RESULTS OF THE AMERICAN PLUMAGE LAW 



THE prohibitory results of the American and Canadian 

 tariff laws (1913) for the exclusion of all wild-bird 

 plumage intended for commercial users, are everything that 

 their sponsors ever hoped they would be. The disappear- 

 ance of wild feathers from women's hats is wholly due to 

 a law that is 99 y 2 per cent effective. In fact, we believe that 

 if anyone had time to make systematic observations and 

 calculate the result, it would be found that only one-tenth 

 of one per cent of feminine hats now carry forbidden 

 feathers. 



Before the American law went into effect, on October 4, 

 1913, a few dealers imported all the "paradise," "goura" 

 and "numidia" that their cash would pay for. At the same 

 time, many other dealers elected to cease carrying forbidden 

 feathers. Today this honorable group is represented by the 

 New York Millinery Chamber of Commerce ; and recently it 

 has recorded very decided protests against the further sale 

 by the trade of banned plumage. They object to the odium 

 that is being brought upon a respectable trade by a few 

 irreconcilables who are determined to sell "paradise" as long 

 as one can be obtained. 



Of course it is to be understood that the stocks on hand 

 when our law to prohibit imports went into effect, were 

 not confiscated, nor otherwise rendered unsalable. Even the 

 most drastic course could not have brought back to life the 

 dead birds represented in the storage boxes of the millinery 

 trade. Those foreign goods remained salable, and a very 

 few are on sale today, at prices so high that a few men take 

 great risks in trying to work the smuggling game. 



But showy feathers are difficult to smuggle, and realize 

 upon afterward. Any thief can steal property from other 



