Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-10-01
A GORILLA LECTURE
By DR.. Frank Crane

The arrival in the Congo has been announced
of Mr.. Carl Ackley naturalist of New York,
who is accompanied by his secretary, Miss
Miller, and "a Chicago lawyer, Mr.. Herbert
Bradley, with whom is Mrs. Bradley, lady of
letters, and young Miss Bradley, who, if she
were at home, might be designated in the So
ciety colmun as "young lady at home" but
being in the Congo would perhaps now have
to sign her passport as "young lady away
from home"
Mr.. Ackley and his troupe are going to hunt
goril1as.
He is proposing to capture a collection of
Congo apes, not to make a gallery OF. ancestors,
but to study them scientifically.
All this get from M. la Fouchardieres col
umn, and he asks the quite pertinent questions:
"What if, instead of Ackley and Company cap
turing the apes, the apes captured Ackley and
Company"
What it, indeedl
Can you imagine this collection of the genus
homo in a cage and some learned gorilla ex-
planning them to the little gorllas and to the
students from the, gorilla Baptist College up
the river who had come to town to see the
sights and especially the curious human freaks
about which they had read so much in The
Gorilla Tribune?
"TheSe creatures" Professor George w. Co.
rla, Phi. D., might say, "eat like gorillas. When
eating an apple or peanut they act almost
gorillan.V
Zone difference is that they are fond of the
half burned flesh of dead animals.
'They are very intelligent, and make with
their hands things gorillas cannot make just
as birds build nests and bees construct honey
cells, which we cannot do.
ION the contrary, however, their rear hands
are not prehensile, they call them feet and
use them only for walking.
| "Hence they are clumsy climbers, and in fast
! rarely 60 up in trees at all.
ia
| in anger. And they utter all manner of amazing
sounds with their mouth. They. can whistle
| like peeWeeS and canarieS, chatter like SOUR
rels, squawk like cockatoos, whine like cats,
! roar like buffalo, and make other strange
| noises.
| Nln their native continent sometimes hundreds
E! OF them will gather in large hall and sit
very still while one of their number from an
| elevated platform makes succession of sounds
for an hour at stretch. This is called a
Lecture, Sermon, or a Concert.
| sin their love-making they are very similar
to apes.
GAS they grow old their hair turns white, and
they become bald on top, just the opposite to
monkeys, such are curiosities of Nature
They have many curious and diverting ways
The males, and few females, play at making
| smoke with the mouth.
IF you pass through the bars piece OF
looking glass the female will amuse herself
with 1t all day.
| "These animals are not ferocious, nor mis-
chievous when Gagged, but when. they are at
liberty, in their native colonies, they contrive
the most outlandsh deeds
/ "One OF their most curious customs is that
| they are divided into sections called Nations
| and these Nations esteem it a great virtue to
hate one another, so that every once in while
they go out, hundreds and thousands of them
as the ants do, and destroy each other, for no
| reason at all.
! 'We need hardly fear the genus homo there
| fore, for in time it will doubtless extermi1ate
ITSELF and leave the earth to apes, who at least
have intelligence enough to live in cooperation
with each other and fight only with animals of
another species
You need waste no pity on them, my chill
dren, for that they have lost their liberty;
they are happier in cages at home they live in
| them, calling them. houses"
Copyright, 1924, by Frank Cra1e.)
Some fellows are glad to get back to school,;
| others can't make the team.
Adam was the first and only man to fall for
| "the only girl in the world"
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