Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1903-04-22
Don't Kill the Birds

The statutes of the state of Iowa
make 1t criminal otfense to destroy
the nests or eggs, or catch, take or kill
any birds, except bluejsys and English
sparrows. Any person convicted of
violating the law enacted for the protec
tion of birds shall be fined not less than
one dollar nor more than twenty-five
dollars and costs of prosecution, and
may be committed to the county jail
until such fine and costs are paid.
The season of the year has come
when boys with guns go hunting in the
fields and woods for recreation. 1t
seems almost incomprehensible that
any one would kill beautiful harmless
birds just for recreation. Boys don't
kill the birds. We wish that every hoy
in Delaware county could read the fol.
lowing editorial from the Cleveland
Press. 1t is as applicable to Iowa as
to Ohio:
"The song birds of Ohio are to stay
where God put them-in the wood ard
fields. He who notes even sparrow in
Its fall has not forgotten the little trou-
badours of the sunny skies. He has
raised up an agency for their defense in
their virgin sweetness, in their primal
beauty and in that which gives them
their beauty and sweetness both-their
native liberty. There is at least one
statutory law in which the hand of God
is surely. visable. And it is being right
eously enforced. No longer in Northern
Ohio, at least-will the hedges and trees
and sky be robbed of their richest trea
sures to adorn human vanity.
tits a battling psychological question
why woman wants bird on her hat.
it is confession, carried aloft like q
banner, that she needs unnatural aids to
make her beautiful. For the bird adorns
the womsn-no woman adorns bird
To refined minds, the woman is prettiel
without the bird, The bird in the
] woman's hat is q mark of murder, ths
most cruel and useless that the mind car
conceive, And it is mark of even NOR,
than that. 1t Is constant reminde
that the vanity of woman can ruthless
ly throttle the sweetest music that eve
kissed the soul, enslaye the most perfec
type of freedom, mar the purest thin
of beauty in the world, and then plac
the evidence Of her heartless crime
above her brow and ask us t. look an,
think her more beautiful.
/ Is 1t, then, to be wondered at tha
humanity has sickened of it, and ha
said, through thelaw and game warden
that the song birds shall stay where Go
put them-in the fields and woods.
There in their native element, til
song birds are mans first and holiet
inspiration. They taught him his fir
note in music, and gave him his firs
I dream of liberty. They are the greater
d optimists In the world, teaching alway
n cheer and hope. They croak no melaI
choly dirges, but sing only the songs /,
love and joy and praise. They bring il
to the heart hf man naught but bright
ness and take from 1t naught bl
: gloom.
Near to natures heart, where mt
Z and women have souls, the song bir,
\ suggest all that is best in life or to
< longed for In eternity. They whisper
Z the child his first message from the l
\ finite, and carol to old age of glOri
Z beyond the vale. From dawn to nigt
4 from birth to death, they flood our da
\ and lives with melody, and cheer wi
4 inspiration. y
II sAndlet them ct ay where God p
: them inthe fields and woods and
4 huma n souls"