Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-11-05
The Monkey tn its Domestic Relations.
London Telegraph

In India, where the monkeys live among
men, and are the playmates of their children,
the Hindoos have grown fond of them, and
the four-handed folks participate in all their
household rites. In the early morning,
when the peasant goes out to yoke his oxen,
and the crow wakes up and the dog stretches
himself and shakes off the dust in which he
has slept all night, the old monkey creeps
down the peepultree, only half awake, and
yawns and looks about him, puts straw in
his mouth and scratches himself contempla-
lively. Then one by one the whole family
come clipping down the tree-trunk, and
they all yawn and look about and scratch.
But they are sleepy and peevish, and the
youngsters get cuffed for nothing and
begin to think life dull. Yet the toilet has
to be performed, and, whether they like it or
not, the young ones are sternly pulled up,
one by one, to their mother to undergo the
pcocess. The scene, though repeated exactly
every morning, loses nothing of its delight
full comicality, and the Mickey brats seem all
to be in the joke of ''taking in mamma"
But mamma was young herself not long ago,
and treats each ludicrous affection of suffer-
ing with the profoundest unconcern, and, as
she dismisses one "cleansed' youngster with
cuff, stretches out her hand for the next
| ones tail or leg in the most business like and
serious manner possible.
The youngsters know their turn quite we'll.
| AS each feels the moment arrive it throws
itself on its stomach as if overwhelmed with
| apprehensions, the others meanwhile sitting
| their satisfaction at the way "so-and-so is
doing it," and the instant the maternal paw
is extended to grasp the tail, the subjact of;the
| next experiment uiters piercing shrek and,
~t,~ 49, Ill
itself to be dragged along limp and helpless
carcass, winking all the time, no doubt, at
| its brothers and sisters at the way it is i'm
posing on the old lady. But the old lady
will stand no nonsense. snd turning
the child right eide up, proceeds to put it to
rights, takes the kinks out of its tail and the
knots out of its fur, pokes its fingers into its
ears and looks at each of it's toes, the ire
pressibie brat all the time wearing on his
face an absurd expression of hopeless ard
incurable grief, those who have been al
ready cleansed looking on with delight at
the screaming farce, and those who are wait
ing wearing becoming aspect of enormous
gravity.
The old lady, however, has her joke, too,
which is to cuff each youngster before she
lets it 90, and nimble as her offspring are she
generally, to her credit be it said. manages
to "fetch them one on the ears before they
are out of reach. The father, meanwhile,
sits gravely with his back to all these domes-
| tic matters, waiting for breakfast. Presently
| the mats before the hut doors are pushed
down, and woman, with brass vessels in their
hands, come out; and while
they scour the pots with dust,
exchange between songs the compli-
ments of the morning. The monkeys by
this time have come closer to the prepare
tions for food, and sit solemnly, household
by household, watching every movement.
Hindoos do not hurry themselves in any
thing they do: but the monkey has plenty of
patience, and in the end, when the crowd
has stolen little. and the dog has had its
morsel, and the children are all satisfied, the
fragments of the meal are thrown out on the
ground for the "blunder cirque, the monkey
people, and it is soon discussed, the mother
feeding the baby before she herself eats.