Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1896 — The Ape Mutinied. [ARTICLE]

The Ape Mutinied.

W. C. Coup, the circus man, has had many remarkable experiences, and a reporter asked him If the dreaded cry of “Hey, RubeF’ had ever sounded In his tent. “No,” said he, “but it came near it once in a small Kansas town, when, fortunately, there were no newspapers to spread the affair publicly. I had among the attractions of the show a man-eating ape, the largest ever In captivity. He was chained to the dead trunk of a tree and looked very ferocious. “Early in the day I speak of a countryman handed him a piece of tobacco, which the ape chewed with great pleasure. The word was passed around that the ape would chew tobacco, and several gave him plugs. Finally one gave him a piece that was filled with cayenne pepper. The ape bit it, then, smarting with indignation, snapped the fastenlng-ef his chain and yelled: ’Let me at 'lm, the murtherin’ ijit. Oi'll hev the lolfe av him or me name ain’t Mahoney.’ Then ho started through the crowd with a handspike ready to strike, but the culprit escaped. I docked the ape a week’s salary, and it was the last time I had any trouble with him.”—Philadelphia Times.