THE FREE LANCE. "His gooa blade carves the casques of men, for the Free Lance thrusteth sure." VOL. XVII. THE LANGUAGE OF MONKEYS. "Professor Garnett has just returned from the west coast of Africa, where he has spent several years in a cage with a gorilla for the pur pose of learning the language of that animal. We may soon expect a complete gorilla lexicon." This paragraph, in a New York paper,—the date I have for gotten—attracted the attention of a young medic in Forty-second street, and he read it aloud to his room-mate. "That's what I call sacrificing one's self to science," he com mented, "that is, if it is true. Think he'll succeed, Harvey ?" The young man addressed, who had been thoughtfully pulling away at a battered corn-cob, suddenly removed it from his lips, and exclaimed, eagerly : "By Jove, Brown ; I've got an idea! It came like a grapeshot while you were reading. Of course, monkeys have a language. That's been already demonstrated by Garnett. He's got a few words, you know, but he can't learn the language as the monkeys know it. He's too old. Now, why not take a baby and bring it up from birth in a cage of monkeys; never let him hear, a word save monkey language ? Then when he has mas tered it, made it his mother tongue, as it were, teach him the En ?" "Rather hard on the kid to make a monkey of him," said Brown in mock seriousness. Then overcome by the ludicrousness of the proposition, he slapped his knee and roared. "Look here, Brown, I'm in earnest. Here's your gorilla man-- MAY, 1903. No. 2.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers