"Jakey, the monkey, was tied to the leg of a table."

Monkey-related arson was the cause of four out of five fires in nineteeneth-century America. Non-empirical proof of this statistic can be found in the August 22, 1887 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. An excerpt:

“Mrs. Sylvester M. Folsom, of Fort Hamilton, has furnished the neighborhood in which she has led an adventurous life for a dozen years with a constant round of sensational episodes. She was the wife of sporting Billy Clark when his prize fighters’ resort was in full blast, and after she was divorced from him, married Alpheus E. Clark, a soldier, who ran away from her after a short but tempestuous wedded life. Her third husband, Sylvester M. Folsom, the village barber, has been, like his predecessors, a cause of constant jealousy to the woman, and a few weeks ago, on the ground that he was too frequent a visitor to a good looking member of a local family, Mrs. Folsom shot at the head of the obnoxious household and, failing to hit him, clubbed him into unconsciousness.

"Mrs. Folsom placed the lighted lamp she had carried down with her on the stairway, and laid some parlor matches on the table." (Image by Rolf Schlagenhaft.)

She recently secured her freedom from the New Utrecht jail on bail and returned to her home at the Fort. The only occupant of her own quarters in the lower portion of the house who remained to greet her was a monkey, whom she had left in care of Sergeant Grossman, of Battery I. This morning Mrs. Folsom went into the basement to prepare the breakfast for the Grossman family. Jakey, the monkey, was tied to the leg of a table that stood not far from the stairs leading down to the basement. Mrs. Folsom placed the lighted lamp she had carried down with her on the stairway, and laid some parlor matches on the table. She then went out to get kindling wood. As she opened the door a few minutes later she discovered the place on fire. Jakey had climbed upon the table and was still engaged in cracking parlor matches, and when they became too hot to hold dropping them on to the rubbish covered floor.

Mrs. Folsom’s first thought was for the Grossman family, upstairs, on the floor just above the rapidly growing flames. Mrs. Grossman had already been aroused by the smoke and was astir. Her two little children were, however, asleep in bed, when the frightened housekeeper burst open the door and let in the volume of smoke. Mrs. Folsom seized upon the children and carried them safely downstairs. Mrs. Grossman followed, but was near being too late to get through the burning basement with safety. Her clothing took fire, but she was fortunate in being able to reach the open air and assistance before she or the children were injured. 

All efforts to save Jakey, the mischievous cause of the fire, were unavailing, and his cries for help soon died away in the flames that entirely consumed the house before the hand engine from Bay Ridge made its appearance.”