Genre:

Letter, Spoof

Subjects:

Amusement, Human Development, Animal Behaviour, Cruelty

    Responds to a letter in The Times condemning the unhealthy 'practice of exhibiting infants on the stage in pantomimes and burlesques'. Argues that monkeys could be substituted for infants, suggesting that 'an arrangement be made with the Zoological Society on the one hand, and the Italians who educate Professor Huxley's distant relatives, on the other'. Noting that this might not be thwarted by the 'Act for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals', suggests that with 'cosmetic stucco', an ape could be converted into 'a full-grown angel'. Concludes by insisting that 'whatever you may think of "Man's place in Nature" [a reference to Huxley 1863], you will no doubt allow that the place of a child in a pantomime had much better be filled by one of the Simiae'.