The Slave Trade in Birds
BY LORD HOWARD Or PENRITIL,
There are perhaps many who will think that to apply the words " slave trade " to this traffic savours of senti- mental exaggeration. There is, however, considerable similarity between the two. In the case of the slave trade in human beings, the organized slave dealers went out into the forests and jungles of Africa, caught their victims, or bought them from native chiefs, carried them captive to the coast ; there piled them into dark holds of schooners, often without enough food or drink and always without enough air, so that a large percentage invariably died on the way across the Atlantic. The wnetehed captives were so cheaply obtained that the death of a large number before they came to the market was a matter of little moment. So it is to-day with our wild birds. Bird dealers go out into our woods and meadows and capture them, literally by hundreds, put them into dark boxes and bring them into the markets, such as "Club Row," in East London, selling those that survive this treatment into permanent captivity.
The analogy can be carried further ; for, just as some slaves were sold to good masters who treated them kindly and to whom they became devoted, others—and these the great majority—were sold to masters and overseers who treated them worse than cattle. So, too, with birds : some go to kind masters and mistresses with whom they are comparatively happy ; others have to pass the remainder of their poor lives in cages in which they can but just spread their wings and in the smoky air of some city yard. The cruelty of keeping them in this way is, no doubt, unintentional, but it is none the less cruelty, as definite as the unnecessary killing or maiming of any creatures. It is impossible not to feel that cap- tivity must be particularly horrible to a bird, which is by nature made to move through the air, a form of liberty that only those few among us who are truly air-minded can properly realize ; unless, indeed, we are cursed with is vivid imagination, when a bird in its flight through the air becomes to us the very symbol of freedom, to enrage which is like an offence against the order of Nature itself.
If readers do not know to what an extent this new Slave Trade flourishes, let them buy the catalogue of the Crystal Palace Show of Cage Birds of last spring. There
they will find, among the classes of birds for which pri,"s were offered by the Cage Bird Society, not only prac- tically all finches, redpoles, siskins, but also most bunting; and crossbills ; all tits, including the rarest kinds ; warblers, robins, stonechats and whinehats ; all wrens, including the fireerest ; all wagtails ; all larks and pipits, nightingales, song thrushes, blackbirds, and even such unlikely birds as ring ousels and dippers, shrikes, wax- wings and three kinds of woodpeckers. Anyone visiting the Crystal Palace Show will find most of these birds exhibited there. Further, if those who arc interested in this subject will visit " Club Row," the bird market in East London, which is held on Sunday mornings in summer during the close season and perhaps, also, at other times of year (though for this the writer cannot vouch, not having personally visited the Row, except in July) this is what they would find. Poultry dealers' shops on either side of the street, some of whom deal also in wild birds, British and foreign as well as cage-bred birds such as canaries. In addition to these regularly estab- lished shops, however, he would find in the middle of the street a number of itinerant bird dealers who have set up temporary stalls on which are piled small eight-inch cages, each containing a British wild bird of sorts, mostly linnets, larks, chaffinches and goldfinches, but also- some rarer species. Of these itinerant dealers there may be some twenty or more, and, at a rough estimate, each have about one hundred birds for sale, apparently recently caught. We may, therefore, conclude that there are somewhere about two thousand wild birds regularly for sale on market days in Club Row.
When the visitor buys one of these birds for a shilling or two the bird is taken out of the cage, handed to him in a paper bag or old cardboard soap-box, and another victim is extracted from a large covered wooden box 'at the side of the dealer, which may contain any number more, and is curiously reminiscent of the hold of the schooners in which in the old Slavery days skives were packed for transportation from Africa to the trans-Atlantic plantations. It is, of course, impossible to know how many dead or dying birds there may be in those boxes. The street itself is crowded with would-be buyers, who examine the contents of the cages with care, less, as it appears, with the object of bringing innocent happiness to their families by adding to their number another happy member, which will impart a breath of country air and song to the smoky atmosphere of the street, than with the hope of making a little profit by exhibiting the bird at the Crystal Palace Show, or at one of the many minor bird shows that—as the writer is informed—take place frequently in public-houses.
This, therefore, is what the traffic in English wild birds seems to have come to, and this why it has in our day assumed such extraordinary proportions, even during the close season, when the capture of most birds is pro- hibited by law. This traffic is not carried on any longer simply to supply a demand of kindly persons who, how- ever mistakenly, believe that they can combine an affection for birds with the deprivation of their liberty, but is conducted openly, cynically and without inter- ference by any authority, simply for objects of gain, just as before the days of Wilberforce the horrible slave trade in human beings was so conducted.
To end this traffic it will not be enough to prohibit the catching of birds. This is already prohibited during a close season lasting from March 1st to August 1st, but birds, evidently recently caught, are nevertheless still openly sold during that season. If, however, we can put an end to the profits to be made from the trade we shall, doubtless, put an end to the capture and consequent misery of thousands yearly of our best-loved bird friends. For this purpose it is clear that two things are necessary we must put a stop to the sale of wild birds, and, if possible, also to their exhibition, since it is these shows and the prizes offered which have led mainly to the craze for buying and keeping wild birds in cages. Is it too much to hope that when the British public has been_made aware of the existence of this traffic, it will support an effort to celebrate 1933, the Centenary of William Wilberforce, by the abolition of -the Slave Trade in Birds ?
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