Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1902-12-25
Are We r1en or Monkeys PA Fable.
ONE TRIBE DwELT WHERE THE RICH
EST NUTS GREW, WHILE THE OTHER
pRAXLED AMONG THE SHRuBBERY,

PRAWLED AMONG THE SHRUBBERY,
EATING WHAT THEY COULD GET.
Once upon time, in the far oriental
country where monkeys dwell, a certain
tribe of monkeys sequested themselves
in an isolated forest that abounded with
fruit producing trees and all the vege-
table products dear to monkey stomachs,
and set up what they declared was an
ideal government. They proposed to
run things by popular vote instead of
having monkey leader or chief to which
obedience and homage had to be paid, as
was the custom in most monkey tribes.
They held a great pow-wow and elect
ed leaders who were to hold Office as
long as their fellow monkeys desired
them to, and Immediately they all fell
to feast upon the good things, grew fat
and enjoyed themselves. Certain shrewd
members of the band discovered that here
and there throughout the forest grew GER
tain tall cocoa palms which bore quaint.
ties of fruit which required very little
exertion to get, and they set about devils
ing methods of securing these fruitful
trees to themselves. They took up their
abode in them and held possession
against their fellows, who grumbled a
little and then went seeking meals where
there was less promise and less luscious
rewards.
After many years the monkeys in this
forest became divided into two classes;
the one that dwelt in the tall trees where
the richest nuts grew, and selfshly kept
all to themselves, and the other which
prowled among the shrubbery, eating
berries and such small fruits and vege-
tables as they could find
The monkeys of the latter group, lead
ing such hardy, strenuous life, devcl
oped strength, endurance and powers Of
body quite beyond what in time came to
be the lot of the representatives of the
upper group, There everything was so
easy to obtain, food was SO abundant and
so close at hand that the dwellers in the
high trees came to the conclusion that
they were of somewhat different consti-
tuition to their fellows. They spent
their days in ideness and pleasure, and
so much did they incline after these pur
suits that eventually even plucking the
fruit that grew about them was too much
of task and they had it done for them
by their less fortunate fellows, allowing
them for the services to eat some of the
small, ill-developed kernels.
AS years went on it began to be mat
ter OF belief among those upper monkeys
that the care of their baby monkeys was
too much for them; that larger and better
representatives of their kind might be
reared if the mothers were assisted in
supplying them nutriment by having a
tax levied on the mothers milk of the
monkeys that dwelt in the shrubbery,
and forthwith they caused convention
of the tribe to be called, where there was
much speech-making, and where it was
set forth that:
Whereas, certain monkeys dwclt in
tall trees by right of possession, aud were
entitled to environment and benefits diff
ferent from the general run of monkeys,
and
Whereas, it had been discovered that
among the aforesaid monkeys the in
fants did not receive any more, or as
much, mothers milk as did the infant
progeny of the less-tavored monkeys and
Whereas, as the sense of the monkeys
in convention assembled was that the de-
velopment of strong and hardy class of
High-Tree dwelers was necessary, and
that "patriotism" Ga word they coined
for the occasion) impelled all mt mbers
of the tribe to aid in securing this much
to-be-desired condition, it was
Resolved, that until the infants of the
High-Tree monkeys should develop the
strength and endurance necessary to help
themselves TO the fruits about them all
the mothers of the little monkeys that
dwelt nearer the earth should contribute
q tithe OF their mothers milk towards the
keep of the aristocrats of the big trees.
Which resolution was adopted with
much isbbering Notwithstanding the fact
that some mothers insisted that it was not
like monkey republic to establish such a
rule as would force one mother to give
part of her suck to another mothers babe
simply that that babe might grow faster
and stronger.
SO it became a custom with these mon
keys for the mothers below to supply
part of their milk to the off spring of the
mothers above And the little monkeys
in the trees thrived and waxed fat, while
the little monkeys lower down were thin
and poorly nurtured.
And when the monkeys so fed and pro
tectcd grew to maturity they were mucl
stronger and fatter than their predeees
sors had been, and wise old monkey
who lived in grove Of cocoa palms by
himself declared that it would be ;
grave error to stop the supply of ricl
food that had been coming TO them from
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