Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1883 — Sacred Monkeys. [ARTICLE]

Sacred Monkeys.

monkey asylums, supported oliieflv by the very poorer classes of the population. In the rural districts of Nepaul the hanmnans have their sacred groves and keep together in troops of fifty or sixty adults, and, in spite "of hard times, these associations multiply like the monastic order of mediaeval Europe; but they must all be provided for, though the natives should have to eke out weir crops with the wild rice of the Jumna swamp jungles. The strangest part of the superstition is that tliis eharitv results by no means from a feeling of benevolence toward animals in general, but fronf the ex* elusive veneration of a special subdivision of the monkey tribe. An orthodox Hindoo must not willingly take the fife of the humblest fellow-creature; but he would not move a finger to save a starving dog, and has no hesitation in stimulating a beast of burden with a dagger-like goad and other contrivances that would invoke the avenging powers of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Nor' would he shrink from extreme measures in defending his fields from the ravages of low-caste monkeys. Dr. Allen Mackenzie once saw a swarm of excited natives running toward an orchard, where the shaking of branches betrayed the presence of arboreal marauders. Some of them carried slings, others clubs and cane-spears. But soon they came back orestfallen. “What’s the matter?” inquired the doctor; “did they get away from you?” “ Kapa-Muni!” was the laconic reply, ‘ * sacred monkeys!” Holy baboons that i must not be interrupted in their little pastimes. They had expected to find a troop of common makaqnes, wanderoos or other profane four-handers, and returned on tiptoe, like Marryat’s sergeant, who went to arrest an obstreperous drunkard and recognized his commanding officer. Unarmed Europeans cannot afford to brave these prejudices. Capt. Elphinstone’s gardener nearly lost his life for shooting a thievish hanuman. A mob of raging bigots chased him from street to street, till he gave them the slip in a Mohammedan suburb, where a sympathizing Unitarian helped him to escape through the back alleys. The interference of his countryman would hardly have saved him, for the crowd increased from minute to minute, and even women joined in the chase and threatened to oure his impiety with a turnip-masher. —Felix L. Oswald, in Popular Science Monthly. —..i. —, ■ *, Gone! Inflammatory rheumatism, cured by St. Jacobs Oil. Ira Brown.— Chicago Tribune. •