104 WILD LIFE PROTECTION FUND 



people, but now it takes a supreme genius to dispose of it 

 afterward by sale without getting caught. 



The vigilance of the U. S. Treasury Department in stop- 

 ping importations of forbidden plumage, and in seizing 

 smuggled feathers, is deserving of high praise. 



The law was drawn as a barrier net with meshes so fine 

 that not one wild feather could get through it; and it has 

 turned out well. The only recourse of the lawless is smug- 

 gling. Several parties now can testify that so far as economy 

 is concerned, the smuggling of bird feathers is a highly ex- 

 pensive pastime. For example, instead of getting large 

 profits, Abraham Kallman, of Laredo, Texas, got six months 

 imprisonment, a fine of $2,500 and a loss of about $50,000, 

 all on the wrong side of his "paradise" account. He bought 

 the 527 skins (that he lost) in London, of Benjamin, Wil- 

 liams & Co. 



Even at this time there is possibly a trace of illegal egret 

 killing and aigrette smuggling, practiced with great labor 

 and travail, at Fort Myers, Florida, and possibly at a few 

 other points infested by northern newly-rich visitors. The 

 smart set of the northern cities has ceased to care for 

 aigrettes, or to buy them, even when offered the chance; 

 but the newly-rich-from-the-war buy all sorts of foolish 

 things, and with them an occasional forbidden, and there- 

 fore romantic, aigrette. In New York City the wearing of 

 aigrettes is said to be confined to amateur actresses, and 

 ladies' maids who get cast-off finery for nothing. 



But the absence of wild birds plumage in New York is 

 phenomenally complete. One can watch for days together 

 without seeing one feather from a wild bird. Even the 

 domestic and hand-reared feathers have to a great extent 

 vanished with the wild ones. 



The strangest manifestation of all is the desire of the 

 members of the legitimate feather trade that the sale of 

 forbidden plumage should cease altogether, and no longer 



