MURDEROUS MILLINERY. 13 
an immediate appeal should not be made to 
Her Majesty, preferably by leading ornith¬ 
ologists, on behalf of the persecuted birds. 
Eighteen months ago Professor Newton 
stated that, “Two little words from the 
highest personage in the land, to the effect 
that after a certain day ‘ no plumes ’ would 
be admissible at Court, and the whole aspect 
of the matter would be changed.” All bird- 
lovers will join in his “ earnest hope that 
these words may be spoken before it is too 
late.” 
NOTE. 
The title selected for this pamphlet has already been 
made familiar to the public by the Humanitarian 
League. Not only ornithologists and humanitarians 
have concurred with the poet Browning in upbraiding 
women for choosing to go 
** Clothed with murder of His best 
Of harmless beings,” 
but from the recently published Life of the late Arch¬ 
bishop of Canterbury it appears that the highest 
ecclesiastical sanction in England may be cited for the 
use of the term. Dr. Benson’s “ horror of a holocaust 
of birds for the sake of ornamental feathers” was 
expressed in no measured tone when *' the fact that a 
lady possessed of a cloak composed entirely of feathers 
culled from the breasts of humming-birds was men¬ 
tioned in his presence.” When someone pretended to 
approve the practice of wearing aigrettes, saying that 
there were so many old sins, it was a pity to invent a 
new one, he flamed: "A new sin! it is the old and 
heinous one of murder —a man who can pluck the 
aigrette from a living bird would kill a babe in its 
mother’s arms” (Life of Edward White Benson, late 
Archbishop of Canterbury, by his son, Arthur Chris¬ 
topher Benson. Vol. II, pp. 739 to 744). 
