CORRESP ONDENCE. 



409 



LETTER FROM MR. BERGH. 



To the Editors of the Popular Science Monthly. 



On page 63*7 of your September edition, 

 there is an article entitled " Death to the 

 English Sparrow," which refers to a com- 

 munication in the "American Naturalist," 

 written by one Dr. Elliott Coues, recom- 

 mending the extermination of that pretty 

 little creation of the Almighty, and sug- 

 gesting that boys be constituted their exe- 

 cutioners. 



Who this enemy to God, through one of 

 his works, is, I know not whether he be a 

 Zulu or an American savage, I care not ; 

 but, since he has been permitted a space in 

 two of our leading menstruals, out of def- 

 erence to them, I have thought proper to 

 notice the barbarism of the sentiment ut- 

 tered by him. 



This man dares to rebuke the Maker of 

 all things, by calling the innocent little be- 

 ing "a wretched interloper," which has no 

 place in the " natural economy of this coun- 

 try " ; and he betrays his own place in the 

 social and professional world by charac- 

 terizing all who think otherwise as " silly 

 old fogies," " <7a.s-ornithologists," and 

 " clacqueurs of the quasis." 



This person, who thus arraigns his Crea- 

 tor, and attributes human fallibility to the 

 Infinite, belongs, it seems, to a profession 

 which should purge itself of a fellow who 

 has not the brains to comprehend the mean- 

 ing of humanity and good policy, nor yet 

 the fact that God has not created anything 

 needlessly not even Elliott Coues. 



This inverted genius suggests the policy 

 of founding a school wherein boys niay be 

 educated in the practice of murder, which 

 of course includes all other social crimes. 



It is true, he does not advise these boys 

 to begin by killing their parents, or other 

 human beings, but to commence with an 

 innocent little bird ; when, after an appren- 

 ticeship of a few years, he presumes they 

 will be prepared to do the heavy business 

 of throat-cutting, stabbing, and shooting. 



This wonderful individual, when he con- 

 ceived this grandest idea of his life, doubt- 

 less had in his mind " the physical fact " 

 as the Honorable Mr. Sloate would say that 

 there is a beginning to everything ; that the 

 mighty Mississippi at its source is but a 

 tiny stream, and hence his pupils in time 

 would graduate from his college with all the 

 honors enjoyed by the most distinguished 

 students of crime that have ended their 

 days upon the scaffold. 



But the refreshing tenderness of this 

 medical practitioner whom possibly some 

 innocent invalid may have unwittingly called 

 to his bedside is best expressed by himself. 

 He says: "Let the birds shift for them- 

 selves ; take down the boxes and all special 

 contrivances for sheltering and petting the 

 sparrows ; stop feeding them ; stop supply- 



ing them with building material ; abolish 

 the legal penalties for killing them; let 

 boys kill them ; let them be trapped and 

 used as pigeons, or glass balls in shooting- 

 matches among sportsmen " ! 



It is said that the inventor of the guil- 

 lotine was the first person to perish by it. 

 that this modem yEsculapius would only 

 introduce his beautiful theory among us 

 here in New York for he is a resident of 

 a much-to-be-envied Eastern State so that 

 the undersigned might profit by the oppor- 

 tunity of making him acquainted with the 

 legal guillotine which he would certainly be 

 compelled to ascend ! Henry Bergh. 



REMARKABLE LIGHTNING-STROKE. 



To the Editors of the Popular Stience Monthly. 



There recently occurred in our city a 

 case of stroke by lightning which, no doubt, 

 from its strange freaks, will be of inter- 

 est to the readers of The Popular Sci- 

 ence Monthly. It took place in a grocery- 

 store, and two persons were the sufferers. 

 The bolt, after tearing up the eaves of the 

 house, entered it on the side, leaving a 

 smutty stain between the cracks. It bulged 

 out the side of the shop for several feet, put 

 out the lamp, knocked down many articles 

 from the shelves, took off the tops of several 

 lamp-chimneys resting on them, completely 

 tore off the paper wrappers of many small 

 cakes of soap, and finally emerged at the 

 corner of the room, tearing off several 

 planks. In the passage of the current from 

 one division of the shelves to the other, it 

 either split the dividing boards or passed 

 under them, partially fusing the nails and 

 charring the adjacent wood. But what 

 makes the stroke most remarkable is the 

 way in which it affected the two men who 

 were struck. One of them, Ware, was 

 stunned for a few moments, had his pipe 

 knocked from his mouth several feet away, 

 and was left with a red, sore scar across his 

 cheek and a paralysis of his arms, which 

 latter remained for about two hours. Still 

 more strangely did it deal with the other 

 man, Bullard, who was resting upon the 

 show-case opposite Ware. The current 

 passed up his arm, under the armpit, down 

 the right side of the body to the thigh, 

 leaped across to the inner side of the left 

 leer, and passed down the leg to the foot. 



O' * Til 



It made a red bunch and sore mark upon 

 the body, singed the hair from both legs, 

 and left the sufferer unconscious for more 

 than twenty-four hours. Both have fully 

 recovered, with the exception of a little 

 soreness. In both cases we noted the spiral 

 direction of the current. The house was 

 low, in a depressed situation, and protected 

 with a rod. Robert F. Jackson, Jr. 



Macon, Georgia, May 20, 18T9. 



