it?" asked Alice.

"O, they're getting to like it," replied the Hatter. "At first they didn't want to ride on the thing at all. They said what you did, that they didn't seem to be getting anywhere, and they hated to walk home, but after awhile we proved to them that walking was a very healthful exercise, and on rainy nights they found the covered car a good deal of a convenience, especially when under the old system of private ownership of umbrellas they had left their b.u.mbershoots at home. Once or twice they lost their tempers and sa.s.sed the conductor, but he put them in jail for lazy majesty--a German disease that we have imported for the purpose. As an officer of the Government the conductor has a right to arrest anybody who sa.s.ses him as guilty of sedition, and a night or two in jail takes the fun out of that."

"Have you had any elections since you established it?" asked Alice, whose father had once run for Mayor, and who therefore knew something about politics.

"No," said the Hatter with an easy laugh. "But we will have one in the spring. We shall be reelected all right."

"How do you know?" asked Alice. "If the people don't like Munic.i.p.al Ownership----"

"O, but they do," said the March Hare. "You see, Miss Alice, we have employed a safe majority of the voters in the various Departments of our M. O. system, their terms expiring coincidentally with our own--so if they vote against us they vote against themselves. It really makes Munic.i.p.al Ownership self-perpetrating."

"He means perpetuating," whispered the March Hare.

"Ah," said Alice. "I see."

Just then a heavy gong like a huge fire alarm sounded and all the pa.s.sengers sprang to their feet and made for the doors.

"What's that?" cried Alice, timidly, as she rose up hurriedly with all the rest.

"Don't be alarmed. It's only the signal that our time is up," said the Hatter. "We must get out now and make room for others who may wish to use the cars. n.o.body can monopolise anything under our system. I will now take you to see our Gas and Hot Air Plant. It is one of the seven wonders of the world."

And the little party descended into the street.

CHAPTER III

THE AROMATIC GAS PLANT

After the little party had descended from the marvellous trolley, concerning which the March Hare observed, most properly, that under private ownership nothing so safe and sane would ever have been thought of, they walked along a beautiful highway, bordered with rosebushes, oleanders and geraniums, until they came to a lovely little park at the entrance to which was a huge sign announcing that within was

THE BLUNDERLAND GAS PLANT.

To tell the truth Alice had not cared particularly to visit the Gas Works, because she had once been driven through what was known at home as the Gas-House district on her way to the ferry, and her recollections of it were not altogether pleasant. As she recalled it it was in a rather squalid neighbourhood, and the odours emanating from it were not pleasing to what she called her "oil-factories." But here in Blunderland all was different. Instead of the huge ugly retorts rising up out of the ground, surrounded by a quality of air that one could not breathe with comfort, was as beautiful a garden as anyone could wish to wander through, and at its centre there stood a retort, but not one that looked like a great iron skull cap painted red. On the contrary the Munic.i.p.ally Owned retort had architecturally all the cla.s.sic beauty of a Carnegie Library.

"We call it the Retort Courteous," said the Hatter pridefully as he gazed at the structure, and smiled happily as he noted Alice's very evident admiration for it. "You see, in urban affairs, as a mere matter of fitness, we believe in cultivating urbanity, my child, and in consequence everything we do is conceived in a spirit of courtesy. The gas-houses under private ownership have not been what you would call polite. They were almost invariably heavy, rude, staring structures that reared themselves offensively in the public eye, and our first effort was to subliminate----"