Geo. P. Burnham

“ I inquired.
"Spanker," said the gentleman, "but rare. It is one of Ellett's importation—genuine."
"Remarkable pullet!" I ventured.
"Hen, sir, hen," insisted the stranger.
I paid him forty dollars down, and seized my prize, though she proved hard to catch.
"She's much like the Frenchman's flea, sir," said her previous possessor. "Put your finger on her, and she's never there. Feed her well, however, keep her in good quarters, let her do as she pleases, and she'll always crow—always, sir. Hear that? You can't stop her, unless you stop her breath. She always crows and sings. There it is again! ”

“ If by this is meant the unhealthy excitement which we have had for a few years past, for one, I say the sooner that it dies out the better. But as to the enthusiasm of true lovers of the feathered tribe dying out, it never will, as long as man exists. It is part of God's creation. The thinking man loves and admires his Maker's work; always did; always will. And I have not the least doubt that any enterprising young man, with a suitable place and fancier's eye, would find it to his advantage to embark in the enterprise of fowl-raising for market. ”

“ Burnham.—Sir: How is it that you have the impudence to try to palm off on the public those fowls of yours for genuine 'imported ones,' when it is known that you bought them all of me, and A——, and B——? How can you sleep nights? Don't you feel a squirming in your conscience? Or is it made of ingy-rubber, or gutter-perchy? You have made hundreds, and I don't know but thousands of dollars, by your impudence and bare-faced deceit. They are not genuine fowls. ”

“ Green. 'I believe the poor child is killed. O, Sap, I didn't expect this of you!'
"'Be quiet, my dear,' said Green; 'it was only an experiment.'
"'An experiment, Mr. Green!' retorted the lady, sharply; 'your wife and child nearly killed, and you call it an experiment! Nurturing ostriches to devour your off-spring! I wonder you don't take to raising elephants.'
"'No danger of that, Maria,' replied her husband, meekly. 'I have "seen the elephant." And to-morrow I shall send my entire stock to the auction-room,—Shanghaes, Chittagongs, Brahma Pootras, Cochins, Warhens and Warhoos. ”

“ The dead and wounded and dying are now scattered throughout New England and New York State chiefly, and their moans can occasionally be heard, though their groans of repentance come too late to help them.
They recklessly invested their twenties, or fifties, or hundreds, and, in some instances, their thousands of dollars, in this hum, without any knowledge of the business, and without any consideration whatever, except the single aim to keep the bubble floating aloft until they could realize anticipated fortunes, on a larger or smaller scale, as the case might be. ”

“ The fever for the "fancy" stock broke out at a time when money was plenty, and when there was no other speculation rife in which every one, almost, could easily participate. The prices for fowls increased with astonishing rapidity. The whole community rushed into the breeding of poultry, without the slightest consideration, and the mania was by no means confined to any particular class of individuals—though there was not a little shyness among certain circles who were attacked at first ”

“ Why don't you act like a man? Carnt you? Havn't you got the pluck to own up that other people have done for you what you never had the gumption to do for yourself? Why don't you act fair,—and tell where the genuine fowls can be got, and of who? You're a doing the poultry business more hurt than all the rest of the men in the country is doing, or ever did, or ever will, sir. ”

“ The gentleman's eye was exactly filled with this pair of chickens.
"What will you take for those two fowls?"
"One hundred dollars, sir," I replied.
"I guess you will—when you can get it," he added.—"Name your lowest price, now, for those two. I want good ones, if any."
"I prefer to keep them, rather than to part with them at any price," I insisted. "If, however, a gentleman like yourself, who evidently knows what good fowls are, desires to procure the choicest specimens in the country, why, I confess to you that those are the persons into whose hands I prefer that my best stock should fall. ”

“ Immediately after this second exhibition, the sales of poultry largely increased. Everybody had now got fairly under weigh in the hen-trade; and in every town, at every corner, the pedestrian tumbled over either a fowl-raiser or some huge specimen of unnameable monster in chicken shape.
I had been busy, and had added largely to my "superior" stock of "pure-blooded" birds, by importations from Calcutta, Hong-Kong, Canton and Shanghae, direct. ”

“ Of the value of these birds it is difficult to speak without calling forth expressions of incredulity. It is evident that there is a desperate mania in bird-fancying, as in other things. Thus, for example, there is a single fowl to which is affixed the enormous money value of 30 guineas; two Cochin-China birds are estimated at 25 guineas; and four other birds, of the same breed, a cock and three hens, are rated in the aggregate at 60 guineas,—a price which the owner confidently expects them to realize at the auction-sale on Thursday. ”

“ I am a Yankee, sir! My father [Pg 217] was a Yankee, and my grandfather (if I ever had one, sir) , before him. 'The people' know what they are about. You cannot deceive them, sir, as you and I well know. When they undertake a thing, it must go forward. There's no stopping them, sir. They enter into any enterprise that promises so much of universal success to the whole country as does this business of poultry-raising, with a rush, sir! And they carry out their objects,—nil disperandum hic jacit est glorii mundi morning, sir,—as the poet remarks. ”

“ One very fine pair of Cochin-Chinas sold for fifty pounds (two hundred and fifty dollars) . In the catalogue some were marked at one hundred pounds, the valuation prices of owners who did not wish to sell. With you, in America, the rage for fowl-raising is simply one of fancy and profit, [16] but here it is the result—and a very beneficial one, too—of free trade. The price of eggs and poultry, owing to the great demand, does not fall; the price of grain, owing to free importation, does fall; and hence the great profit which is realized from keeping fowls. ”

“ But the delusions of morus multicaulis, and Merino sheep, and patent bee-keeping, and Berkshire pigs, and tulip-growing, had passed away; and the hen fever, at last, subsided, too. Unpronounceable names and long-winded advertisements wouldn't do! "The people" had ascertained that there was an end even to Shanghae and Brahma-ism! ”

“ The fowls are seven and eight months old, but are of mammoth proportions and exquisite plumage—light silvery-grey bodies, approaching white, delicately traced and pencilled with black upon the neck-hackles and tips of the wings and tails. The parent stock of these extraordinary fowls weigh at maturity upwards of twenty-three pounds per pair; while their form, notwithstanding this great weight, is unexceptionable. ”

“ B.F. Griggs, Columbus, Geo., was a curiosity much admired. This fowl (lately sold by Dr. J.C. Bennett, of Plymouth, to Mr. Griggs, for $120) is thorough game, without doubt; and her progeny, exhibited by Dr. Bennett, were very beautiful specimens. To this bird, and the 'Yankee Games' of Dr. Bennett, the Committee awarded a gratuity of $5."
So miserable a hum as this was, I never met with, in all my long Shanghae experience. It out-bothered the Doctor's famous "Bother'ems," and really out-Cochined even my noted Cochin-Chinas! But I was content, I was one of the "Committee of Judges." ”

“ With a desperate effort, and a shrieking crow, he at length sprang from his couch, dashed out of doors, and, since the day afterwards, has resolved to eschew the use of jalap among his poultry,—a determination which, in all candor, we recommend earnestly to the hen-Galens who imagine that a hen is "a human."
It had now become an every-day occurrence to hear of black chickens emerging from what were "warranted" pure white fowls' eggs; top-knot birds peeped forth from the eggs of pure-bred anti-crested hens ”

“ All the old-fashioned fowls were utterly discarded. Cochin-Chinaism, Shanghae-ism, Bother'em Pootrumism, was rampant. The fancy egg-trade had begun to fall off sensibly. "The people" had had enough of this part of the enterprise, which was destined to prove so "immensely profitable," if "judiciously and skilfully managed;" and the price was reduced to the miserable sum of three to five dollars a dozen, only, as customers chanced to turn up. ”

“ The breeder who could "produce" fowls was the man to succeed in the hen-trade. As you never did this, and only bought and sold wretched mongrels, with long names, you never succeeded. And "the people" said, "Served you right!"
This sapient editor then declares that he "doubts the ability of any Poultry Society to maintain its existence permanently, for the reason that such societies will, sooner or later, degenerate into mere speculating cliques, and the premiums will become a matter of barter, or a matter of favor to particular men, like the operations of our government." ”

“ In the New England States, in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, numerous fairs had come off, at which the customary competition among breeders of fancy poultry had been duly shown; and for a time, yet, out of Massachusetts, the fever still raged, though with comparative abatement.
It was now a common thing, and certain men were in the habit of visiting the express offices, and examining coops of fowls, and taking the names of the persons to whom they were directed, and then writing them that they would furnish such fowls at a much cheaper rate. ”

“ I jammed my handkerchief into my mouth, until I was nearly suffocated, as I thought of that wicked fellow who had just been so frightened while in the act of attempting to bargain for fancy hen's eggs on the Sabbath!
A Western paper, in alluding to the fever, about this period, observed that "this modern epidemic has shown [Pg 110] itself in our vicinity within a short time, and is characterized by all the peculiarities which have marked its ravages elsewhere. Some of our most valuable citizens are now suffering from its attacks, and there is no little anxiety felt for their recovery. ”

“ In the existing rage for weighty birds, this variety will naturally satisfy the ambition of those who go for the 'biggest kind' of fowls!
"The group represents this variety with accuracy, and are, without doubt, for their kind, rare specimens of the genuine gallus giganteus of modern ornithologists. As Her Majesty has long been known among the foremost patrons of that agreeable branch of rural pursuits, poultry-raising, we do not doubt but that this splendid present from Mr. Burnham will prove highly gratifying to her tastes in this particular." ”

“ My competitors in the hen-trade, by this time, had got to be exceedingly active and zealous, though they rarely indulged in personalities towards me, at all. Generous, disinterested, liberal, kind-hearted, valiant men! ”

“ More knowledge, more experience, more fowls. We haven't enough—we don't know enough, yet. I am greatly rejoiced at the prospects, to-day, and with the entire success of this enterprise, here!" (And well he might be.) "I have freely given my time and humble talents to its consummation, and we have triumphed! We, the people, the men who have the heart and the pluck to undertake and carry through this sort of thing. There's no hum in this, gentlemen! ”

“ The bodies of these hogs are shaped like the white Berkshire breed of England. They take on fat with remarkable rapidity, and, in color, though not so spotted as the leopard, these hogs are beautifully striated, the body spotted like polished alabaster and ebony, checkered and rounded most exquisitely. ”

“ This writer contends that the president of the New York society, who thus received about all the premiums at one of their late shows, was a man of too much discernment not to see that such a farce as some of the judges played would redound to his discredit. They went too far—overdid the matter; hence the universal indignation of exhibitors. And then concludes that "poultry-societies generally merge into mere speculating gatherings, a few receiving most of the premiums, while the uninitiated exhibitor is made a tool to swell the income of those who pull the wires. ”