The monkey cage is the most popular institution in our menagerie tent. We have outgrown the “variety cage” of old days, which was a collection in one den of monkeys, pigs, cats, dogs and rabbits. It was an interesting collection, I suppose, to country people, but an insufferable nuisance to the showman. Circus monkeys die in droves. The show which starts the season with one hundred and fifty of the animals and returns to winter quarters with twenty-five is fortunate. The climatic changes act with quick fatality upon the sensitive creatures. Tuberculosis, animal doctors call the killing disease. There is always a bully in the cage and always an inmate ready to give battle for the honor. The privileges of the bully are alluring. He takes for himself the choicest morsels of food, chooses the most comfortable perch or corner, gives orders and demands instant obedience, and cuffs and bites and annoys his fellows until one, rendered desperate, turns and administers a thrashing and succeeds to the position. The monkey cage at nightfall is a sure register of the degree of generosity of a community. In some towns they are gorged with food; the audience has fed them lavishly. Again, they give pleading indication of hunger; the place has probably a reputation for penuriousness. Those who believe in the Darwinian theory assert that the resemblance between the human race and the monkey is most marked in sick monkeys. Several scientists who watched our sick chimpanzee noticed many peculiarities of a child. It coughed like a child and made wry faces like one when asked to take medicine. Doctors felt its pulse and it received all the care and attention of a child of the rich.