The Irish standard., 1886-12-25
CRUELTY OF FASHION.

CRUELTY OF FASHION.
Tho Foolish and Repellant Fancy .,
Ladies for Birds on Their Bonnets.
At the age of ten years my father
put the butt of shotgun in my hand
and showed me how to lay the barrel
across a stump and aim the gun at a
red-headed woodpecker that was in
dustriously getting away with the top
kernels of an ear of corn in the garden
patch back of the house in which I
lived, in the outskirts of . little village
in the backwoods of Ohio. When /
had the gun aimed I pulled the trigger
and the unfortunate bird fell futtering
to the ground. Like any other young
savageI ran to it with exultant shouts.
The bird lay on the ground with it's
breast in the soft earth, its wings part
ly extended, and its head thrown back
convulsively between them. Its round
eyes were wide open and remained SO
until it died. There was something in
its position, the motion of it's head and
the look of it that gave me my first
idea of what the agony of death might
be, and, savage though l was, was
sorry for the moment that had killed
1T. The feeling wore off soon, but,
although I have killed hundreds of
game birds of all kinds since then, I
have never been able to entirely over
come a feeling of remorse whenever /
happened to see a bird dying from a
wound in the head which makes it
take the position of my first unfort-
unate woodpecker. Going through
Fourteenth street the other day the old
picture came back to me with unex-
pected force. In the window OF @
fashionable millinery store was a black
velvet bonnet with the bright-colored
body of red-headed woodpecker ca
the front of it. Its wings were partly
extended, its head thrown back be-
tween them, and there was that in its
position which told palmer than words
that it was mounted as ii in the agony
of death.
"What love of q bonnet" said a.
woman who was near rae as she looked
at it. t'It is perfectly fascinating. It's
exactly as if the birds were a-dying
there So it WAS. 1t was fascinat-
ing but pitiful. went down to a tax
iderrnist in William street, who is a
friend of mine. Three girls were en-
gagged in the room where I found him
il, skinning birds which they picked
out of a barrel. There were bull
fnches, red-birds, red-winged and
crow black~birds, thrushes, robins,
b]ue-hirds, and, in short, all the COM
mon birds to be found in the woods
and fields of long Island and New
Jersey
Business has been very br,sk,' said
the taxidern1ist. sit is the style, again,
to trim hats with the whole bird in
stead Of bunch of feathers or a mon
strosity composed Of patches offeathers
from allsorts of birds. One man has been
supplying me with from five hundred
Ito two thousand birds week, and 1
paid him from ten to twenty-five cents
each. don't ask him where or how
he gets them. 1t is contrary to law to
buy them, but ladies will have birds on
their bonnets and it is my business to
supply the demand"
The cruelty of wearing a dead bird
:on bounet is apparent only after one
stops to think a bit, perhaps, but the
extraordinary slaughter of the inno-
Icents that has been going on all sum-
mer around the city to supply fool
.ish fancy in styles ought to give us
pause. Beside, it is unlawful to buy
these birds or to wear them, ''or any
part thereof Ladies who want to
wear birds ON their bonnets ought first
to read the penal code.-Brooh;lyn
Eagle.