10 
Oh ! ye gentle ladies who shrink from the smal¬ 
lest pain, how can you inflict all this misery upon the 
harmless and beautiful birds ? The pain is to them 
as hard to bear as it is to you, and life is just as 
dear. Nor is it only that life is taken. You know, 
you must know, that those rough men whom you 
employ to kill the birds will not be supremely anxious 
to give the smallest possible pain in their terrible 
work. You must know, you ought to consider, 
that constant contact with suffering hardens the 
feelings. Listen. “ It is a fact,” says one who 
knows, “ that after the birds are shot down, the 
wings are wrenched off during life, and the mangled 
bird is left to die slowly of wounds, thirst, and star¬ 
vation. The plumage being at its brightest during 
the nesting season, that is the time selected for 
obtaining the victims, and the inevitable conse¬ 
quence is that the defenceless fledglings also die 
lingeringly for lack of a parents’ fostering care. The 
dying voices of the helpless progeny cry aloud for 
justice and protection.” 
“Ten thousand, thousand little birds 
In cruel hands a-dying, 
Could you but see the bright wings torn 
From birds alive and bleeding, 
And note their quivering agony, 
I had no need of pleading.’’ 
Can you think of this and still bow before the 
tyrant, “ Fashion ? ” Have you neither the courage 
nor the heart to say, “I will not?” Can you 
realize that the inner spirit is seen, “as in a 
mirror,”.by the dress you wear, and therefore that 
your character must either be cowardly or cruel ? 
Can you teach the children around you gentle ways 
when the “ Osprey ” waves in your head-dress, or 
wings decorate your bonnet? Your own life gives 
the lie to your words. And how, above all, can you 
make visible the love of God to the world around ? 
Do you remember that, failing in this, you fail of your 
