MICKY DEAD.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 12 August 1924, Page 9

MICKY DEAD.

MOST FAMOUS APE IN THE AYORLD. Micky—the most famous ape in the world— has just died in the London Zoo. Sally, his predecessor, achieved greatness by living for more than 10 years in the gardens, hut Mickey’s record reached 20 years 2 months and 3 days. Rickets, senile decay, and tubercle combined, to cause the death of the great .chimpanzee who had earned the title of Father of the Zoo. Long before the war the Royal College of Surgeons asked for his body —when Micky had done with it, of course—and he outlived many who had hoped to dissect him. He had no reasonable right to expect long life, for he was accepted by the Zoo authorities as a rickety infant thrown in as a make-weight when bargaining for a much finer specimen. The finer specimen died, and every other, bird, beast, and fish at the Zoo in 1898 died sooner or later, but Micky went on living. •

• His rickets crippled him from the start, hut he was amazingly active when he used his great arms as crutches and swung his body between them. Only a year or so ago lie escaped from his cage and racketed About in the corridor behind the scenes After destroying a framed and glazed notice (pricking himself on the splinters) he heard a most alluring noise in his cage. There he found two of his keepers having a very exciting light, stamping, shouting, and shaking their lists

This seemed too good to miss, so Micky clambered home to join in the battle. An instant later there was no war at all, only a slamming door which made him a. prisoner again. Knowing the great ape’s curiosity the men had staged a sham-fight to lure him hack again.

Then Micky flew into one of his famous rages. Micky’s death sees the end of the Ape House as such. The policy of protecting these rare beasts from infection bv shutting them behind great sheets of plateglass is to be abandoned for the more sensible open-air treatment, which gives the apes the use of a closed garden in fine weather. Their bodies, instead of being “coddled,” are to he trained to resist disease. Sunlight and perfect ventilation are relied on to help the Zoo to heat Mickey’s marvellous record. —L.G.M. in the Dailv Mail.