The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-08-07

difference where the boy goes to
SCHOOL,
Just what I said" replied the Inan.
But / want you to know went on
the mother, that my boys are good
| yet, anyway. Either one of them
would rather take a whipping than
hurt frog! They are the tenderest-
| hearted things you ever saw and if
they have any really bad habits / am
sure [ don't know what they are!
Smoke? No, indeed. they do not"
oldest one chews gum, doesn't
he?" asked the man. 81 thought So
they always do! And always kisses
you when he comes in doesn't - =?
And never smell smoke on his breaIn .
Quite an ordinary, healthy boy. who
I'm glad to know respects his moth
er's prejudices. Yes. they all chew
gum and the habit is in one ;s,nse a
good one: it doubles the cost and
halves the consumption OF cigarettes -
Yet the man was wrong in harkin g
back for his philosophy too literally
TO the time of his own bovhood.
w hether or not the change is funda-
mental is a question that can doubt
less be answered in the negative, but
IL is certain that the boy of today
has quit amusing himself as he did
twenty. fifteen, even ten years ago.
Take the two matters of the squirrels
and the song-birds for instance
Every one who visits Raleigh has
noticed the constantly increasing
numbers of the confident little rodent
bushy-tails that play about on the
Capitol Square lawn and on the trees
and grass plots of all the residential
streets. How many of these squirrels
could have lived a month if the small
how "a. nod wit I1n
ly double sling-shot, as he invariably
was twenty years ago. or with the
noiselesS fiobert rife that he uses to-
day? A few years ago, one squirrel
would have brought out a platoon of
the small boy marksmen; today, they
play about undisturbed by the boys
and only chased in a perfunctory sort
of way by the dogs. 1t is the same
with the song-birds, the decrease of
which has been wrongly attributed
l believe, to the prevalent English
sparrow The sparrow is a brute and
a citizen of the slums himself. No
body cares for him and he has learned
by experience how to live to raise n
family. While the small boy used to
range the woods in search of the eggs
of the orioles, the peWes, the nut
matches, the indigoes the red-birds
the hooking birds, the thrushes, all
plumage or sweet song, the sparrow
using his knowledge of human ma
ture, was nesting on the buildings
where the small boy could not so
and fatteninS and increasing in num-
bers. on the crowded streets where
one of the native birds would have
been frightened to death
AS the sparrows increased and the
song birds diminished in numbers we
began to lay it all on the sparrow,
when in truth the blame was with
the small boy, who with "bean-shoot-
re- and rifle and eagle eye spent en-
tire days in the woods. Seeking to. kill
and rob the Shy tribe of feathered
things.
Now, practically all of this is stop
ped and the birds are coming back
and the English sparrow is acquitted.
One has only to stroll quietly along
any of the shaded streets to catch
varied glimpses of all sorts of beauti-
FIJI bird life. The Hangers the
orioles, the hooking and cat-birds are
all more numerous. One gentleman
said the other day that he counted
the nests of fifteen different species
of native songsters in his lawn and