To the correction of this evil no one has contributed more energetically than Mr. Shields and some other editors of periodicals devoted to field-sports and recreation. They have given the game-hog so disgraceful a notoriety, and have brought down upon his head such scorn from decent sportsmen, that he has been largely suppressed.
Here, too, mothers, wives, and sisters, are largely at fault; but they may plead ignorance much more plausibly than in the case of their own sins of hat-trimming. Why should they applaud useless slaughter, dictated by vanity and blood-lust, in the men over whom they have influence? Is it a manly or an admirable thing?
These ignorant and thoughtless women have still time to repent and force their men-folks to behave like gentlemen. There is still game enough to bring about a revival of plenty for all reasonable sportsmen of the next generation as well as this. There are laws enough, too, to protect it, but between the ignorance of the legislators and their fear of offending the very game-butchers against whom the laws are directed (who unfortunately have votes), they will not appropriate the money necessary to provide game-wardens and other means of enforcing the laws properly. Here is where the influence of every fair-minded woman and patriotic man can be tellingly exerted. Show the lawmakers that the good opinion of the decent half of the community is better worth having than that of the meaner half; and see that your men-folks are not in the latter class.
When you have done this, let your boys understand the position they must take on this subject if they wish to be regarded as "true sportsmen," not to say gentlemen. Their training should begin early. Little boys are fond of bean-shooters—a forked stick, or "crutch," with a rubber band hurling a bean or a pebble. Insist that they do not use it for knocking over birds.
All boys, also, pass through a season of "collecting specimens," when they are enthusiastic toward preparing a cabinet of natural history. Encourage them to do so, but without taking life, or robbing birds' nests. Give them an opera-glass instead of a shotgun. Show them how they can learn more, and get more amusement, by watching the bird family in its home than by arranging dead shells on a string or in a box. (Watch the birds yourself a while, and then see how you feel about your hat!) There is no scientific need or excuse, nowadays, for private collections of the skins or eggs of birds, and the stopping of all birds'-nesting is of the utmost importance for the same reasons as the stoppage of millinery murder; and both are the immediate duty of all parents.
Nor must there be forgotten, in considering this matter, the disastrous effect of recklessness as to waste and suffering on the mind of the game-hog, the birds'-nester, and the aigrette-wearer. Cruelty cannot be practiced without crushing and blighting the best insects. As Burns says:
"It hardens a' within
And petrifies the feeling"
A child that is cruel to animals, disdainful of their sufferings when in pursuit of his pleasure, cannot be trusted to be kind to a younger sister, a weaker companion, or a valued pet. Cruelty is a vice of the basest and most cowardly—a mark of the savage and criminal. Let the mother remember this, not only in her precepts, but in the example she gives her children. "Even the birds of the air," wrote the German critic Harnisch, "bear an accusation to their Creator against those who with wanton cruelty, destroy helpless innocence."