Zbyszko v. Ape

A fine upstanding figure of a man is that of famed Wrestler Stanislaus Zbyszko. What was his dismay and rage, not long ago, to observe beside his picture in the New York American, the picture of a beetle-browed gorilla with fangs like clothespins and nostrils like the mouthpiece of a telephone instrument.

The purpose of the picture, he soon discovered, was to illustrate an article on the theory of evolution. His likeness had been selected apparently because it bore so striking a resemblance to that of a gorilla. More, it was possible to derive the implication that he, Stanislaus Zbyszko, was no better than a monkey. Growling, Stanislaus Zbyszko called in his lawyer and planned a $250,000 suit against the paper.

Last week, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York decided that the New York American had been guilty of criminal libel in so printing the pictures of Zbyszko & Ape. had given the plaintiff cause for action. Further ambiguity was banished by Justice John V. McAvoy who described the photograph as that of a “hideous-looking gorilla,” declared that it tended to disgrace Zbyszko, and to bring him into ridicule and contempt.