GIRLS, LOOK HERE!



"THERE is no lady deserving of the name," who could witness without a feeling of horror the process of preparing for use the feathered beauties which form such conspicuous ornaments on women's hats.

"If those who wear them knew the tortures to which these helpless little creatures are subjected, and the heartless cruelty with which the business is carried on, they would shrink from even indirect complicity with it.

"Of course the impression prevails, that all birds used for personal decoration are killed immediately when caught, and prepared in the ordinary way by taxidermists; but here is just where the mistake is made. 

The birds are taken alive, and while living the skin is skillfully stripped from their quivering, ghastly bodies. By this process, it is claimed, the feathers retain a firmer hold upon the skin. Such is the method by which all birds used in the decoration of ladies' hats are prepared.

"Think of the exquisite humming bird, the blue-bird, the cardinal bird, the oriole, and numberless others of beautiful plumage, struggling beneath the knife of the heartless operator; think of this, tender-hearted ladies, as your admiring gaze rests on these ornaments now so fashionable. 

Hundreds of thousands of birds of the brightest plumage are literally flayed alive every year; and so long as our ladies will consent to wear such ornaments, just so long will this cruel business continue. "The savages of the forests ornament themselves with the scalps of their deadly foes, but it is left for civilized and delicate Christian women and their daughters, who would faint at the sight of a drop of blood, or weep over a dead canary bird, to follow fashions which cause the wanton destruction of whole races of God's beautiful creatures, and to deck themselves in the gaudy plumage torn from the quivering forms of little innocent birds which God has made to sing his praise.

Can any of our readers afford to proclaim themselves partakers in such horrible cruelties? Better banish every semblance of plumage from the dress than countenance in the least degree fashions which lead to such atrocities. 




Christian.