A DREAM OF FLY TREATMENT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9131, 2 July 1908, Page 6

A DREAM OF FLY TREATMENT.

A LONG, LONG SLEEP,

' CURIOUS AND THRILLING EXPERIENCES. (By Frank Morton.) I have '.old you of my experiment v*'th a fly and an inkpot—well, this is what followed. That night I went to sleep with the escaped fly still heavy on my mind; and when I go 4 ; 10 sleep I dreamed a dream. 1 dreamt that on a day 1 was wandering aimlessly along Lambton Quay, when a large policeman stopped me and said that 1 also had been selected. I said that I was a simple Christian citizen, and he'd better be careful. I lied wickedly, swearing that I had influential friends who would pledge their honour on my innocence of no matter what. The policeman smiled a pained smile, and assured me that I quite misunderstood him. If I'd come along, I should be sorry that I had ever misunderstood him so. Being a reasonable man and a perfect hater of all misunderstanding, I went gaily along. He took me in a cab out to Karori, where a siied tuul been erected on a sunny hill. In the shed there was a great iron tank brimming with honest 'Burgundy. Only a little piece at one end was left open, and on the exposed flap there was inscribed the legend "Open ■ carefully at this end, as directed." I desired to know wny this waa thus. A portly gentleman in a gown'and a grey beard said that I was chosen as part of the nation's gift to posterity. ]He said that when the tank waa opened it might be necessary that one of the inmates should have an, ingenious gift of fiction. He said that my family would be lavishly provided for. He assured me that I was just the man for the vacancy. I asked who else waß going, and he told me that there would be, in addition to him and me, Sir Joseph Ward, Mr Massey, Mr Barclay, of Dunedin, the Sandow Girls, Mr Lionel Terry, Mr McLachlan, Mr Alfred Hill, Mr Baeyertz, of New York, Mr Webb, of Wanganui, and the Parliamentary Librarian. I was full of objections. I said that if this was merely a dodge to get rid of Lionel Terry, I could not possibly lend myself to U. He (with the grey beard) said that my suspicions hurt him. We were all chosen for our shining separate qualities, and Mr Terry was Included as the unique criminal of his time. I asked what would happen if we swallowed the wine. He said that there were three hogsheads provided from which the tank would be replenished before it was sealed for posterity. Well, I could not refuse to oblige the nation in a little thing like that, so I withdrew my opposition. He said we were^to—er—leave at noon There was some delay, because Sir Joseph arrived, all smiles and apologies, full forty minutes late. Then we shook hands

all round, took a last lingering look , at the earth our benign mother and the sun our noble sire, and went smiling down into the tank/' The sensation was not' unpleasant, though I had some little difficulty in finding the place I wanted. But I succeeded, and just as I was wondering if they had broached the hogsheads of replenishment, I dozed off. I had a long sensation as of a purple evening lit by distant fires. I heard a carolling of strange anthems in the dark. Then I sank softly into the enfolding vague. The next I remember/is lying on a purple cushion in a place all radiant with white marble, all glorious with the sun. There were a lot of what I took to be people standing round us '(for we were all there); we were all clad in shining robes; and at the otitset I felt some embarrassment because I missed my trousers. It seerneJ, too, that our hair had grown in the tank. Sir Joseph's rippled about his loins, Mr McLachlan's was a spreading halo, Mr Terry's was a golden fleece, and even-1 had a posij tive topknot. The things that seemed to be people were very queer and i interesting. They were all exactly alike. They had next to no hair. Their eyes were large and pale and prominent. Their loose cold mouths were toothless and not nice. They had enormous foreheads, but their arms were mere antennae, and their legs had shrunk to spindles. They had feet like frogs. I knew this

because, although they had shimmering robes like ours, when they moved (lopping like rabbits) they picked up their trailers for We who had come out of the tank stood in a row, wondering what we'd fallen on. Then one of the things stepped gently up to me, and cleared his throat (a husky, attenuated sound), nourishing an address inscribed on a scroll. I waved him away, pointing to Sir Joseph and Mr Baeyertz; but the creature had no perception, and went placidly on. His voice was like the whispering of wind among dead leaves. His fishy eye was unlit by any generous emotion. He reminded me of an overgrown grass-

hopper. "My lord," he wheezed ( I blushing most divinely), "and men of ancient earth! 0, errors made excellent in beauty and in strength!" (Mr Baeyertz fingered his hyacinthine beard.) "As it was written and directed from old time, so have we

cneneci the casket of your sojourning, h"s day of your half-forgotten ret k >n iug Nineteen July, Three Thousand and Eight, those our eyes of the last perfection do homage to youi ancient comeliness and gravity!" (He of the grey beard, now grown to twice the bear] of Moses, made a modest bow.) li ln this land where ye did aforetime labour and grow weary, wj welcome you to our life made perfect in mshrouding peace! Ye who sowed the seeds of democracy shall enjoy the freedom of our settled institutions! Ye who governed the people by the sole dictate of tne majority of the people, shall rejoice in our system of the absolute government of "e»'erbyody by everybody uise! I am fatigued with this much speaking.- 1 shall rest me for a s{kce. Will the musicians ba graciously pleased to make melody?" I wjaited for the next act o.' the c : rc«a!with some misgivings. About thirty'of the things stepped out in a did.ir.erly rout to the front. They carried instruments of amazing shapes. They put too weird things to their mouths, and each raised his right flipper. 1 3nrank instinctively, for I suddenly realised that every musician was the conductor of the band. The din commenced. I never heard anything worse from a gramo-

phone. There was neither time nor tune. Occasionally, one thing would stop the crowd while he put in a wild cadenza of his own imagining. The cadenzas were beautiful in a way. and executed with such perfection as we had barely dreamt of; but the soloist never got through, because some other thing would break in at the sweetest moment and start the general night mare, 'thus when one of them was in the middle of an exquisite solo on a sort of celestial flageolet, the orator stopped him and continued to read from the scroll. "0, ve who first in this essay the glorious liberty of prohibition, delight now in the freedom of each to prohibit to all whatever he desires not! Ye shall rejoice with us that the things permitted are so few! oye that come to us as g'a legacy from the lost days of striving, count it ycur glory that no creature strives more! We bid you welcome!" He made a sort of bow, and with characteristic modesty Mr Barclay stepped forth to respond for our crowd. He said that from'down the dim vista of the centuries there came to him memories of the brave days of old. He realised that this was the proudest moment of his life. He had sown the seed and (if be might say so) tilled it with sweat from his brow from—er—from morn till dewy eve. And now he saw the harvest of his labours. In the perfect liberty of each made absolute in the,—er—perfect agreement of all there was, he might say; the true essence, the fine flower, the absolute embodiment, of the high dream of all < the great reformers whom he had led and with whom he had co-operated, as he said just now, to bring about, to produce as it were, perfect units cohering but distinct in a perfect society for _er—the good, so to pseak, of posterity and the race. (The things rustled their robes.) He saw before him a world free of care and strife, a world with no industrial problems, a world cleansr;d of its ancients evils. He looked round on that noble archiI tecture—and he could honestly say that he had seen nothing finer, even in Dunedin—he looked round on that noble architecture, and.on those beau —and on those sympathising faces, and he felt that he was come to the true flowering of democracy. He saw already in his mind's eye, if he might say so,, the perfectly ordered homes, tlw homes made happy by children's tinkling feet. He would, I dare say, have said much more; but ' at this point a thing apparently female raised her claws and stopped him. In a voice wispier and waspier than that of the orator, she explained. There were no children. As somebody always objected to any proposed marriage, marriage was virtually a thing prohibited. Sin, of course, was strictly prohibited. There were no children. The sexes only met on the plane of citizenship. As they had banished disease and carried scientific research far in all directions, they had become, if not immortal, exceedingly long-lived. But with them > should the nation die. They would not conform to the views and vices of outlandish parts. None dare invade them. Women knew men. Men were utterly contemptible creatures. The sexes did not come into touch. Women only spoke to men when there was something to prohibit. Men only spoke to women when there was a lie to be told or a right to be denied. The man of old time was in error. There was no individual liberty, apart from the right of every individual to prohibit. Individual liberty was vile. It brought sin into the world. It made men hogs and women victims. Let the men of old time know that if they thought to indulge their private desires and propensities in this new wcrld they were feeding their hopes on folly. The eyes of the women would be upon them The lady of the dream was going on in this highly disagreeable strain when I woke. I was never in my life before so glad to be back from an excursion. The sinless felicity of the year 3008 was beginning to stale on me.