34 



A NEW HIST011Y OF 



nor opportunity to fling a stick with sure aim, 

 at the head of any traveller. 



The traveller who first invented this idle story of 

 monkeys throwing branches at passengers, must 

 have been a wag of the first order, and of most 

 inventive intellect. 



The art of throwing projectiles has not been 

 given to the brute creation ; man alone, — man, 

 a rational being, possesses the qualification. Mon- 

 keys know nothing at all of the combined act 

 of moving an elevated arm backwards, and then, 

 whilst bringing it forwards, to open the hand, just 

 at that particular time when the arm can impart 

 motion to the thing which the hand had grasped. 

 Thus, man, at a distance from you, can aim a stone 

 at your head, and break your skull. The monkey 

 can do no such thing. It will certainly take up a 

 stone or a stick ; — but that is all, as far as aggres- 

 sion is concerned. The stone or the stick in lieu 

 of flying off from the monkey's hand, would drop 

 perpendicularly to the ground, like Corporal Trim's 

 hat, when the serious soldier was making reflections 

 on death, before the [servants in Captain Shandy's 

 brother's kitchen. " Are we not (dropping his hat 

 upon the ground) gone in a moment ? " 



Eeader, inspect the Zoological Gardens, in Ke- 

 gent's Park, from morning until night, where there 



