English Bird Dealers versus Germans.



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ENGLISH BIRD DEALERS versus

GERMANS.


One has hitherto had to acknowledge that on the whole the

German Bird dealers were in many points superior to the English.

Let it be frankly said that they have been, with some exceptions of

course amongst the English ones, more honest, more thorough in

their care of the birds, more enterprising in obtaining rarities, more

courteous to their clients. With those exceptions amongst our own

people, one would wish to advise the recalcitrant to study in the

future to climb higher, since their opportunity when the war is

finished may truly come. And as war cleanses, purifies and uplifts,

let it do so also to our bird-dealers ; for surely one can never again,

until the German people are also cleansed and purified and changed,

have dealings with any one of them, however pleasant individually,

since they are members of a nation which has proved itself by

the action of its head and of its leaders, something so monstrously

vile and venomous, so inhuman and devilish, so unthinkably cruel

and murderous, that one must assuredly cut it off with all that

appertaineth thereto, and cast it from one ! And this in no mere

■spirit of revenge and spite, but just because in every way that is

possible, a just punishment must be meted out. To continue to

encourage Germans as we have done would be to play with dan¬

gerous explosives.


But as far as traffic in birds is concerned, the English dealers

must set an example for good, remembering the old adage of the best

policy being honesty. One has, before now, cut off from one’s list,

dealers who are not only dishonest, but who, without any provoca¬

tion, will be impertinent and untrue even to their written word,

which after all is what the world has cried out against in the case

of the German leaders. One has entered shops in the past where

the olfactory nerves are grossly offended, where the birds, accustomed

by nature to pure air, food, and water, are cramped in foul and un-

washen cages, many dying miserably in a miserable prison.


And therefore it is that more upright and humane dealers in

‘Live Stock,’ find it necessary to advertise their birds (and mammals)



