Page images
PDF
EPUB

Letter No. 27.

From DR. BARLOW to BEN BARLOW.

The Laurels, Woodbourne,

YOU UNGRATEFUL YOUNG RASCAL,

June 13th, 187-.

Is this the return you make for our kindness in sending you to a good school? We have reared you, fed you, and clothed you, and now, at a great expense, are trying to educate you; but instead of your gratitude prompting you to hurry home the moment you can get away from school, and thank us for the benefits you enjoy, you want to post off across the country, with a companion you had not seen six months ago, to spend the prime of your holidays with folks you never yet saw.

Now, my dear Ben, I don't for a moment suppose you love us any the less, though you had for the moment forgotten to consider our feelings in your eager anticipation of a holiday trip to London; but I have just shown you how some people might have looked at it.

Well, as to my consent, I don't know Ted Instone or his parents. Though a little too fond of joking, I gather from you letters that he is good natured and honourable in his dealings with others. And since both he and his parents wish it, I cannot object to your paying them a visit for a few days, but I only consent on the condition that Master Instone will return the visit and spend a week with us here. Village life is often as charming to city bred people as London is to country folks. I am somewhat curious, too, to see what sort of a boy you have chosen for you friend.

If Master Instone's parents consent to this, you may reckon on the visit: but, mind you, it must not be the first week of the holidays. Your mother insists on your spending the first week at home. If her love did not prompt this, it would doubtless be necessary from other considerations. I expect it will take quite a week to replace missing buttons on your clothes, and in other ways make them fit for their introduction into civilised society.

You had better arrange to spend the second week of the holidays with Master Instone in London, and then bring him to spend the third week with you here. You will thus be just in time to join Charlie Thornton, Tom Blunt, and the rest of Mr. Jones' scholars in their holiday sports.

Your mother and sisters join me in sending love to you.-Believe me, your affectionate father, OLIVER BARLOW.

Letter No. 28.

From BEN BARLOW to MRS. BARLOW.

MY DEAR MOTHER,

Waterside House, Worcester,

June 16th, 187—.

I do hope you did not feel grieved at my proposing to spend the first week of my holidays at London. I can assure you I am

very anxious to see you and father and sisters, but I thought it would be very much easier for me to go with Ted, because he understands all about the trains and junctions, and that sort of thing. I see now it will be better for me to go the second week. I dare say father can tell me where to change trains, and Ted has promised to meet me at Willesden junction.

Ted got a letter this morning from his father, giving consent to his spending a week at Woodbourne, and thanking you for the invitation. So it is all arranged now. I am so glad, and thank you very much.

Dr. Tasker has decided that the examination shall be on the 20th. We shall break up on the evening of the 21st, and leave for home by early train on the 22nd. So I shall be with you all about eleven o'clock on the Thursday morning.-Till then, I remain your affectionate son, BEN.

MY DEAR BOB,—

Letter No. 29.

From BEN BARLOW to "BOB."

Waterside House, Worcester,

June 16th, 187-.

All being well I shall be at home about eleven o'clock on Thursday week. I shall stay at home till the next Tuesday or Wednesday, and then go to London for a week to stay with one of my schoolfellows. Then he will come home with me for a week.

Now, Bob, I want you so see that the place is all tidied up as well as possible. Have the rabbit hutches and the fowl pens nice and clean and sweet. Master Instone-the young fellow who is coming home with me-doesn't care much about livestock, only horses and dogs. He says they always smell badly and become a nuisance. So I want mine to be as neat and trim as they possibly can be.-Hoping you are well, I remain, yours truly, BEN BARLOW.

FOOTPRINTS OF GOD IN NATURE.
By GEORGE PACKER.

XVI. THE MONKEY.

F all irrational animals the monkey, in general resemblance, most nearly approaches to man. It is furnished with hands instead of paws, and its ears, eyes, eyelids, lips, and breasts have a conformation not altogether unlike our own. It can be taught to walk upright after a fashion, and readily imitates man in many of his movements. In consequence of the new theory of development, by which it is held that the most beautiful and complete forms of animal

life have been evolved from earlier and simpler forms, the monkey has latterly received a great deal of attention. Some philosophers have regarded him as the missing link in the chain wanted to complete the connection between ourselves and our four-footed friends. They have been bold enough to assert that the monkey is one of our remote ancestors from whom we have drawn our being. It does not become us to be too proud to acknowledge our poor relations, and if the monkey be akin to us we had better own him, but his relationship must be clearly established before we can be expected to show for him a very rapturous regard. But when we look for proofs of identity of nature, we find undeniable evidence of difference, and, notwithstanding his general resemblance to man, the monkey is really less near to him in nature than he is to the worm that crawls in the dust. Every fresh investigation shows that not only is man the apex to the pyramid of the animal creation, but that he is endowed with a dignity and glory of being that transcend everything that is of the earth earthy, and reaches forth to the angelic and heavenly.

In confutation of the theory of the transmutation of the monkey into the man, there has been a most formidable array of argument by some of the most able of scientific men; but it is doubtful whether the theory was really worth the attention it has received. The conclusion of Professor Owen we may give as representative of the judgment of numerous other equally able men: "Nine-tenths of the differences that distinguished the ape from the human species stand in direct contravention of the hypothesis of transmutation and progressive development."

Monkeys are generally divided into four classes: the apes that are entirely without tails; the baboons with short tails; the monkeys with ordinary tails; and the monkeys with prehensile tails. The tail of this last division is as good as an extra hand, and can grasp firm hold of anything the animal feels inclined to seize by it. Of the gorilla very little was known until within the last few years, and for all our present knowledge we are indebted to the travels of Du Chaillu in Central Africa. Some few naturalists think the gorilla should be constituted a genus by itself; most others are of opinion that it should be classed with the ordinary apes, from which it only differs by its enormous size, and strength, and fierceness.

tion.

Monkeys, as seen in our own country, present a somewhat comical and undignified appearance. But they who are best acquainted with their natural mode of life, and the place intended by Providence for them, always regard them in captivity as objects of deep commiseraTheir captors cannot reproduce the healthful conditions of their forest life. A state of captivity can be rendered more tolerable for a tiger than for a monkey. Monkeys have a world of their own. Just as the land is given to us, and the air to the birds, and the sea to the fishes, so there is a domain peculiarly theirs, and that is the trees. The extent of tropical forests is amazing. Livingstone also travelled in Central Africa, and Humboldt, who travelled in South

America, speak of forests which must stretch uninterrupted for hundreds of miles. The monkeys are made for the trees. Their entire structure is adapted to their leafy habitations, which supply them with the shelter and the sustenance they require. Probably many of them never set foot on the earth so much as once during their whole lives.

Just as the structure of the swallow differs from other birds, enabling it to be all day on the wing without growing weary, so the structure of the monkey differs from animals that live on the ground, and renders its life in the trees easy and agreeable. The head is differently fixed to that of man, being thrown more forward. The spine is possessed of greater power than that of the human frame. The bones of the leg and arms are made longer, for the purpose of giving greater length to the muscles. The construction of the feet show that they are not intended to walk on the ground-it is only on the side and not on the flat of their feet that they can walk at all; and that this is a painful position is seen by their taking reluctantly to it. Their feet, moreover, are so delicate that stones would cut them sorely. The face has a grotesque resemblance to that of man, and their teeth and organs of digestion are somewhat similar. Their tastes are naturally simple, and they feed mainly on fruits and birds' eggs, but in captivity they speedily degenerate, and show a great fondness for all kinds of rich food, and especially for ginand-water and other alcholic drinks.

Monkeys are great mimics, and will imitate men to any extraordinary degree. In a state of captivity they will attempt almost everything thing they see their masters do, but it is plain that even where their tricks are most successful they are done with no presiding intelligence, and are no more understood than the parrot comprehends the meaning of the words it is trained to speak. The mimicry of the monkey has supplied our language with a verb-to "ape." But this is not a faculty that captivity developes; it is best seen in their native forests when, with all kinds of curious somersaults, a whole troop of monkeys play at "follow the leader.”

Some of them, as already mentioned, have tails by which they can hold on to the branches of trees, and by which, strange to say, they can carry a stick, or a bunch of fruit, or any similar object. And, besides their hands, all of them have a peculiar arrangement of the foot by which they can securely fix themselves in any desired position. Instead of having a big toe, they have a thumb, and they may be commonly seen holding on a branch by means of feet, or feet and tail, and using their hands to reach their food and get their dinner. They can skip and run up the stairs that the branches form to the top of their airy houses, or they can rapidly pass from tree to tree with a grace that is only equalled by its dexterity. Their natural attitude is neither that of the beasts nor the erect position of man, but something between the two. When they descend to the ground and attempt to walk erect, they are clumsy and ungainly; but among

the branches of the trees their movements are as graceful as the flight of a bird, and their playful gambols are as amusing as the antics of a squirrel or the evolutions of a kitten. A monkey swinging from tree to tree, and living just as Providence intended, is a pleasing sight; but when he apes to walk erect like a man, he makes himself as ridiculous as if he were to don the ermine and wig of a judge and attempt to deliver judgment.

Monkeys are unlike almost every other animal, in the fact that they have no nests or holes, or any sort of local abiding place. From tree to tree they gaily rove in search of food, living a merry life, and having the fewest housekeeping cares of any living creature. The young ones always stick close by their mothers, and ride upon their backs until they are able to shift for themselves. They are never under the necessity of revisiting any particular spot, and have no preferences save for those forests that afford the most ample supply of food. They are, indeed, endowed by Nature with a couple of pockets, in which they carry a short supply sometimes. These pockets are called "pouches," and are placed in their cheeks. It is generally supposed that a schoolboy's pockets will hold a bit of everything; but a monkey can stow away in his "pouches" about as much as the pockets of half-a-dozen schoolboys would hold.

The natural home of the monkey is the tropical climes, and, with one exception, he is never found elsewhere. The Rock of Gibraltar forms that exception; and to find monkeys making themselves at home there is as puzzling to naturalists as if they should find fishes who left their briny home for the purpose of living in nests at the top of trees.

The fact of monkeys being confined to warm countries and flourishing there alone suggests a very striking contrast to men, whom they are supposed to be so near. Men can wander freely all over the globe, not by any means because of hardy physical organization, but because endowed with a mind that can anticipate their necessities and provide for them. The structure and habits of the monkey are, as we have seen, very wonderful, and the more prolonged our inquiries the greater are the proofs of a Divine and superintending hand. But even the creature that comes nearest to man is yet an almost infinite distance from him, and makes no pretension to intrude on his unique and peculiar position. If, therefore, anyone should any more tell us that the ape is our great-grandfather, it is sufficient for us to reply that the whole teaching of Nature is that we should look upwards to ascertain our origin and not downwards to heaven and not to the earth.

« PreviousContinue »