FEATHERLESS HATS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13643, 10 July 1908, Page 3

FEATHERLESS HATS.

PROPOSED FINE ON PT.t.MKS

No plumes of foreign birds, except ostrich, eider duck, and -wild ibirds used for food,' will be seen on women's bats after December 31, if Lord Avebury's Bill to prohibit importation of plumage and skins into Great Britain become law. , . The penalty for importation for sale or exchange is £5 on first conviction,, and £25 on second and subsequent, convictions, and forfeiture and destruction of the feathers. But if a woman is actually wearing prohibited plumage when slie arrives in° Great 'Britain, and is not to sell it, then no offence is committed. - Lord Avebury stated: " The idea of my Bill is to* check the wholesale destruction of birds going oh throughout the British Empire and pans of the world, simply to provide pliimage for millinery. All the ornithologists in England are behind roe, and ,I'. have the whole-hearted support of the Selborne and the- Wild Birds' / Preservation Societies. The birds to come within the Bill are the white heron, from which osprev plumes are taken; crowned/ pigeon, aioatrosst, lyre bird,, and birds of paradise. The birds are most beautiful a' nesting time, when they are mostly caught, so that wheri.one is taken it means the destruction of ,a ; whole family. In tnu way many beautifiil species are gracnially. dying out. lam sure if ladies really knew how cruel the traffic is they would never wear the plumes, for after all they •do no look nice in them.

One of tihe leading milliners in Bond Street said: ".The Biil would mean the loss of thousands of pounds to the millenary trade in the Weet' End. Women will have plumage:, hats, and if they cannot 'g«->' them in London they will go to Paris and bring them back for their own use. Nearly all the plumage and skins from different - parts of the world come to the London auction rooms and then the goods go back to the Continent .< to be worked -up. Pass this Bill and at- once these great auctions will be moved to some foreign, port and Loudon will lose that part of, the trade, a-s Well >aa the shop trade of the customer!" At the plume auction sales; in London during, the last six months of 1907 19,742 'skins of birds of paradise were catalogued, 1411 packages of the nesting plumes! of.j the white Jieron, representing the feathers • of nearly 115,000 birds, and immense mim- I bers of" the feathers and' skins of afm;dst | every known species of ornamental plumage bird.' . . j Similar legislation to that proposed is in force in the State of New York.