Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-02-20
SPARROWS ARE DRIVEN
FROM FAVOR|TE HAUNT
Trees in Moving Picture Belt
Freed of Pests by Man
With Rockets.

It's awful to be a sparrow. First you
get starved to death in the winter time
and when the spring comes rolling in
some fresh person sets of a rocket I'M
derneath your favorite roosting place, and
after that you've got to wear carpet slip
pers. Honest, it's awful to be a spar
row. Ask any of those perfectly good
sparrows that slept In one of the two
trees in front of the moving picture belt,
between 9th and 10th streets. on Penn
sylvania avenue northwest If there s
one left that isn't too scorched to talk
he'll tell you that he'd rather be Com
missioner of the District of Columbia
than a sparrow. The Commissioners
may be attacked. but no one has set off
anything more than verbal pyrotechnics
under them.
Folks who have been walking down
the Avenue to find out the wicked things
that Mayor Gaynor objected TO in his
remarkable tour of this city have re-
marked that the sparrows in front Of the
Pennsylvania avenue moving picture belt
are something wonderful. Perhaps that
what the mayor saw. There are two
trees which for long time. have had
sparrows roosting in them thicker than
a poetic point not on the time tables,
but referred to in the classics.
Had Long Haunted Trees.
Those sparrows. plump, feathery and fas-
cinating, have haunted the two trees ever
since the time that the electric signs began
making Pennsylvania avenue q Great
White Way, junior. They have looked
like feathery fruit: like plump plums out
OF season, on trees despoiled Of leaves.
They have attracted the attention Of tens
OF thousands of passers-Dy. People who
have looked upward in the moving pic
ture belt have seen thousand sparrows
sleeping and dreaming, mayhap. in those
two trees. There were enough sparrows
to make sparrow pies for all the hungry
heroes of English fiction. There were as
many sparrows in the bare months as
there were leaves in the green months.
1t was Sparrow Point and no mistake.
But last Saturday night along came a
man who said that the spaTows had
no right to be there. Down with the
ing picture business.
Consequently he interested the police.
They granted him a permit. He bought
a rocket-many rockets. In fact-more rock
cts than have been seen here since the
safe and sane Fourth was a wee small
infant. He boosted that he would scare
the sparrows into the middle of next
| week.
Siss! BOOM All Look at the stars,
children, and see the scared sparrows.
Like a drove of accused locusts, they
sprang from their roosting places and flew
helter-skelter, scared and homeless, into
the night. rocket singed the feet OF
some of our best beloved birds Into the
blackness of a Saturday night they flut-
tered. Siss! Boom! All. Another rocket
scurried through the trees. Five hundred
more sparrows fed into the darkness OF
an unlighted d street, one block back OF
Pennsylvania avenue. Bling! roman
candle did ID cents worth of Illuminating
A thousand sparrows fled on wings OF
fear and feathers.
And now Sparrow Point is devastate ed
Perhaps they will come back and charm
the Avenue again, those dear birds. But
hope not, children. Rather see those spar.
rows sleeping in a commonplace u stree,
/ than running the risk of being scorche6
| by dollars worth OF rockets. police per-
nit granted.