Stupidity Street 165 



tion of the Federal law, whatever the evidence 

 against the prisoner. 



I am going to take the public into my confidence 

 and say that the lady of whom we have rented 

 apartments for the last five years is a good friend 

 and I felt pretty sure that I had made one con- 

 vert when she had her ten-year-old son, last win- 

 ter, throw away his air-gun, but on our return in 

 December this year, I found she had given him 

 an ante-Christmas present of the largest and best 

 air-gun on the market and he and his little chums 

 were killing birds, as their fathers had before 

 them. 



There are exceptions to all general rules but 

 generally speaking so far as economic and aesthetic 

 appreciation of birds go, I am forced to locate 

 even my friends on that street whose name is the 

 name of this chapter. On this point I want to 

 quote from an account of a brief visit to an in- 

 terior town twenty miles from New Orleans where 

 for four days my friend, Creswell J. Hunt, be- 

 ginning on February 2Oth, 1918, took a bird cen- 

 sus. The deep, dark and awful ignorance that he 

 encountered every solitary soul living on Stu- 

 pidity Street is almost beyond belief. Here is 

 an extract from his report that speaks for itself. 

 "While the residents of southern Louisiana seem, 

 one and all, to have a great affection for the Mock- 

 ing bird, this species seems to be about the only 



