Yuri Chekalin
Traffic control is a difficult task, but, if necessary, even a baboon can do it.
Can a baboon be trained to manage the passing trains? Yes, with the help of a human friend!
Railway signalman James Wide, who lost both his legs in an accident on the job and was forced to use awkward prosthetics, acquired a baboon named Jack in 1881 and trained him to push a wheelchair and operate the railway signals — under his own supervision.
Jack did an excellent job, but a concerned member of the public informed the signalman’s management that he was entrusting such an important task to a baboon.
The railway management conducted an investigation and concluded that Jack was professionally competent, after which they officially hired him.
The monkey was paid 20 cents a day and half a bottle of beer a week. Jack worked for nine years, and during this time he did not make a single mistake. In 1890, the baboon died of tuberculosis, and his skull is still kept in a museum in Albany, South Africa.
Dmitri Drobnitsky
Alexander Palladin
