THE PLUMAGE TRADE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
Sm, It is much to be desired that your powerful article on this subject, supporting as it does Mr. Massingham's graphic presentations of the horror of the plumage traffio, will have a widespread effect on the minds of British women. An influens tial example like theirs always matters. One is surprised to read in these days of growing intelligence with regard to .a proper treatment of the lower animal creation, the opinion of Professor Maxwell-Lefroy : " It is to be hoped that this Bill will not be passed on the crest of a wave of silly-sentimentality and truly British hypocrisy." It is amazing to think that -a British academic mind can have come to the egregious pass which suggests that William Blake •and Robert Burns, Cole- ridge and Wordsworth, Mr. Thomas Hardy and Mr. John GaLsworthy, must he looked upon as exponents of a " silly sentimentality and truly British hypocrisy." Was it for an estimate of such a kind that Wordsworth immortalized a " Moving Accident," and bequeathed to the world that im- perishable expression of humane advice?—
"Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."
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