IN THE MONKEY-HOUSE;

PROFESSOR GARNER goes to the Gaboon

To garner Monkey talk; a dubious boon!

Stucco Philistia shows in many shapes

The babble of baboons, the chat of apes.

Why hang, Sir, up a tree, in a big cage,

To study Simian speech, which in our age

May be o'erheard on Platform or in Pub,

And studied 'mid the comforts of a Club?

And yet perchance your forest apes would shrink

From Smoke-room chat of apes who never think,

But cackle imitatively all round,

Till their speech hath an automatic sound.

Put the dread name of GL-DST-NE in the slot

SMELFUNGUS calls his mouth, and rabid rot

Will gurgle forth in a swift sewer-like gush

Of coarse abuse would make a bargee blush.

SMELFUNGUS is a soldier, and a swell,

But—the Gaboon can scarce surpass Pall-Mall

In vicious, gibbering vulgarity

Of coarse vituperation. Decency,

Courtesy, common-sense, all cast aside!

Pheugh! GARNER, in his cage, would open wide

His listening ears, did Jacko of the forest

So "slate" a foeman when his head was sorest.

Strange that to rave and rant, like scullion storm,

Like low virago scold, should seem "good form"

To our Society Simians, when one name

Makes vulgar spite oblivious of its shame!

"Voluntary and deliberate," their speech,

"Articulate too"—those Apes! Then could they teach

Their—say descendants,—much. Does Club or cage

Hear most of rabid and unreasoned rage?

"Apes' manner of delivery shows" (they say)

"They're conscious of the meaning they'd convey!"

Then pardon, GARNER! Apes, though found in clans.

Are not, of course, political partisans.

Tired of the Club-room's incoherent rage,

One pines for the Gaboon, and GARNER's cage.

For what arboreal ape could rage and rail

Like him, with fierce Gladstonophobia pale,

That Smoke-room Simian, though without a tail!