It is true that chicken feathers always have been used to some
extent, the straight quills for instance. I know it is frequently
broadly asserted that the most of the birds used are made birds, but
the manufactured creatures are poor deceptions; they are mixed with
bird feathers, and are sold only to the less fastidious customers. The
demand for genuine birds is as great as ever."
"But do you think as many are used now as formerly?" questioned her
companion.
"Yes, indeed! Just think of the feather capes and muffs and
collarettes made of birds. The market for them is increasing all the
time. It takes from eighteen to twenty-five skins for each collar, and
I don't know how many for the muffs. Oh, I tell you, women are heaping
up judgment on themselves."
The other lady looked grave. "I understand," said she, "that in many
places down on the New Jersey coast the boatmen have given up fishing,
as they can make so much more money killing terns and gulls for women's
use. They earn fifty dollars a week at it, at ten cents apiece for the
birds. Isn't that a horrible record for women?"
"I don't doubt they earn that much, and perhaps more," answered Mrs.
Brown; "for one season there were thirty thousand terns killed in one
locality alone. And at Cape Cod, and up along the shore near where I
lived, they are slain by thousands every season and shipped to New
York.
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