Mouseville issue 2: A
brief history of Mouseville and a reassurance for the reader wishing to visit
this extraordinary place. The Universal Rights of Mouseville and All of
Those in It, adopted in the year 1864, says
in clause 1 (indeed the first clause!) “Thou shall not eat thy neighbour.” Indeed, if you want to do business you
should not be eating your customers, and certainly not at first sight!
It is useful and illuminating, dear
reader, now that you have met Scary and Flashy Mouse, to get to know the place
they live in and the kind of society they have.
Mouseville was not founded by a
mouse, as you might perhaps think. Neither is Mouseville only for mice. The
founding father of Mouseville was Moose de Villiers. Moose, sometimes called
elks, belong to the deer family and are amongst its largest members, like the reindeer
or eland. Moose de Villiers was a traveller, explorer and writer. His most
famous book is titled “The Moose Who Came in out of the Cold.” In this classic
he describes his daring trek from the North American polar region via the
Bering street all the way to Scandinavia and then down south to Faunia and its
temperate climate. “I hated the cold,” he says in this book, “and simply was
looking for warmer pastures.”
Moose, as far as moose go, was small.
His friends teasingly called him Moose the Mouse, or just Mouse, and his estate
came to be known as Mouseville. It is the old heart of modern Mouseville. The
manor now is the city hall; part of its former moat is The Great Pond; and Animal
Park once was the meadow where Moose liked to walk about and do his grazing.
The inhabitants of Mouseville are
known as Mousevilliers, or, briefly, Villiers. They do not like it if you
pronounce Villiers as villeers. Say
something like “viljay”, pronouncing
the “j” as in yoyo, and you’ll be good buddies with them.
Mouseville is located at the junction
of the Great North Road and the Great East Road. The settlement developed into
a bustling trading centre. Its most prominent inhabitants are a dozen old merchant
families. The Mousevilliers, because of the trading business, had learned to
deal with animals of all sorts. Mouseville had gained a reputation in Greater Faunia for tolerance and
inter-animal-peaceful-coexistence. The latter had not come easy. Put a cat next
to a mouse and the cat naturally shall say: “Hi, good to see you for
breakfast,” and not “Good morning brother mouse, let the day bring many
blessings to you, your family and a long life.” Cats tend to shorten the life
of a mouse. On the other hand, if you want to do business you should not be
eating your customers, and certainly not at first sight. Some animals, despite
all the emphasis on animal pluralism – as this thing of living together of all
sorts of animal species sometimes is called - are out of bounds in Mouseville
and Mouseville county. All the big cats are out. The business of putting a
lion next to a sheep did not work in Mouseville, as far as the sheep was
concerned. Same with the big sharks. There is no way a shark can say no to the
carps that rightly made The Great Pond of Animal Park a major tourist
attraction. Same problem with crocodiles. Elephants, rhino’s and hippo’s
require special permits – they simply do not fit in the Mouseville scale of
things. All these animals, by the Mousevilliers, are considered Wild Life, and should spend their time
in appropriate territories.
The adoption of The Universal Rights of Mouseville and All of Those in It of 1864 is
a milestone in the history of Mouseville. It is both declaration and legislation;
and made the consumption of one Mouseville citizen by another a crime. The profound
preamble of the Universal Rights became world famous. “Animal is born free, and
everywhere he lives in fear and fetters. One animal thinks himself the master
of others, but remains more of a slave than they are.” In the same year Vivere et Vivera, “Live and let Live,”
became the motto of Mouseville county.
Animal Park, usually just called The
Park, is a favourite place for the Mousevilliers to relax and socialise. In
the middle of The Great Pond, usually just called The Pond, is a tiny island
and on that island is the famous statue of Moose de Villiers. It had been
constructed by the great Rodin who, in this fine piece of marble, presents Moose
having a Janus head: one head facing north where his origins lay; the other
head facing south where his desires had been.
The Park has two fine restaurant/snack
bars. One is Hank’s Fish & Dish,
the other Hubert’s Cheese Palace. Needles to say that cats prefer the Fish
& Dish, and mice the Cheese Palace. Both eating places are at opposite
sides of The Pond, and that made very good sense, just in case cats would
forget The Declaration of the Universal
Rights of Mouseville and All of Those in It; and especially the clause that
says: “Thou shall not eat thy neighbour.”
This famous clause, which sets
Mouseville apart from life in the wild, and indeed is the foundation of its
civilisation, did have a curious effect on the social geography of the town.
Cats, for example, do not live next to mice. Cats, and in particular its mean
members (of which Ugly Black Cat or UBC is the meanest), would wink at each
other and whisper: “Mice are not my neighbours!” Ignoring, of course, clause 2
of the same very Universal Rights which says: “Al creatures of Mouseville are
thy neighbours and thou shall respect them.”
* * *
In the next episode you’ll see a horrifying
example that shows how thin the artificial skin of civilisation can be.
Fortunately, dear reader, the same story also shows that, in the end, Good
prevails over Bad; or should I say Uglyness?
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