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MRS. DR. BUTCHER'S BIRDS. FREESTONE v. BUTCHER.

(9 Carr. & Payne, 643.)

By Irving Browne. [An expensive aviary is not a necessary for a poor curate's wife.'] "DUTCHER was not a man of blood, for he Had cure of souls at Milton rectory; Filled with deep love for every human sinner, He 'd hardly kill a chicken for his dinner. He took no interest in birds save those Which he could put inside his cleric clothes. Freestone, a woman, ransacked foreign lands, And gave her time to meet the wild demands Of female lunatics who make museums Of living birds, and offer loud Te Deums ■ When they some fowl of feather strange acquire, For gentry of the county to admire. Now, Mrs. Butcher common parish work As well as heathen missions liked to shirk; She cared not much for charities and schools, But left them to old maids and plodding fools Who visited the aged and rheumatic, And mothers lying-in, and most ecstatic Delight in humble offices did find Among the poor and sick and lame and blind. She had a winged ambition, higher far Than all such ugly, nauseous duties are. She let the Lord look out for sparrows cheap, But sentimentally would almost weep Over her aviary full of fowl, Which often made her pious husband growl* I doubt that Mrs. Noah in the ark Could more or queerer birds remark, — Her lories, avadavats, bishop-bird, Quakers, cut-throats, and manikins absurd, With cardinals and love-birds; — strange to say, Though curate's wife, she had no bird of prey. So in one year she owed to Freestone's cages Far more than all the good old Doctor's wages;