R.S.P.B. 153 



the close-time should vary in accordance with the 

 locality. I only pretend to indicate the general line to 

 be taken, and further than that I have only to say try to 

 get Walsingham over. He has a way of conciliating 

 people which would be very useful if he were on your 

 side, and I know he is that from the part he took in the 

 House of Lords in 1893. 



If it had not been for that fool of a Lord I 

 think Maxwell might have been persuaded to accept the 

 amendments of his Bill, and all the Terns would have 

 been safe last year instead of being sacrificed.* 



The Society for the Protection of Birds, which was 

 founded in 1889, received the first guinea towards its 

 funds from Newton, and always found in him a cordial 

 helper and adviser. Though he was several times invited 

 to do so, he would never consent to become a Vice- 

 President of the Society, possibly because he mistrusted 

 what he considered to be their somewhat amateurish 

 methods. He was constantly deploring the mistaken 

 enthusiasm of people whose letters in the Times and 

 elsewhere seemed to him to do more harm than good. 



" The worst is that people will gush and be sentimental, 

 and as I found out before, when I had to do with the 

 Bird Protection Bills in Parliament, the sentimentalists 

 gave far more trouble than any one else." 



Though he condemned the form of the Act of 1894, 

 and was always hoping that some day a more reasonable 

 scheme might be adopted, he was bound to admit a few 

 years later that much good had been effected even by 

 that imperfect measure. 



How to get a commonsense Act of Parliament passed 

 I don't know. We had one once which was pretty good, 

 but as you know the poulterers got Harcourt to repeal 

 the one useful clause in it, when it had existed only for 



* Letter to Col. H. W. Feilden, January 9, 1895. 



