Morning journal and courier., 1885-07-06
AN APE-RIpDEN CIrY.
Benares Tired of Her Sacred Monkey
 and Anxious to be Rid of Them.


 and Anxious to be Esid of Them. From the London Daily Telegraph
 A railway company in India has declined to carry ten thousand monkeys. Most rail way companies probably would. That such an undertaking, however, should ever have been suggested to board of directors is curious incident in railway history, yet it is the fact. The Brahmans of Benares, being anxious to get rid of several thousand super fuous monkeys, asked the company to carry them away for them to distant spot, but the railway authorities showed no enthusiasm in closing with the offer of such 8 multitude of singular passengers. It is matter of common knowledge that in Benares, the ''City of the Gods," there is very large and very sacred colony of monkeys. Not only have they temple, properly furnished with shrines and priests, specially dedicated to them, but they are free of all the others be- sides. In Benares they can go where they like, and, although this liberty is qualified by certain measure of respectful opposition when they abuse their privileges too outra- geously, the monkeys are virtually free of the whole city, private dwellings and public buildings. Thus circumstanced, with every favorable condition for longevity in individu- als and fecundity in the species, it is no won der that the four handed folk have become redundant. Even the Bra1manS themselves have at last confessed that there are too many monkeys in Benares, and are now try ing to rid themselves of portion of the in- tolerable burden of sanctity which such host of reverend quadrupeds imposes upon them. The common people, in spite of the sacredness of the creatures, have long ago begun to think that so large a population of idlers has it's unsatisfactory side and, when we recollect that a monkey will every day eat and waste much grain or fruit as an average Hindu requires for his weekly sus- tenance, and that the mischief in which these creatures pass their time-having nothing else, poor bored divinities, to do-must en- tail a substantially appreciable loss upon their human fellow-citizens, it is not difficult to sympathize with the ape-ridden men and women of the Holy City. Without contrib uting in any way to the material welfare of the sacred place, these animals, twenty thou sand or so, constitute very serious tax upon the working population and divert from oth- CT charities a vast quantity ot good food. Each handful of grain which a monkey wastes would suffice for the meal of men dicant fakir. At last therefore, it has been decided to take steps to reduce the tailed population The monkey, however, is at all times an intelligent person. He knows as we'll as anybody else when he is well off. In Benares he is especially contented. Plenty of good water, unlimited vegetables, fruit and grain, delightfully."- shady hooks, veran- das, temple corridors, &e., commend them selves to hi1A com binatlon of attractions not to be easily matched elsewhere. So that he scouts all suggestions of emigration. Once or twice the pious and benevolent old Ra- iah has invited the four-handed hosts to come across the river from the city to his Palace of Ramnuggur, and the priests have actually ferfied boatload after boatlead from one bank of the Ganges to the other, But the monkeys pretended to msundeTTstand the arrangement. They affect to think the trip mere outing, days picnic So, though they allowed themselves to be taken over in the morning with the utmost con- placency. they always insisted on being brought back again in the evening. Boats ply in large numbers upon the river, and to pay anything, they used to ship them selves as passengers and return to sleep in the city.
 On another occasion certain lands short distance off were specially set apart by the princely Rajah for their maintenance, and an immense number of the animals were respectfully conducted to their new quar- ters and invited to settle there. But no; the monkeys found that there were no s-reetmeat stalls out in the fields, no cake shops in the groves, and they courteously yet firmly declined the Rajah's preferred hos pitality and came strolling back into the city at their leisure. They had tasted the pleasures of rural life and deliberately arrived at the conclusion that they pre- ferred those of the town so they gave up the corn fields and mango trees for the cool courts of the many templed city and the bazaals where lollipops were always to be had for the stealing The present ef fort, however, this of deporting by train to such q distance as Saharunpore so large a number as ten thousand is by far the most serious that has been made, and if the four handed ones submit to be deported this time they must make up their minds for perma- nent exile. Railway companies have no su- perstitions about Hanuman; they do not worship monkeys. Thus, unless the animals are prepared to pay their own return fare, and to travel back in respectable and hon est manner, they will have to bid farewell to the beautiful old city where they spent such happy years and where their bones will now have no chance of sacredly reposing after death There is no chance of their ever fnd- ing their way back.