Rev. William Day
Birds’ Nests: A Plea for Bird and Beast
「1897」Rev. William Day, Birds’ Nests: A Plea for Bird and Beast(Somerville, MA: John Youngjohn, 1897); Online at Animal Rights History, 2003.
Rev. William Day acknowledges in his sermon Birds’ Nest: Plea for Bird and Beast that ” hardly a day passes that does not bring to light instances of cruelty practiced upon dumb brutes”
and admonishes those cruelties as ” a disgrace to the civilization of the century and a Christian land.”
Arguing that “we have no warrant whatsoever to torture, abuse or cruelly treat a single one of God’s creatures,”
Reverend William Day adds that ” the animal world is suffering…not for its sin, but because of man’s sin,”
suggesting that “in view of what has come upon the lower order of the creatures through the fall of Adam, mankind should seek to ameliorate that condition by showing kindness, and not cruelty, to such.”
Rev. Day, “by no means unmindful of what has been done for dumb beasts by legislative acts, and the establishment of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals”
pleads that “there is so much more that can be done.”
He suggests that “men and women, and especially those who profess to follow the Saviour of the world and preach a gospel of humanity, love, kindness and gentleness, should begin to use their influence and the power of their example.”
—Birds’ Nests: A Plea for Bird and Beast
—A Plea from the Printer, John Youngjohn
—Carl Spencer on Wearing Bird Plumage
—Senator Hoar on the Bird Trade
—Covers and Illustrations
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BIRDS’ NESTS
A PLEA FOR BEAST AND BIRD
FROM A SERMON BY
REV. WILLIAM J. DAY
PASTOR OF THE WINTER HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
SOMERVILLE, MASS.
May 9, 1897
Senator Hoar in Boston Advertiser
To Lovers of Beasts and Birds. Greeting:
BIRDS’ NESTS
“If a bird’s nest chance to be before thee in the way, in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young; but thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to thee; that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days.”
—Dent. 22: 6,7
WHEN, in one of our large cities, a lady whose dress and appearance spoke for her as belonging to the ranks of the refined and cultured, stepped up to a burly teamster who was lashing his horse, which had great difficulty in moving its load, and snatching the whip from the man’s hand began to use it vigorously upon his person, she was declaring the Scripture law of kindness to animals, and emphasizing it in unmistakable terms. Some such sort of emphasis is the only kind many can understand.
“How do the beasts groan!” is an exclamation of Scripture. Hardly a day passes that does not bring to light instances of cruelty practised upon dumb brutes of one kind and another. Any one who keeps his eyes open, and he will not need to exert himself much, can see any day upon our city streets horses with docked tails; horses with huge curb bits in their mouths; horses with their heads drawn high with check rein; while the white foam flecks their jaws as an evidence of the torture from being subjected to such things. Horses are over-loaded until every muscle and nerve is quivering under the exertion and strain of drawing their burden. Horses hitched to various kinds of delivery wagons are every day driven through our streets at a speed positively injurious. They are rushed down hill at a break-neck speed and up hill as fast as they can be urged; swung round corners at a pace which not infrequently causes them to slip upon the smooth crossings and go down to be bruised, if not broken, in the fall. If some employers could see the way their horses are handled by those who drive them, it would seem as though there would be a private interview with these employees. The treatment which that noblest of all animals God has given for the service of man receives daily at his hand is a disgrace to the civilization of the century and a Christian land.
The cruelty practised on dumb brutes extends beyond the horse. Cattle are dehorned; they are crowded into the holds of vessels and compelled to stand upon their feet during a long and tedious voyage. To keep them from lying down and thus being trampled to death in their crowded condition, all sorts of devices full of cruelty are resorted to. It was not very long ago that I read an account of the shipping of cattle to foreign countries, and it was remarked that one of the attendants was so exasperated at the cattle in their attempts to lie down, that he deliberately knocked the eye out of a steer’s head. A gentleman told me of a form of cruelty practised upon these cattle which I refrain from mentioning, because of its disgusting nature. Such brutality makes every nerve in us tingle, but this is only a fraction of the torture inflicted upon the beasts of the earth.
Vivisection, with its horrors, goes on, in the interests of science in our schools and colleges. It is not so long ago that this matter was before the public in the daily papers. Cats, dogs, rabbits, frogs, and I know not what beside, are fastened alive to operating tables and subjected to all sorts of experiments, and are not always unconscious of suffering. If my memory serves me correctly, and I think it does, I read in one of our Boston papers, this last winter, that a young scholar fainted away while an experiment of this sort was being made, because the animal cried out under the operation.
Our flesh creeps as we read such things. But we think nothing of live lobsters thrown into boiling water, killed by this process so as to preserve the red color which characterizes lobsters killed in this way. It may seem like sentimentality to refer to this, but I want to tell you what Dr. Charles S. Robinson, an eminent religious writer, says along this line. After telling how a friend of his was shocked beyond measure, at hearing screams that sounded like the shriek of a baby coming from the kitchen range, and rushing in to find out what was the matter, saw a lobster swimming and crying out in agony in the scalding water in a pot; and never afterward could he bring himself to partake of lobster, or use for food any creature of God that needed to be boiled alive to be palatable. He says: “Now the fact that most persons would call this story a very odd illustration for a preacher; that some would deem the sensibility which shudders at a lobster boiling in the dinner-pot a mere mawkish sentimentality; that others would be shocked at the thought of being challenged for abominable cruelty in thus treating a mere monster from the ocean; this fact and others like it show that the time has come for an honest question to be put: Does the dominion over the lower animals of every grade include cruelty toward them, disregard for them, destruction of them—all in one fell sweep of merciless subjection?”
In the face of what is being done and practised upon the dumb creatures God has made, that question does need to be put. When men can come together from different States and hold a cock-fight, as was done last week in Rhode Island, and no arrests follow, even when the press published the account of them battle, something is wrong with our civilization.
Almighty God put the animal world in subjection to man. He was to have “dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air and the beast of the field.”
This gives man the right to do many things with the lower creatures. He may use them for food, for his comfort, and employ them in his service. To use the words of another: “We may eat the eggs of fowls, the flesh of beasts; we may domesticate them for the purpose of slaughter. We may take the cow’s milk, seize the bee’s honey, gather the fish’s spawn. We may use the otter’s fur, the lamb’s wool, the silkworm’s cocoon; we have a right to the whale’s oil, a walrus’s teeth, an alligator’s hide, an elephant’s tusks, a goat’s hair, a swan’s down.”
Yes, we may do all these, by virtue of the right conferred on man by the Almighty; but we have no warrant whatsoever to torture, abuse or cruelly treat a single one of God’s creatures. The law of kindness to animals is upon us. That is the principle running through this Jewish law. And if that law had never been given, it would still be true that God never intended man should treat the animal creation otherwise than with consideration and pity.
There is a passage of Scripture we may well ponder in connection with this subject: “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now.”
Why? Because of man’s sin. When Adam fell he dragged the whole creation down with him. The animal world is in the suffering for sin with humanity, and not for its sin, but because of man’s sin. The earth bears thorns and thistles because it was cursed for man’s sake—for his sin. The apostle declares this whole creation, not man only, but all else besides, waits for its redemption, and is to have it. In view of what has come upon the lower order of creatures through the fall of Adam, mankind should seek to ameliorate that condition by showing kindness, and not cruelty, to such.
In the August number of the Nineteenth Century, for 1896, there is a production from the pen of “Ouida,” entitled “The Quality of Mercy.” It is a powerful and pathetic plea for the animal creation. I wish it might be read by every man, woman and child in these United States, yes, and the world over. She speaks here with no uncertain sound; and what she utters must command the sympathy of every honest mind and heart. By the mention of two incidents this writer makes it very plain that, in one particular, our civilization is far behind that of the age of Rome. The first incident is the “familiar story of the Roman who wrung the neck of the dove which took refuge in his bosom from the pursuing bird of prey, and was stoned by his fellow citizens.”
The other relates how, “in 1895, in England, in a nobleman’s house, a footman beat with a red-hot poker a small dog which ran into the office, and piled burning coals on it until it died in indescribable agony.”
She wrote to the nobleman and asked “if he had dismissed this monster from his service.”
The reply made it plain that he had not. All the punishment the man received was a small fine by the court. The writer declares: “This act of the servant was an extreme case of cruelty, but his employer’s condonation of it is not an extreme case, but a very common sample of a master’s indifference, of that indifference which is practically connivance. People abandon their stables to their coachmen; their dogs to their keepers; even the animals they call pets are frequently allowed to suffer from servants or children, and are bullied, neglected and teased with impunity.”
After what I have seen and noted, I have to admit there is much force and truth in the charge.
Without doubt every one present before me has, at some time in their travels to and from Boston, noticed the gulls flying to and fro over the Charles River. It is a pretty sight to see these ever-restless, strong-pinioned white birds, soaring, diving and circling above the waters, and now and then snatching their food from the surface of the stream. There is ease, grace and dexterity in every motion. And yet these innocent, harmless, beautiful birds cannot be left without an attempt to take their life. Some one, last summer, over on the “Back Bay,” used to shoot at these birds in hope of wounding or killing them. The act was one of pure wantonness. There was not a single justifying reason for such work. It only ceased when the newspapers took up the matter and said some very sharp and strong things in condemnation of the act. I have no doubt that many who would condemn such a thing would think nothing of going out and knocking over with a gun many a bird which they could never use for food, and call it sport, and justify themselves in that sort of thing. Pigeons are shot by the hundreds at “shooting meets.” We had an illustration of that within a week. It is called sport. Many of these birds are not killed at once, but are only wounded, and left to suffer for a longer or shorter time, as the case may be.
Many of the female sex will wear the wings and stuffed bodies of birds upon their hats with no feelings of remorse. It would seem that women, and especially Christian women, knowing the facts about the bird-catching for millinery purposes, would forever refuse to ornament their head-dress with the wings and heads and feathers of our songsters and bright-plumaged birds. The facts, however, are against them. Time and again this matter has been brought to their attention through societies for the protection of the “feathered tribe,” and it has been with little avail. The slaughter still goes on, accompanied with the most cruel tortures. Ornithologists are once more calling attention to the wholesale slaughter of birds. Will this appeal prove to be any more effectual than others in stopping it? The Smithsonian Institution has quite recently sounded the alarm. It is declared that “civilized man is sweeping the wild birds off the face of the earth at such a rate that before long hardly any species of feathered creatures will survive, save those which are domesticated.”
We are told that many species have already been totally wiped out, and at the present rate of destruction many more, within a short period, will become extinct. The herons, which include the “egret crane and ibis,” are practically gone, and wherever they are found now, instead of being in colonies as heretofore, they are to be discovered only in pairs or singly. The petrel, macaw, paroquets, some species of comorants and pigeons, are nearly, if not altogether, wiped out. Some of these birds are native to our own country, many are from the islands of the sea, which are constantly being scoured and searched for birds whose feathers and bodies are used for millinery purposes, and for making feather dusters. These birds are taken at the breeding season, when hundreds and thousands fall a prey to the devices of men for their capture. If reports from the Smithsonian Institution and ornithologists are true, the ravages of “bird-plumers” at breeding stations on our Florida coast, and elsewhere, are sickening. In the National Museum at Washington, we are told, there is a cloak the original estimated value of which was $1,000,000. It once adorned the form of a queen of the Sandwich Islands. To make it required the slaughter of thousands of a bird called the “mamo,” which was hunted for just two little tufts of yellow feathers on its wings. Nothing but these feathers were used in the cloak. Who will throw a stone at the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands? America can hardly do it, for, since receiving the Gospel, they put her to shame at least in Sabbath observance. It is the testimony of the infidel, Moncure D. Conway, who stopped at Honolulu one Sunday, that he found a “silent city, paralyzed by piety.”
But we are speaking about birds. Dr. Robinson says: “It was published, in a paper called Science, that an ornithologist of great quickness of observation, riding in a Madison Avenue car, reported that he noted there was in it at one time thirteen women, of whom eleven wore birds, as follows: heads and wings of three European starlings; a whole bird, species unknown, of foreign origin; seven warblers, representing four different species; a large tern; some heads and wings of at least three shore finches; one-half of a gallinule; a small sea-swallow; a blue turtle dove; a vireo and a yellow-breasted chat; and the usual array of ostrich plumes a la mode.“
Do we stop to consider how these heads and bodies, wings and feathers, are obtained? Think of the cruelty and torture of plucking feathers from live birds, and stripping skins from quivering bodies. Yet this is precisely what is done. A minister had printed over his signature this statement: “In Louisville I saw in an apple orchard a man catching Southern red-birds in a trap. He skinned them alive before my eyes. He was paid fifty cents apiece for their skins. Every red-bird I have seen since, in milliners’ shops or in church, or on the streets, has recalled that blear-eyed man, bloody-handed amid the sweet fragrance and song of that peaceful orchard. Five hundred thousand skins of this species alone have been used this fall.”
With these facts before us, unpleasant as they may be to present, I think it is about time that men and women, and especially those who profess to follow the Saviour of the world and preach a gospel of humanity, love, kindness and gentleness, should begin to use their influence and the power of their example along this line. To a very large extent this matter is in the hands of the women. They can do more than any one else to bring about a change of affairs by refusing to decorate their persons with the plumage of birds obtained by such cruel methods as I have mentioned, and save our sweet-singing, beautiful birds for the purpose for which God in his wisdom and goodness made them—to give delight and pleasure to mankind. If feathers must he used in millinery decoration, there remain the wings and feathers of birds and fowls that have to be used for food. But, in my humble judgment, it is not necessary. When the cunning skill of man can imitate and fashion with such perfection the flowers of the earth, there is no need of resorting to feathers, wings and bodies of birds. Woman can help in saving the dumb creation from suffering and torture by bringing her “almost omnipotent power” to bear upon the minds and hearts of those under her tuition, inculcating those teachings of mercy, and kindness, and gentleness toward animal life which the Scriptures and reason declare to be right and just. Any observing person can discover quite an amount of cruelty to the lower order of creation cropping out among children. Much of it, doubtless, is due to thoughtlessness. But I am persuaded that, with the numerous examples of this abuse of dumb animals by older persons constantly before their eyes, we cannot expect children to be paragons of perfection, or anything approaching it, in the direction of kindness to animals.
In saying what I have, I am by no means unmindful of what has been done for dumb beasts by legislative acts, and the establishment of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, and hospitals for treatment of the same. I believe that the Gospel of Christ has done much for the domestic animals, wherever that Gospel has been received. But there is much more that can be done. I am glad to notice that a law has, this year, been enacted by the New York State Legislature forbidding the sale of bird-skins with plumage attached. Let the good work go on, and every State follow this example.
There is more to this question of birds’ nests. We touch character here. A man can never be greater than the spirit that rules and controls him. If he has the spirit of cruelty, that determines his character. A man who would wantonly, and with ruthless hand, destroy a bird’s nest, and wreck the home of one of God’s creatures, has the spirit that would wreck any home. I do not say that he would do it, for men are often restrained, at points, by fear of consequences; but he has the spirit. One has said: “Men cannot be cruel to birds’ nests and gentle to children’s cradles.” As a matter of fact, they can. I have known men who made a practice of beating their horses and abusing their cattle until they had to be complained of to the authorities, and yet they were most tender toward their children, as I had ample opportunity of knowing. Still, the statement, in its deepest and broadest meaning, is true. They were, after all, cruel men.
