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CHAPTEE XII. 



A MONOGRAPH OF THE MONKEY TKI13E BUSY APE 

 MEDDLING MONKEY. 



SOMEBODY has somewhere said that Monkeys were sent Into the 

 world to correct the follies of men. Exception may be taken to 

 the notion, perhaps, but a great deal may be said in its favour. 

 Our hairy friends are certainly great adepts at all sorts of 

 mimicry, and caricature many of the foibles, failings, and petty 

 villanies of the lords of creation to perfection. We have lately 

 been observing their ways in our favourite haunt, the Gardens of 

 the Zoological Society in the Eegeut's Park ; and after spending 

 some hours among the usual throng of holiday folk, we came 

 away, musing whether, in good truth, an attentive study of 

 Monkey life would not go far to compensate for the want of 

 that great desideratum, the gift 



" To see onrsel's as ithers see us." 



Assuredly 



" It wad fVae mony a blunder free us, 

 And foolish notion ;" 



and, we may wull add, 



" What airs in dress an' gait wad le'e us, 

 And e'en devotion ?" 



Then there is this further to be said, that Monkey moralists 

 administer their reproofs with such perfect temper and so much 

 of drollery, that the most incorrigible offenders would certainly 

 be moved, if not mended, by their dumb-show admonitions. 



AYo have ourselves an especial predilection for the Monkey 

 race. It dates far back, from the time when, as " little Trotty," we 

 were charged with the important trust of carrying the weekly 

 halfpence to the street-door for the organ-man, who regularly 

 came his round with a red-frocked, bespangled Monkey that 



