Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 194, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1917 — Simian Fire Department One of Gentry Features. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Simian Fire Department One of Gentry Features.

There are fire laddies and fire laddies, but it remained for the Gentry Brothers Famous Shows, which exhibit in Rensselaer on Tuesday, Sept. 4th, to organize the only efficignt monkey fire department in the world. One reason why the Gentry monkey fire fighters are up to the mark is due to the factthaj they battle with real flames twice daily in the great arena of the big top and everybody knows that constant practice makes for perfection. Now, while the audiences roar with laughter at the monkey drivers, hose men and nozzle men, the monks, themselves, are in deadly earnest about putting out the blaze in the miniature building, which to the spectators is a cunning structure of lath and paper mache. However, to the simians, it is the capitol building of monkeyland that is threatened with destruction and they mean to save it —and do. The fact that the gentry monkeys drive pony drawn fire engines, hose carts and hook and ladder trucks around the hippodrome track in a mad dash for the scene of the daily conflagration adds greatly to the appeal of this one of the scores of the Gentry Brothers Show feature acts for this season.