Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-09-13
LABouCHERE on GARNER.
The Radical NJ. p. Laughs to ScOrn
"the Monkey Man."

The Radical NJ. p. Laughs to ScOrn
"the Monkey Man,"
From the Mail and Express.
The successful tilt which Mr.. Labouchere
some time since INDUCED in with Prof.
Garner, popularity known as 1.-The monkey
man." has been renewed by the famous
radical NJ. P. In the last issue of his week.
ly paper to reach this country he says:
1.-The natives of the United States have
the reputation of being a shrewd people,
but a considerable section of them appear
to have been completely humbugged by
their still shrewder countryman, Prof.
Garner. According to the Inter-Ocean Of
Chicago, that intelligent exploiter Of the
language of apes is about to start on a
fresh expedition to Africa, financed by
semi-scientific association, which has been
incorporated at Chicago under the title OF
The African Fund The news that Gar
ner has money behind him this time will
be specially welcome to the good mission
aries of Fernan Vaz, at whose establish
ment he spent the hundred days which he
is supposed to have passed shut up in his
cage in the forest, and who Gas recounted
in Truth of December q lasD still hold
his dishonored promise to pay 500 francs
for his board and lodging during that Pc
rod. My own impression is, however, that
it will be long before Garner shows his
face again in the neighborhoood of Fernan
Vaz. 1t is truly astonishing, however,after
all the Information that has been been pub
liShed about Garner, since he returned
from Africa, to find a great paper like the
Chicago Inter-Ocean writing him thus:
Lonelier and more contemplative than
any hermit that ever lived in the Thebaio
desert, he saw sights and heard sounds
which no human being ever heard before.
He felt secure, for his cage, though only
six feet six inches square, was of lattice
work, so narrow that no leopard or other
animal could playfully reach in and claw
him. besides, he had magazine rifle and
two revolvers. Here, during a weird Afri-
can nights entertainment, which lasted liz
nights he listened with conflicting emo
lions to the light and airy persiiage of
the waggish monkey and the abandoned
language and dreadful oaths of the gorilla.
He caught jungle fever dozen times, but
that did not discourage him; on the con-
trary, it made him feel more at home
Tine purely imaginative character of all
these statements, and the downright f1c-
ton Of the story about the 112 nights spent
in the cage, have been conclusively estab
lished by the evidence of the French mis-
sionaries with whom Garner so1ourned as
above described. by that of the French
traveller Dybowski and by the statements
communicated to me by English merchants
whose factories he visited. There is the
clearest and most authentic evidence that
the man only spent three nights In the
cage that the cage was within a few
minutes walk of the convent where he was
boarding; that when in the cage he had
native boy for a companion; and that dur
ing the whole time he was in 1t no gorilla
ever came near him. He has not produced
an Ineligible record of any observation
made by him upon the language Of apes In
a state Of nature; and the only observa-
lions he is able to speak of were made
upon a tame monkey which he acquired
by purchase. Gamers conduct itself tends
to confirm the case against him. When he
was In England l publicly invited him to
supply the information which would have
disposed of these stories. To this he offer
ed no reply until he had got to the other
side of the Atlantic, when his reply merely
took the form of an expression of his de-
sire to punch my head or skin me alive
1 forget which. In the same spirit he re-
piled to the French missionaries, whose
hospitality he had abused, and to whom
he Is still indebted for 100 days board and
lodging, by making the most unfounded
charges against them; and he answered NJ
Dyboski-an explorer holding a commits
sion from the French government-by call
ing him a secondhand clothes dealer
A more transparent piece of humbug than
his African expedition has never been
palmed off upon the public; and 1 would
respectfully suggest to my American CON-
temporaries that they would be better en-
ployed by letting the light in upon Garner
than in trumpeting abroad his Mupchaus-
en-like narrative"