THE BADGE OF CRUELTY. 



CELIA THAXTER. 



IS it not possible to persuade the 

 women of Boston — the city we are 

 proud to consider a centre of re- 

 finement, reason and intelligence 

 — to take a decided stand in the matter 

 of the slaughter of birds, and protect 

 them by refusing to wear them? We 

 are fostering a grievous wrong out of 

 pure thoughtlessness. A bit of ribbon, 

 or a bunch of flowers, or any of the 

 endless variety of materials used by 

 the milliner would answer every pur- 

 pose of decoration, without involving 

 the sacrifice of bright and beautiful 

 lives. But women do not know what 

 they are doing when they buy and 

 wear birds and feathers, or they never 

 would do it. How should people 

 brought up in cities know anything of 

 the sacred lives of birds? What 

 woman, whose head is bristling with 

 their feathers, knows, for instance, the 

 hymn of the song-sparrows, the sweet 

 jargon of the blackbirds, the fairy flut- 

 ing of the oriole, the lonel}', lovely 

 wooing-call of the sandpiper, the cheer- 

 ful challenge of the chickadee, the wild, 

 clear whistle of the curfew, the twitter- 

 ing of the swallows as they go circling 

 in long curves through summer air, 

 filling earth and heaven with tones of 

 pure gladness, each bird a marvel of 

 grace, beauty, and joy? God gave us 

 these exquisite creatures for delight 

 and solace, and we suffer them to be 

 slain by thousands for our " adorn- 

 ment." When I take note of the head- 

 gear of my sex a kind of despair over- 

 whelms me. I go mourning at heart in 

 an endless funeral procession of 

 slaughtered birds, many of whom are 

 like dear friends to me. From infancy 

 I have lived among them, have watched 

 them with the most profound reverence 

 and love, respected their rights, adored 

 their beauty and their song, and I 

 could no more injure a bird than I 

 could hurt a child. No woman would 



if she knew it. The family life of most 

 birds is a lesson to men and women. 

 But how few people have had the 

 privilege of watching that sweet life; 

 of knowing how precious and sacred it 

 is; how the little beings guard their 

 nests with almost human wisdom and 

 cherish their young with faithful, 

 carefrl, self-sacrificing love! If women 

 only knew these things there is not 

 one in the length and breadth of the 

 land, I am happy to believe, who would 

 be cruel enough to encourage this 

 massacre of the innocents by wearing 

 any precious rifled plume of theirs 

 upon her person. 



Extract from Henry Ward Beecher's 

 letter to Bonner on the death of the 

 Auburn horse: 



" Ought he not to have respect in 

 death, especially as he has no chance 

 hereafter? But are we so certain 

 about that? Does not moral justice 

 require that there should be some 

 green pasture-land hereafter for good 

 horses — say old family horses that 

 have brought up a whole family of 

 their master's children and never run 

 away in their lives; doctors' horses 

 that stand unhitched, hours, day and 

 night, never gnawing the post or fence, 

 while the work of intended humanity 

 goes on; omnibus horses that are 

 jerked and pulled, licked and kicked, 

 ground up by inches on hard, sliding 

 pavements, overloaded and abused; 

 horses that died for their country on 

 the field of battle, or wore out their 

 constitutions in carrying noble generals 

 through field and flood, without once 

 flinching from the hardest duty; or 

 my horse, old Charley, the first horse 

 that I ever owned; of racing stock, 

 large, raw-boned, too fiery for any- 

 body's driving but my own, and as 

 docile to my voice as my child was?"^ 



