IN AMERICA. 6i ■ 



This nuisance was introduced some years after our list 

 appeared ; and so far from there being any prospect of its 

 abatement, it has increased each year. There is said to 

 be a remedy for every ill under the sun, but none has 

 been found as yet for this one, notwithstanding the cease- 

 less complaints and protests that we hear from all sides. 

 The rowdy little gamin squeaks and lights and does worse 

 all through the city, to the annoyance and disgust of nearly 

 all persons. In the aggregate the suffering he will entail 

 upon invalids and those prostrated by sickness is immea- 

 surable. Washington harbours and encourages a select 

 assortment of noise-nuisances : the black newspaper imps 

 who screech every one deaf on Sunday morning ; the 

 fresh-fish fiends, the berry brutes, the soap-fat scoundrels, 

 and the o' clo' devils ; the milk mercenaries with their 

 detonating gongs: but all these have their exits as well their 

 entrances ; the sparrows alone are tireless, ubiquitous, sem- 

 piternal. They begin just about the time one of the authors 

 of this treatise generally goes to bed and tries to go to sleep 

 — towards daybreak — and keep it up till their voices swell 

 in a diapason of horror with those of the other unspeakable 

 wretches above alluded to. They breed during the greater 

 part of the year — breed at a year old — keep breeding — 

 breed numberlessly. In place of many sweet songsters 

 which used to grace and enliven our streets, we have 

 these animated manure machines, as almost every house- 

 owner in the city knows to his cost. Whatever may 

 be said to the contrary, notwithstanding, the sparrows, 

 besides persecuting the human species, do molest, harass, 

 drive off, and otherwise maltreat and forcibly evict and 

 attempt to destroy various kinds of native birds, which 

 are thereby deprived of certain inalienable rights to life, 



