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.