MONKEY SHINES AT No. 72 ST. JAMES PL (1889)
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The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations.
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A monkey in Victorian Brooklyn was not the most unusual sight to behold.
In fact, the furry little creatures had been roaming the streets of the city since the introduction of the organ grinder.
What was unusual, however, was waking up to one that was in “undisputed possession” of your house.
ACT I – THE CREATURE APPEARS
One Sunday morning in the summer of 1889 at the residence of Mr. William C. Mellins, No. 72 St James Place, Brooklyn, and in that of his next-door neighbor, lawyer William H. Morse, a disturbance of a sort took place.
The 2-story and mansard brick residences of Messrs. Morse and Mellins sat, at the time, in a very rustic setting. They were “in the middle of a little block of five buildings, which have vacant lots on either end and a fruit orchard in the rear.”
Well, late on a Saturday evening, Mellins happened to be drawn to a sound at his second-story front window. When he went to investigate, he looked toward the sounds, which appeared to be coming from his window. What he saw caused him to wonder if he were seeing things.
There returning his gaze was a monkey clinging to his windowsill, looking into the room.
Then, as quickly as it appeared – it was gone.
ACT II – THE MONKEY INVADES
The following morning, “while yet in bed,” Mrs. Morse excitedly informed her husband that “there was a burglar in the dining-room.”
Not waiting to clothe himself, Mr. Morse “advanced on the foe with a stick.” When he reached the dining-room, he was met with a singular sight.
A monkey was sitting on a mantel-piece with a bottle of hair oil in one hand.
“The monkey was large and agile,” noted the New York Sun, “with a soft brown coat and a leather belt girded about his loins, from which depended a chain two feet long.
The monkey had, unknown to the Morses, obtained admission to the house through their bedroom. He had grabbed the bottle of hair oil from the dressing case and a box of cough drops from a table, eating the cough drops as well as the top of the bottle.
It was at this point that Mr. Morse went to tackle him, raising his stick and advancing. The monkey, however, had different plans. He showed his teeth and made ready to spring. Mr. Morse retreated.
It was not until the monkey jumped and landed on the sewing machine, 10 feet distant, however, that Morse became alarmed. He shouted to his wife that she had better get into a safe place. The entire household, thus, took battle stations. Mrs. Morse took refuge in the bath room, where she was a prisoner for an hour with her baby. Mrs. Morse’s mother fled to the third floor front and locked herself in. Mr. Morse’s daughter descended to the front parlor and listened through the keyhole.
None of the inmates, it was pointed out, had even had time to dress.
ACT III – HELP IS SOUGHT
“Lawyer Morse bethought himself of a policeman, and went out on the porch to look for one, but none was in sight for nearly an hour the monkey had undisputed possession of the house. He ate everything he could find in the sideboard, and shoved a catch to the door that let him into the basement. There he feasted on a lot of prunes.”
Finally Mr. Morse sent the cook after a policeman who was on post on Grand Avenue.
George Wade, a newsdealer, learned from the cook of the excitement and volunteered to go around and capture the monkey. After a chase around the kitchen, in which chairs were overturned and much agility was shown on the part of the monkey, Wade put his hat over the monkey’s head and sat on him.
Wade took the monkey to his house, on Steuben Street, and as he entered the door the monkey escaped and fled up the fire escape, which began the monkey’s third act.
ACT IV – THE MONKEY’S RETURN
At the third-story window he jumped in and found Miss Minnie Brand in the act of dressing. The young woman screamed and jumped into bed and covered her head with the clothes. The monkey jumped on the bed and tried to get under the clothes, too, whereupon the girl ran screaming from the room to her mother’s room. Mrs. Brand came out to see what was the matter, and the monkey jumped on her shoulders. From Mrs. Brand’s shoulder the monkey ran down stairs and into the back yard and chased a rooster and six hens until they were ready to drop.
Wade recaptured the monkey and for a time kept him in confinement He got away once, however, and jumped on a little girl, knocked her down, and cut her lip.
ACT V – ALCOHOL SOOTHES THE SAVAGE SOUL
Wade offered the monkey a glass of beer in a neighboring barroom. The monkey drank it as though he was an old toper, and when he accepted a glass of whisky a few minutes afterward his depraved character was fully established. He slept off the effect of his potations in Wade’s news stand.
Neighbors who visited Wade’s stand offered the monkey pennies, but the monkey refused them. WHen a nickel was held out he seized it and put it in his pouch. This is supposed to prove the fact that the monkey did not get away from a hand organ grinder
There were no claimants for him.
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