HORTENSIA M. BLACK. 171 



TO THE RESCUE OF BIRDS. 



BY HORTENSIA M. BLACK. 



When I was asked to read a paper on the humanitanan 

 side of this question, the request found me very ill ; but I 

 wrote your President that I would come if I could, so deeply 

 am I interested in this subject. I have hastily put together 

 some thoughts that are like loving friends to me. I am glad 

 and proud to stand with you and show, if only by my 

 presence, that my heart is with you in this work; for it is 

 my cause and my life-work to aid in delivering the earth 

 from the curse of cruelty, and in instilling into every human 

 heart a respect for creatures which share the earth with us, 

 and have as good a right to it as ourselves. 



The question is, how to rescue these little " brother spirits," 

 as Olive Schreiner calls them, from that persecution which 

 is alike their physical destruction and our moral overthrow ; 

 for in this question's solution is involved human elevation. 

 The present status is deplorable. Even men wear feathers, 

 k la Yankee Doodle. Every fraternity man " sticks a 

 feather in his hat," and then derides the poor Indian for 

 using the same decoration in a different way. As for 

 woman, she engages in anything cruel for appearance's sake, 

 from swinging a mink around her neck, head and all, to 

 sticking a bird on her hat, although she knows a man gets 

 these things for her by the agony and death of the little 

 creatures. If destructive animals, such as the mink, were 

 the sole subjects for her vanity, one might forgive her ; but 

 when the fleece of unborn lambs is her favorite trimming 



