TOO CLEVER!

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20851, 18 April 1931, Page 4 (Supplement)

TOO CLEVER!

We all know how sagacious animals are, and what clever tricks they can be taught, but do you know that many animals have died through being too clever ? There was a case recently in which a pet monkey belonging to an English lady came to a very sad end by turning on the tap of a gas oven when nobody was looking. When the mistress of the house came back she found the monkey suffocated in a kitchen full of gas. It had died because it was too clever. It had often seen its mistress turn on the tap when she was cooking, and perhaps in its monkey mind the turning of the tap was associated with pleasant smells of cooking and tit-bits. It therefore, thought it would be a fine thing to set operations going. Alas! nothing is so misleading as sagacity on a false scent. The monkey had realised that there was something in turning the tap on, but had never grapsed the idea of turning the tap off. A little knowledge, or halfknowledge, is a -very dangerous tiling.

It was not exactly a failure of intelligence. The idea of turning on a tap to get heat and light is so complicated, even in human experience, that when gas was first used intelligent people would sometimes try to Mow the light out. Queen Victoria was afraid of it. The reasoning in those days was more sensible hut just as wrong as that of the monkey, and perhaps the real cause cf the monkey's sad mishap was that gas taps are too easilv turned.

A veterinary surgeon says that in the last two years five animals he has known have come to grief bv meddling with taps. A cat chasing a mouse turned the tap on. Two dogs playing together did the same thing, and nearly always it was a mere matter of pood fortune that the deaths of the animals wero not followed by a gas explosion.