Samuel Griswold Goodrich (1793-1860), posed this question to the little subscribers of his Parley’s Magazine in 1835:

What’s here? some of my young readers will probably say…and no Wonder.  But instead of answering them…I shall only return the question: What is it?

Will you not try?—If you can write me about it, please to be very particular…. Let me see, how good your eyes are, and how well you have learned to study pictures.

P.A.C. wrote to Peter Parley in the next issue:Although I am afraid I shall not make a very good story, I will try to do my best…. There appears to be a young man in prison, and his only companion, a monkey, lies dead before him, on the floor.  At one side of him, it seems as if there was a pile of apples, which I supposed had had for his monkey to eat; and he appears to be sitting on a chest, in which he may keep his clothes.—I should be glad to know if prisons are useful, and what they can be for?

Without making one comment on the young lady’s interpretation of the odd picture, Griswold launched into an explanation of why prisons failed to reform inmates.  He seems not to have considered that his reply might discourage children from submitting their ideas…   It was a stroke of luck that a school teacher in Portland, Maine, sent along six of her pupils’ attempts to make sense of the picture in their weekly writing assignment, which Griswold ran in the next number.

Portland Pupil no. 3 had a more active imagination than P.A.C.:

The resemblance is slight…

I think this singular man looks something like Blue Beard. Or it may be an invalid, who is put in the hospital, and has a great deal of money; and does not know what to do with it.

At his feet there is something like a monkey dressed in clothes, or it may be a child.  He may, too, be a robber, who has got into a house, and stolen some money; and he did not like to leave the child at home, so he took it with him.  Then perhaps the house heard some one, and they found the man and child and locked him up during the night so as to keep him; and so he feels very  unhappy about it.  The child might have said something he did not like, and so he chained them to the floor.  It may be a slave who is going to be sold at auction, and they have put him there to keep him from running away.

Unable to decide if the man was Blue Beard, an invalid, or a robber or if the figure at his feet was a child, a monkey, or a slave, no. 3 was clear that whoever they were, they were unhappy being held against their wills (or dead, in the case of the child/monkey/slave).

Portland Pupil no. 4  saw money everywhere, which meant the man had to be a miser—unless he was a robber who took the child (or monkey) hostage:

Seems unlikely…

I think the picture represents a miser, who has a great deal of money, and has shut himself up in a dungeon and feels very unhappy.  There is something lying at his feet which looks very much like a child, or a monkey.  Or he may  be a robber, and has stolen the money and taken the child so that he may not be found out.  He looks as if he was sitting on a chest, which may be money; and that which likes on the side of him may be money.

Portland Pupil no. 2 concurred that the figure might be a miser, seated on a chest of gold and bags of gold to one side.  Unless he happened to be a showman with his monkey, a sailor seated on a bird cage, or a smuggler.  No. 2 was the only one to suggest the man was seated on the pavement underneath a building with windows.  The  board in the window might reflect a European custom of “hanging out of the window a board with written characters on it when any one of their relations or friends are dead, I think this board may be hung out for this purpose.”

A robber would have plumes in the man’s hat, opined Portland Pupil no. 4, which would also  explain the presence of a locked chest with the symbols for pounds and pence written upon it. The pile of stuff against the wall could be money, but was more likely “provisions.”  A robber would be likely to store his plunder in a dungeon and imprison a child there.

Of all the Portland Pupils, no. 1 teased out the greatest number of meanings with the least confidence:Studying a picture, is a subject with which I am very little acquainted.  I shall not therefore compose a very correct piece.  I think the picture looks something like a man put in a cell, for punishment—a robber or a murderer—who may be going to kill that person, who lies at his feet, in order to get the money, which seems to be scattered around him.  The one at his feet in dress, resembles an Indian, and his head, resembles that of a monkey.  Were there any instruments there, I should come to the conclusion that murder was his object.  In some respects he looks like a miser.  Those bags and the chest may contain money, but I think it rather doubtful.  Some might think it was a robber, in  a cavern, who has been stealing, and that person at his feet has detected him, and for fear he should expose him, is going to put an end to his life.  Whether this is an idol, or a human being, I do not know.  He looks very sober, but he may be thinking of some way of escape.  And again, it looks like a Pirate, who having murdered all the crew, with the exception of the one at his feet, and having taken the money from the vessel, has retired into a cave or cavern, and is thinking of some way of secreting it, and passing away unobserved.  Which is the most likely, I will leave the reader to decide.

No consensus was reached beyond Portland Pupils’ intuitions that the scene was dark and the man’s calling made it likely that he was up to no good.  Their interpretations of the picture suggest the Gothic-tinged adventure stories devoured outside of class may caused them to read the picture as more exciting that it was.  I thought it might be a picture of a young organ grinder seated on his instrument, mourning the death of his animal.  That kind of street performer often wore a fancy hat…And the editor’s opinion of “The Odd Picture?”  On p. 279 of part X, he offered this explanation without any assurance that it was authoritative:

I think the object lying on the floor or pavement cannot be a child or an Indian; but is most evidently a monkey.  The boy or young man does not seem to be a miser, for he is too well dressed; nor do I see anything that looks like money.  He seems rather, to be some eccentric (odd) young man—perhaps a sort of hermit in a lonely, though not mean habitation—(possibly he is in prison)—whose only companion a monkey, has just died; and he is mourning his loss.  He probably dressed him in this way sometimes to suit his own fancy.  The pile of something at the man’s right hand, I think must be fruit for the monkey to eat.

Griswold turned this into an opportunity to invite readers to write in about a new picture:

More than a hundred scholars, I dare say,–certainly a very large number—wrote down their thoughts about the picture of the boy and the monkey.  Though this picture is not so curious as that…it will afford all our young readers an excellent subject in composition, if their teachers are willing they should write on it.  And if they are not, you can write at home.

If his selection of pictures had been as fascinating as the illustrations for the columns on his first loves, natural history and science, perhaps the feature would have continued beyond the 1835-6 volume….