Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/423



To the Editors of the Popular Science Monthly.

page 637 of your September edition, there is an article entitled "Death to the English Sparrow," which refers to a communication in the "American Naturalist," written by one Dr. Elliott Coues, recommending the extermination of that pretty little creation of the Almighty, and suggesting that boys be constituted their executioners.

Who this enemy to God, through one of his works, is, I know not—whether he be a Zulu or an American savage, I care not; but, since he has been permitted a space in two of our leading menstruals, out of deference to them, I have thought proper to notice the barbarism of the sentiment uttered by him.

This man dares to rebuke the Maker of all things, by calling the innocent little being "a wretched interloper," which has no place in the "natural economy of this country"; and he betrays his own place in the social and professional world by characterizing all who think otherwise as "silly old fogies," "quasi-ornithologists," and "clacqueurs of the quasis."

This person, who thus arraigns his Creator, and attributes human fallibility to the Infinite, belongs, it seems, to a profession which should purge itself of a fellow who has not the brains to comprehend the meaning of humanity and good policy, nor yet the fact that God has not created anything needlessly—not even Elliott Coues.

This inverted genius suggests the policy of founding a school wherein boys may be educated in the practice of murder, which of course includes all other social crimes.

It is true, he does not advise these boys to begin by killing their parents, or other human beings, but to commence with an innocent little bird; when, after an apprenticeship of a few years, he presumes they will be prepared to do the heavy business of throat-cutting, stabbing, and shooting.

This wonderful individual, when he conceived this grandest idea of his life, doubtless had in his mind "the physical fact"—as the Honorable Mr. Sloate would say—that there is a beginning to everything; that the mighty Mississippi at its source is but a tiny stream, and hence his pupils in time would graduate from his college with all the honors enjoyed by the most distinguished students of crime that have ended their days upon the scaffold.

But the refreshing tenderness of this medical practitioner—whom possibly some innocent invalid may have unwittingly called to his bedside—is best expressed by himself. He says: "Let the birds shift for themselves; take down the boxes and all special contrivances for sheltering and petting the sparrows; stop feeding them; stop supplying them with building material; abolish the legal penalties for killing them; let boys kill them; let them be trapped and used as pigeons, or glass balls in shooting matches among sportsmen"!

It is said that the inventor of the guillotine was the first person to perish by it. that this modern Æsculapius would only introduce his beautiful theory among us here in New York—for he is a resident of a much-to-be-envied Eastern State—so that the undersigned might profit by the opportunity of making him acquainted with the legal guillotine which he would certainly be compelled to ascend!

To the Editors of the Popular Science Monthly.

recently occurred in our city a case of stroke by lightning which, no doubt, from its strange freaks, will be of interest to the readers of It took place in a grocery store, and two persons were the sufferers. The bolt, after tearing up the eaves of the house, entered it on the side, leaving a smutty stain between the cracks. It bulged out the side of the shop for several feet, put out the lamp, knocked down many articles from the shelves, took off the tops of several lamp-chimneys resting on them, completely tore off the paper wrappers of many small cakes of soap, and finally emerged at the corner of the room, tearing off several planks. In the passage of the current from one division of the shelves to the other, it either split the dividing boards or passed under them, partially fusing the nails and charring the adjacent wood. But what makes the stroke most remarkable is the way in which it affected the two men who were struck. One of them, Ware, was stunned for a few moments, had his pipe knocked from his mouth several feet away, and was left with a red, sore scar across his cheek and a paralysis of his arms, which latter remained for about two hours. Still more strangely did it deal with the other man, Bullard, who was resting upon the show-case opposite Ware. The current passed up his arm, under the armpit, down the right side of the body to the thigh, leaped across to the inner side of the left leer, and passed down the leg to the foot. It made a red bunch and sore mark upon the body, singed the hair from both legs, and left the sufferer unconscious for more than twenty-four hours. Both have fully recovered, with the exception of a little soreness. In both cases we noted the spiral direction of the current. The house was low, in a depressed situation, and protected with a rod.

May 20, 1879.