PLEAS FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 



Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge. — Shakespeare. 



'F all the birds should die, not a 

 human being could live on 

 earth, for the insects on which 

 the birds live would increase so 

 enormously as to destroy all 

 vegetation. — Michelet. 



Prof. E. E. Fish estimates that birds 

 save, for agricultural purposes alone, 

 annually, one hundred million dollars 

 in the United States, and we are told 

 that insect life in many places has 

 increased so as to make human life 

 almost unendurable. 



The bravest are ever the most 

 humane, the most gentle, the most 

 kind ; and if any one would be truly 

 brave, let him learn to be gentle and 

 tender to everyone and everything 

 about him. — Rev. Arthur Sewell. 



" Every first thing continues forever 

 with a child ; the first color, the first 

 music, the first flowers paint the fore- 

 ground of life. The first inner or 

 outer object of love, injustice, or such 

 like, throws a shadow immeasurably 

 far along his after years." — Jean Paul 

 RiCHTER. 



We have long ago found that the 

 great remedy for all these wrongs lies, 

 not in law and prosecuting officers, 

 but in the public and private schools ; 

 that a thousand cases of cruelty can 

 be prevented by kind words and 

 humane education, for every one that 

 can be prevented by prosecution ; and 

 that if we are ever going to accomplish 

 anything of permanent value for the 

 protection of those whom our societies 

 are organized to protect, it must be 

 through the kind assistance of the 

 teachers in our public and private 

 schools. 



We found another important fact, 

 that when children were taught to be 

 kind to animals, to spare in spring- 

 time the mother-bird with its nest full 

 of young, to pat the horses, and play 

 with the dogs, and speak kindly to all 

 harmless living creatures, they became 

 more kind, not only to animals, but 

 also to each other. — Geo. T. Angell. 



I am in thorough accord with the 

 proposition to have the birds protected, 

 and my words cannot be clothed in 

 too strong language. We are a nation 

 of vandals. Birds make the choir of 

 the heavens and should be protected. 

 — Cardinal Gibbons. 



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