196 BORROWED PLUMES 



industry with which the Royal Society for the Pro- 

 tection of Birds has pressed the crusade against the 

 plume trade, with its attendant cruelties, has convinced 

 intelligent ladies of its real nature, and roused them 

 to resist the tyranny of milliners; and because it 

 stamped the wearing of ' ospreys ' as a sign of stupidity. 

 A fashionable lady may treat with indifference the 

 imputation of cruelty, knowing that she would shrink 

 with horror from committing any direct act of cruelty ; 

 but she does not like being thought stupid ; and it is 

 stupid not to perceive that to encourage wholesale 

 cruelty, such as is involved in the collection of 

 'ospreys' from nesting colonies of white herons, by 

 purchasing the plumes, is just as bad as to commit an 

 individual act of direct cruelty. 1 



This principle has been vindicated in a remarkable 

 way in the law courts of Louisiana, where a precedent 

 has been established whereby milliners are held liable 

 to fine or imprisonment for offering plumes of white 

 herons for sale. The proprietor of a millinery store 

 in New Orleans was sentenced to a fine of fifty dollars 

 or thirty days' imprisonment for this offence, the pre- 

 siding judge ruling that, as it was impossible to reach 

 the persons who devastated the distant breeding- 

 grounds of these birds, sellers and wearers of the 

 plumes must be made amenable. Appeal was made to 



1 I have seen to-day (15th June 1909) a hat displayed in a shop 

 window in Bond Street, entirely covered with the plumes of the 

 white heron. It must have required six full-grown birds to supply 

 them. They have been dyed bright yellow, so I suppose some credulous 

 customer will buy the beastly thing believing the feathers to be 

 other than what they are. 



