Pigeons

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Title:     Pigeons
Author: E. Lynn Linton [More Titles by Linton]

Every now and then, as the fashionable season comes round, in some corner of its space the daily press records a wholesale slaughter of the pigeon species. The world is informed of a series of sweepstakes, in which guardsmen and peers and foreigners of distinction take part. So many birds are shot at, so many are killed, so many get away. The quality of the birds and the skill of the shooters is specified. As the minutest details of the sport are interesting, we are even told who supplies the birds, and whether the day of their massacre was bright or cloudy. This is quite as it should be. The British public can never hear too much of the doings of its gilded youth. Sweet to it is sporting news, but "aristocratic sporting news" is sweeter still.

And apart from this twofold source of interest, an element of deeper satisfaction mingles in the complacency with which it gloats over these pigeon holocausts. It is something to know that, in the last resort, we have these high-born and fashionable marksmen to protect our hearths and homes from the French invader and the irrepressible Beales. The nervous householder sleeps in his bed with a greater sense of security after reading of the awful havoc which Captain A. and the Earl of B. are making of the feathery tribe. In the accuracy of their aim he sees a guarantee of order, and of the maintenance of his glorious Constitution. Foreign menace and internal discord lose something of their terrors for him as often as his eyes light upon the significant little paragraph to which we have referred. Here is an item of intelligence for the haughty Prussian and the dashing Zouave to ponder. Here is something for the mole-like Fenian and the blatant Leaguesman to put in their pipes and smoke.

The fate of the pigeons awaits all who would violate our shores, or light up the flame of sedition in the land. If, as some philosophers aver, the pigeon does not all die, but in some tranquil limbo flutters on in an eternity of innocent cooing, it must console the poor bird to reflect that, however cheap he may be held, he has not perished altogether in vain. To serve a useful purpose is the great economy of things, to point a warning, at the cost of one's heart's blood, to England's foes and traitors--to the plotter in Munster as well as the safer conspirator of the Parks--might content even a greater ambition than that which animates the gentle bosom of a fantail.

But suppose some vindictive pouter to survive his less lucky comrades, and, escaping among the birds who are duly chronicled as "getting away," to perch, full of resentment at the probable extinction of his species, in the fashionable quarter of London. He would there witness a grand act of retaliation. He would learn how Belgravia avenges Hornsey and Shepherd's Bush. He would see the very men from whom his relatives had received their quietus flying to their clubs for shelter, and calling on their goddesses of the demi-monde to cover them. He would perceive, by an unerring instinct, that a contest was afoot in which the conditions of that suburban sweepstakes at which he had involuntarily assisted were exactly reversed. He would see those self-same sportsmen converted into the target, the flutterers of the dovecot themselves in a flutter. And he would be more than pigeon if he could repress a thrill of savage glee at the spectacle of the enemies of his race realizing by experience all the difference between shooting and being shot at.

Suppose, further, that curious to watch the operations of "aristocratic sport," the intelligent bird, following the precedent of Edgar Poe's Raven, should alight, unseen and uninvited, on some object of art in a fashionable ballroom. Here he would find himself at once in the thick of the brilliant competition. He would see a row of lovely archers, backed by a second row of older and more experienced markswomen. And in the human pigeons now cowering before their combined artillery he would recognise the heroes so lately engaged in dispatching thousands of the feathered branch of the family to oblivion. At first sight it might strike an animal of his well-known gallantry that there was nothing so very terrible in their impending fate. To fall slain by bright eyes, and with the strains of Coote and Tinney lingering on the ear, to sigh out one's soul over a draught of seltzer and champagne or the sweet poison of a strawberry ice, might seem to the winged spectator a blissful ending.

The doorway of the perfumed saloon might seem but the portal of a Mahomedan paradise, in which young and beautiful houris are deporting themselves under the guardian eye of the older and less beautiful houris. To the denizen of the air all, save the want of oxygen, might appear divine. But when he surveyed more closely that sexual row of sportswomen, he would know at once that he beheld the true avengers of his race. In their stony glare, in the cold glitter of their diamonds, in the ample proportions of their well-developed shoulders, in their sliding scale of manners, now adjusted to a sugary smile and now to a stare of annihilation, he would read a deadly purpose. Nor would the diversities of skill which this fringe of amazons exhibited in the use of their weapons escape his notice. He would see some whom success had made affable, and others whom failure had made desperate; some who covered their victim with an aim of pitiless precision, and others who spoilt their chances by bungling audacity. Conspicuous among them he would observe a giddy sexagenarian, whose random attempts to share in the sport made her the laughing-stock of the circle.

And as he surveyed the battue he would gradually discern its tactics. The beautiful beings in tulle he would feel, by instinct, were a lure and a decoy. Once within reach of their victims, these lovely skirmishers would be seen to inflict on them a sudden wound, leaving them to be despatched by the heavy reserve in moire and lace. As he watched the terror which these formidable beings inspired, and the business-like manner in which they addressed themselves to their task, as he noticed the jaunty destroyers of his race succumbing one by one to fate, or ignominiously attempting to "get away," he would feel that the "irony of the situation" was complete. In a vague way he would grasp the fact--hitherto undreamt of in his dove's philosophy--that, if the pigeon is preyed upon by man, man in his turn is preyed upon by the dowager.

There is, however, this difference between the fate of the pigeon and his human analogue, that, whereas the former is slain outright, the latter is often subjected to the prolonged agony of being plucked feather by feather. Not that he thinks it agony; on the contrary, he decidedly likes it, which is a wonderful proof of his simplicity, and the difference in people's tastes. But in order to pluck a human pigeon at leisure, you must first catch him. May is a good month for this operation. About now he begins to resort to the Opera and the park, and in the purlieus of either a fine specimen may be flashed. A clever sportswoman will get the earliest possible information about his movements. Much depends on forestalling her competitors.

A youthful pigeon, just emerging from his minority, or freshly alighted from the grand tour, is easily captured. There are two principal contrivances for catching human pigeons. The first is the matrimonial snare. This is worked by the dowager, in concert with her daughter, somewhat on the following plan. The daughter throws herself, as if by chance, in the pigeon's way. The brilliancy of her charms naturally attracts him. Small-talk ensues, in which an extraordinary similarity between her tastes and his is casually revealed. The simple pigeon, suspecting nothing, is delighted to find so congenial a soul. Is he musical? she adores the divine art. A gourmand? she owns to the possession of a cookery-book. Ritualistic? it was but the other day that she was at St. Alban's. Turfy? He must throw his eyes over her book for the Derby. Even if his pet pastime, like the Emperor Domitian's, were killing flies, she would profess her readiness to join him in it. Or she tries another dodge, and, putting on the airs of a pretty monitress, asks him with tender interest to confide in her.

The great point is never to lose sight of him; to follow him to balls, concerts, or races, to cleave to him like his shadow. Then, when he is fairly caught in the toils of her encircling sympathy, the elder and more experienced ally appears on the scene. Her task is to cut off his retreat. Upon her firmness and accuracy in calculating the resisting power of her pigeon, success depends. Seizing an opportunity when he is least prepared, she sternly informs him that the time for dalliance is over, that he has said and done things of a very marked kind, and that there is only one course open to him as a pigeon of honor. And under this sort of compulsion the simple creature, with his rent-roll, Consols, family diamonds, and all, hops with a fairly good grace into the matrimonial toils.

The second contrivance to which he is apt to fall a victim is the infatuation trap. This is a much more elaborate machine, and is worked by one of those semi-attached couples who might sit to a new Hogarth for a new edition of Marriage á la Mode. The husband's part is very simple. It is to be as little in the way as possible, and to afford his sprightlier half every facility for pursuing her little game. The chief business devolves on the lady. It is her task to make the pigeon fall madly in love with her, and to keep him so, without overstepping the bounds of conventional propriety. Happily this can be managed nowadays without either elopement or scandal. Among the improvements of this mechanical age, it has been found possible to enlarge the limits of wedlock so as to include a third person.

A life-long tête-á-tête, which was the old conception of marriage, is quite obsolete. It has given way to the triangular theory, by which a new element, in the shape of a parasitical adorer, has been introduced into the holy state. Matrimony, as reconstituted by fashionable scholiasts, comprises husband, wife, and, to relieve the tedium of the situation, a good-looking appendage of the male sex, who is an agreeable companion of the one and the devoted slave of the other. Each contributes to the harmony of the arrangement--the husband, a background; the wife, the charms of her presence; the adorer, cash. Whatever other experience it brings, marriage generally sharpens the appreciation of the value of money; sentiment is sweet, but it is an article of confectionery, for which its fair dispensers in the married ranks exact an equivalent.

In trapping her victim, therefore, a sharp young matron is careful to let her choice fall on a plump specimen of the pigeon species--a pigeon with a long purse and little brains. Once reduced to a state of infatuation, almost anything may be done with him. The luxury of plucking him will employ her delicate fingers for a long time to come. He may be sponged upon to any extent. The one thing he can do really well is to pay. His yacht, his drag, his brougham, his riding-horses, his shooting-box, all are at her disposal. At his expense she dines at Greenwich; at his expense she views the Derby; at his expense she enjoys an opera-box. And in return for all this she has only to smile and murmur "so nice," for the soft simpleton to fancy himself amply repaid. Then she exacts a great many costly presents, to say nothing of gloves, trinkets, and bouquets. It is curious to note how the code of propriety has altered in this particular.

In old-fashioned novels the stereotyped dodge for compromising a lady's reputation is to force a present or a loan of money on her. Nowadays Lovelace's anxiety is just the other way--to keep the acquisitive propensity of his liege lady within tolerable bounds. It would be a great mistake to suppose that a woman can play this game without special gifts and aptitudes for it. It requires peculiar talents, and peculiar antecedents. First and foremost, she must have married a man whom she both dislikes and despises. And, further, she must be proof against the weakness which some of her sex exhibit, of growing fond of husbands who, without being Admirable Crichtons, treat them kindly and with forbearance. Next, she must have thrown overboard all the twaddle about domestic duties and responsibilities. If her child sickens of the measles just as she is starting for her bivouac in Norway, or a course of dinners in the Palais Royal, her duty is to call in the doctor and go. Weeks afterwards you will find the little darling picking up flesh, in mamma's absence, at some obscure watering-place. Then her temperament must be cool, calculating, and passionless in no ordinary degree, and this character is written in the hard lines of her mouth and the cold light of her fine eyes.

Lastly, she must have, not a superstitious, but an intelligent regard for the world's opinion, or rather for the opinion of the influential part of it. No one has a nicer perception of the difference in the relative importance of stupid country gossip and ostracism from certain great houses in London. No one takes more pains to study appearances so long as they don't clash with her amusements. Indeed, you will generally find that her dear friend is a young lady of great simplicity and irreproachable principles, whom she admits just enough, but not too far, into her confidence, and who finds it worth while to enact the part, now of a blind, and now of a foil.

If any one asserts that this treatment of the human pigeon is cruel, we can only reply, with a correspondent of the Times who writes to rebuke the humanitarians who would rob a poor boa of his squealing rabbit--away with such cant! Is a married woman to be stinted of her "small pleasures" because prudes affect to think the means by which they are obtained unfeminine? As well might they think it unfeline in pussy to play with her mouse.

The walking pigeon is as much intended for the prey of a stronger species as the pigeon that flies. The plucking which he receives at the hands of his fair manipulator is nothing to what he would get at the hands of his own sex, in the army, on the turf, or in the city. If the pigeon has reason to think himself lucky in faring no worse, the non-pigeon section of society has no less reason to be grateful for a new illustration of female character. Not that the mercenary development in some of our young matrons is altogether new. It is only an old domestic virtue, carried to an extreme--thrift, running into an engaging rapacity.

[The end]
E. Lynn Linton's essay: Pigeons

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