ONE HOUR AFTER MIDNIGHT.
Nomination of President.—Questions relative to the suppression of man.—The members of the Left vote for war, the Right for arbitration.—Discussions in which the Lion, Tiger, Horse, Nightingale, Boar, and others take part.—The opinion of the Fox, and what came of it.
This publication is edited conjointly by the Ape, Parroquet, and Village Cock.
The garden paths are thronged with powerful deputies from the menageries of London, Berlin, Vienna, New York, and St. Petersburg. The Congress promises to be the most successful ever held in Paris. The death of a great French author, who devoted his pen to Natural History, has cast a gloom over the garden. The cultured animals wear crape, while the bolder spirits, proudly disdaining such symbols of grief, drop their ears and drag their tails along the ground. Here and there distinguished parties are hotly discussing the formation of the Congress, the framing of rules, and the choice of President. The Wolf sits beneath a tree, intently gazing on the Ape, whose careful attire and well-poised eye-glass proclaims man’s far-off cousinship to his family.
The Chameleon considers the get-up of the Ape a graceful tribute to his human kinsman.
The Wolf suggests that “to ape is not to imitate!”
The Snake in the grass hisses.
An erudite Crow croaks from his perch, “It would be extremely dangerous to follow in the footsteps of man,” and quotes the well-known line, “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.” He is loudly congratulated on the happy quotation by a German Owl, well versed in the dead languages.
The Buzzard devoutly contemplates the two scholars, while the Mocking-bird jeeringly remarks, “One way of passing for a learned biped is by talking to others of things they do not understand.”
The Chameleon blushes, and then looks blue. At this moment the Marmot awoke, to pronounce life a dream. “A dream?” said the Swallow, “nay, rather a journey.” The Ephemera gasped out, “Too brief, too brief,” and died.