Reader questions

Q- What is the deal with the monkey?
-Earl S.
Queens, New York

A- The monkey’s name was Franz, and he was an early company mascot.

In 1913, a dyspeptic Frenchman named Émile Borel published a book "Mécanique Statistique et Irréversibilité." Rev. Eenk was a young newspaperman at the time, and had a passing interest in abstract mathematics, mostly to impress a girl.

In Borel’s book, he gets around to saying that due to the nature of infinity, a single monkey punching letters at random on a typewriter will “almost surely” eventually type every book in France's National Library.

Although Howlin’ Leroy Eenk prided itself on contributing to the housebreaking of countless curs, circulation was at a new low for the still fledgling publication.

After skimming most of Borel’s treatise, Rev. Eenk was struck with a theorem of his own.

If over the course of infinity a monkey could retype the contents of a national library, then over the course of an afternoon a monkey would be able to write a newspaper story. It would be a stunt for the ages, and it was bound to impress the girl.

He had high hopes for Franz. If the experiment went well, he planned to buy a hundred or so monkeys and solve his labor problems once and for all.

The publicity stunt opened to much fanfare on Dec. 9, 1913, with Howlin’ Leroy Eenk leading the coverage, and the girl was impressed, at least she appeared so.

But when Franz filed only two bylines, 30 inches of copy, ten minutes after deadline, riddled with misspelled words and improper style, the stunt went downhill. Later that night Rev. Eenk had Franz destroyed.

And that girl became Mrs. Clifford Halvorson of Enumclaw, a retired secretary at a now defunct timber company.

Rev. Eenk, of course, went on to wealth and fame.