DOMESTIC POTJLTBT. 



closed, the pluckers, — eaoli with a coarse apron tied up to hei 

 chin, — go at their work as stolidly as though they were picking 

 gooseberries off a bush, rather than feathers from a living 

 creature. The old geese, — their skins having doubtless grown 

 callous from constant plucking, — ^bear the operation as content- 

 edly as one does having his hair out ; it is the goslings, with 

 their tender baby-flesh, who make the noise : no one, indeed, 

 but an experienced and granite-hearted plucker, could indif- 

 ferently listen to the poor little things' plaintive ' quack, quack' 

 for mercy. If the season prove cold, the mortality amongst 

 the poor naked things is something alarming." 



The only excuse for this barbarity is that feathers plucked 

 from a Hve bird retain their elasticity, whereas feathers from a 

 dead bird have no more life in them than there is in the carcase 

 from which they are drawn. 



It is, however, satisfactory to find that the poor geese who 

 thus suffer so much pain at the hands of the myrmidons of the 

 all-potent monarch. Fashion, are not entirely without cham- 

 pions, who, moreover, not only denounce the barbarous custom, 

 but also suggest a remedy. Foremost amongst these may be 

 mentioned a writer, now somewhat old, but whose " Treatise 

 on Poultry " is a standard work of reference at the present 

 time; I aUude to Bonington Mowbray, who makes the following 

 remarks on the practice of plucking geese : " A writer in the 

 MonthVy Magazine, December, 1832, remarks humanely on the 

 cruelty of plucking the living goose, proposing a remedy which 

 I should rejoice exceedingly to find practicable and effective. 

 He remarks on the additional torture experienced by the poor 

 fowl, from the too frequent unskflfulness and want of dexterity 

 of the operator — generaUy a woman. The skin and flesh are 

 sometimes so torn as to occasion the death of the victim ; and 

 even when the fowls are plucked in the most careful manner, 

 they lose their flesh and appetite ; their eyes become duU, and 

 they languish in a most pitiable state, during a longer or a, 

 shorter period. Mortality has also been periodically very ex- 

 tensive in the flocks of geese, from sudden and imprudent 

 exposure of them to the cold, after being stripped, and more 

 especially during severe seasons and sudden atmospheric 

 vicissitudes. There are many instances, in bleak and cold 

 situations, of hundreds being lost in a single night, from neg- 

 lect of the due precaution of comfortable shelter for so long a 

 time as it may appear to be required. The remedy proposed, 

 on the above authority, is as follows : Feathers are but of a 



