The Zoological Gardens. William S. Brunton (fl. 1859-71), artist; Dalziel, engraver. Signed lower right “Brunton” instead of his more common monogram that takes the form of two hearts pierced by an arrow. Fun (124 January 1865): 60. Courtesy of the Suzy Covey Comic Book Collection in the George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida. Click on image to enlarge it. — George P. Landow]
I hate them all!
Of course I know ^cry well that it’s no use crying over spilt milk, and that when an unfortunate monkey has been torn from his home and dragged away from his wives and families, the best thing he can do is to grin and bear it. But I do hate them, for all that!
Yes; by Africa, and Asia! By the equator, by the tropics, and by my own blue tail!
Oh, you dear little boy, do put your darling little hands into the cage—just a little further, dear. Don't be afraid of its own old monkey-wonkey ! No—you won’.
Lucky for you, my beauteous babe; for imprisonment sharpens the teeth, but it don’t improve the temper.
I fancy that if I swing round to the next bar I can get a good clutch at that swell’s long yellow whiskers. . .
Missed him, by Jupiter Ammon!
After all, might isn’t right. Why on earth, because they happen to excel me in mere brute force, should they clap me up in a cage, with some of the very lowest of my race ?
A bun? Oh, yes, Miss; and very charitable you think yourself, no doubt. I know you, you yellow-haired minx. I see you, showing off your daintily-gloved little paw, you blue-eyed hypocrite! Yah!
What's that you say, you chattering little ape from tho rock of Gibraltar? The keeper’s coming, is he? Let him come, Sir! He won’t find me a toady; he won’t find me a sneak; he won’t find me trying to curry favour with him.
Hot, hot, hot! How my eyes blink!
I wonder how the other fellows like it? I don’t believe there's one of us in the whole garden that doesn’t hate and despise our cowardly gaolers. . . . Ah, there's the lion roaring, and well he may, poor old fellow, cooped up as he is, and with not so much as a baby to munch until it pleases the keeper to bring him round some raw beef! And even then, now do you suppose that he:, a gentleman, every inch of him, from the crown of his head to the tip of his tail, likes to take his meals in the presence of a crowd of gaping Cockneys? Yah! It’s absolutely indecent; it's unworthy even of a man! Man, forsooth! And they talk about anthropoid apes, do they, and “development?” I'd anthropoid ’em! I'd develope ’em!
Oh, Mr.CHARLES DARWIN, if I had but hold of the fingers that you wrote your absurd nook with, for just a little quarter of an hour, I'd Origin of Species you!
“Lords of the creation,” they call themselves, do they? I dare say. Look at ’em, covered all over with clothes! Why there's not one of the whole set that could climb a palm-tree. And then the wretched meanness of wearing trousers simply booaueo they haven't any tails ! Hang it all, it’s their misfortune rather than their fault; and I should be ashamed to sneer even at a man, for a merely physical defect. But what sickens mo is the wretched hypocrisy of the whole thing!
But it’s no use talking. I shall have my forty winks.
[You may use the image above without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the University of Florida library and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Last modified 23 February 2016