When the Cape Government Railways opened the first railway line to Port Elizabeth from Cape Town during the later part of the 1800’s the town Uitenhage was established. The railway station became world renown when the local railway guard James Edwin Wide had a working baboon Jack the Signalman that assisted him in his daily tasks.Wide had lost both legs in an accident when fell underneath a moving train. His determination and his perseverance forced him to make his own pegged-legs from a piece of wood that was strapped onto his lower half of his body. He also made himself a trolley with an intricate hand apparatus that made him a little more mobile.
Wide acquired a young baboon, named him Jack, and proceeded to train Jack to perform all the duties required to run the station. Not only did Jack get his monthly rations from the government but he also received an employment number.
During 1890 Jack got sick and contracted tuberculosis and died, Wide was inconsolable to the loss of his friend as they were inseparable. Jack’s skull is on display in the Albany Museum in Grahamstown.
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(via Culture Dish)
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There's a wonderful post at Old Picture of the Day about Junior, who belonged to the author's grandfather.Junior, acquired because of a practical joke, became a member of the family and an asset in their gas station business.
Junior loved his job, and enjoyed all the attention he got. He got along well with his coworkers, and he never complained about anything. He received excellent marks in all his reviews, and he was named employee of the month on several different occasions. He was never late for work, and always was the first to jump up when a customer drove in. He really was one of the boys down at the station.
Here's another photo of Junior working at the gas station.
The toilet training monkeyPotty Monkey is an adorable, 15" stuffed monkey in a diaper and underwear. But inside this cuddly exterior, lurks sophisticated technology designed to teach children how to use the toilet.
Every 30 minutes (or 90 minutes, if you choose), the Monkey will say, "I need to go potty. Let's go potty." When you do the right thing and place him on his plastic toilet, the Monkey will say all sorts of things. For instance, he might say, "I feel proud of myself when I pee-pee and poo-poo on the potty." Or, "I really like to let the pee-pee out of my tummy. It feels so much better now."
$29.99 at Stupid.com
(via Presurfer)
Dozens of policemen with nets took two hours trying to catch a rogue monkey that played an excited game of chase through rush hour crowds in a Tokyo train station this morning.The animal was first noticed at 9.40am hopping around near the electronic ticket gates in the Shibuya Station in the middle of the Japanese capital.
Not content with its place by the gates, however, it darted downstairs towards the entrance to another train line before scaling a pillar and flitting between the ticket machines with officials in hot pursuit.
Bored with the game, it climbed onto an information board and dozed for a couple of hours while commuters and railway staff looked on.
Police cleared the area and surrounded the information board with green netting, they hoped to pounce on the animal as soon as it leapt from its perch.
But when it finally jumped down, it slipped through the police cordon, darted into the crowd and disappeared - apparently out of the station.
Source: Telegraph