Crime and Fashion.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue IV, 28 July 1900, Page 168

Crime and Fashion.

A despatch from Milford. Delaware, savs that a contract has been closed there for 20,000 birds to be killed for New York milliners at from ten to fifty cents, each. The contract calls for meadow larks, bluebirds, red wing blackbirds, erow blackbirds, English sparrows and baby owls. Stated in the plainest language, this contract calls for the commission of a crime of

a cruel kind—a crime made possible under the laws of Delaware, but none the less a erime and none the less disgraceful to the State that its laws make the crime possible.

Such a wholesale slaughter of bird life as that contemplated by this contract is a murder of the innocents and a robbery of the State. It sets a premium upon cruelty, and as these birds are of the insect destroying class it robs the farmers of protection supplied to them by nature. It also robs all the people of one of the most charming accessories of nature. It is. therefore, a crime against society tolerated bv the laws of Delaware.

The aggravating feature of this wholesale slaughter is that it is to bo committed to gratify female vanity, b-iman sclfisb-ess ami human greed. The women who will wear the plumage of these thousands of birds will not have committed murder themselves. but thev are responsible for it. If tliev should refuse to adorn them-

selves with the feathers the lives of the birds would be spared. They make the demand and the milliners gratify it by blindly following the edict of fashion mongers. The latter plan the slaughter. The milliners agree to purchase the plumage, because they know the women will consent to wear it. Fashion blunts all kindly feeling and shows no mercy. Birds are not only killed outright, but birds and other animals are tortured in order to secure their feathers and skins for female adornment.

Female fashions are rapidly depopulating’ the bird world. The song birds are especially noted for their beautiful plumage and are rapidly disappearing, and now the bird murderers are beginning' their destructive work in other directions. The sea birds, and especially the gulls, are vanishing from the Atlantic coast, thousands of them having been slaughtered every year to supply the demand for female adornment and to gratify female vanity. If the various States do not soon enact laws with heavy penalties attached forbidding the destruction of birds bird life will soon become extinct.