172 



JODBNAL OF HOKTICULTUBH AND COTTAGE GARDENEB. 



I FebnuiT 27, UtS. 



Some have asked for what purpose tlie money is rcqiiireil. 

 Well, I propose when we hnve decided on a fonn of rciiuisition 

 to print off a certain number witli the names appended, ac- 

 quainting the various companies that the authority to append 

 such names is in my possession. Besides this, there will bo 

 the postage of the letters to %iirious breeders, &c. Possibly, 

 too, the amount would be sufficient to pay the expenses of any 

 amongst us who would offer to form a deputation to the various 

 leading offices. On this point it would bo well to have a list 

 of those who could Rive up the time to the purpose. 



I have only to add, that as it has been St. Valentine's time 

 of year, possibly some of the replies to me may have mis- 

 carried ; and if any eihibitors are unnamed who have done so, 

 they will kindly accept this explanation, and. I hope, will com- 

 municate withme again. — Joseph Hinton (Y. B. A. Z.), Ilintim 

 near Bath. 



INTER ALIA. 



CONCF.nSlNO RAILWAY CHAKGES. 



I AM not fond of railing. I beg the " WrLTSHiEi: Eector's " 

 pardon for indulging in one of his vt ins, when I am about to 

 forget another — namely, christian charity. I have something 

 of the Ciamo Bantam in mo, and hence it may be supposed 

 that the Hector's scrmonettcs on my favourites have tried my 

 forbearance. Tlio defence of pets is already, I perceive, in 

 abler haiuls than mine, and, therefore, with this preUminary 

 crow I will proceed to my main subject. 



I say again I am not fond of railing, nor am I in poultry 

 matters fond of the rail ; but for three years I have been sorely 

 tried, and I must now have my say. I live on the Great 

 Eastern line, which may be deemed sufficient reason for my 

 complaints, yet I do not think that this company in these 

 matters is much worse than any other. For a long time I have 

 grumbled in soUtude, and now I am willing to go in with 

 " y. B. A. Z.," and all the letters of the alphabet, to bring 

 about a change in railway charges, and the carriage of birds. 



When I began to exhibit, about three years ago, a bird on his 

 road to an exhibition was indeed a rara avis at our station. 

 Now we have not only had a poultry show of our own, but on 

 the eve of any great exhibition, and of many small ones, " the 

 cock's shrill clarion " drowns not the " echoing hoin," but the 

 shriU whistle of the railway guard. By the way, our poultry 

 show was a sui-prise, for we had not only a balance sheet, but 

 actually a balance in hand — a nice little nest egg for this year. 



Now to my main point — namely, railway charges. From our 

 station, with some few exceptions, we are unable to prepay 

 with certainty for the carriage of birds, although poultry shows 

 very properly require this arrangement. In fact, until I made 

 a great fuss about it, the prepayment was entirely refused, 

 except to stations on the direct line. The reason of tliis is 

 obvious — it saves trouble to the officials. I have known a basket 

 of my birds prepaid to its destination, whilst witliin half an 

 hour the same application was refused to another person, and 

 the last hamper was only prepaid to London. Although, for 

 the most part, I now have my baskets prepaid, yet the in- 

 accnracy and uncertainty to which I am subjected involves me 

 in endle ss trouble. For example, to take a few out of many 

 similar' instances, I sent four baskets of birds to the Poultry 

 Club's Show at Rochdale. For these I paid fis. at our station. 

 On their return I was charged Is. lOi/. for three only of them. 

 !" I cannot prepay when I send to a friend who lives near 

 Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, although he always prepays when 

 he sends to me. 



I prepaid to Fareham, in Hampshire, and to Chippenham, 

 the year before last, when the receivers were charged with the 

 carriage, which, however, was refunded in both cases. 



I have on the day I write this a charge from our station for 

 a basket which I wished to prepay, and sent to Chippenham 

 on the '.Ith of August last. I cannot now ascertain whether 

 the receiver has also paid that. 



I have a charge from the Jlidland Eailw.ay now on my table, 

 incurred during the last Wentworth Woodhouse Show. 



Of the four baskets from Rochdale mentioned above, two of 

 them of the same weight, and both of them marked distinctly 

 via Peterborough, one came back by the London and Xorth- 

 ■Westem Railway, with a charge of 3;. 6(7.. and the other by 

 the Great Northern, charged Is. (id. A neighbour was involved 

 in extra expense and trouble in a similsir manner. I received 

 my four baskets in the following order : — One basket on Wed- 

 nesday night last (7tli inst.), by the '^.'lO train. My man was 

 there to receive it. Another, for which by the way, I was not 



charged at all. and for which probably some six or seven 

 months hence I shall have to pay, came on the following morn- 

 ing by the S.53 train. The two others, by different routes, both 

 reached mo by tho 12.40 train on Thursday. I was put to the 

 expense of a telegram, and the trouble of \vriting letters to tho 

 Secretary of tho show, and I am instructed that although the 

 railway company had been infonned of what would be required, 

 and that although every bird was at the station of the Lan- 

 cashire and Yorkshire Railway by the afternoon of Tuesday, 

 yet that they were left at the station a whole day for want of 

 carriages and servants to dispatch them. 



The neighbour to whom I have already allnded sent a pen 

 of birds to Whitehaven Show, prepaid to London. In London 

 it was met and then prepaid to Whitehaven. He received hia 

 prixe money, less Se. 2d. carriage. This, however, has been 

 refunded. 



Once more. At our station the carriage of parcels from the 

 station was once contracted for by an individual, and then we 

 had almost as many deliveries as trains. Now the company 

 have, for reasons of their own, taken the matter into their own 

 hands, and wo have only two deliveries — namely, about 

 1(1 o'clock in tho morning, and between 3 and 4 o'clock in the 

 afternoon. I am bound to say that my birds are sent up fre- 

 quently from the station by special porters ; but this means 

 a gratuity, which is not fair to others, and might become a 

 mischievous custom. 



With those few out of many instances which might bo given, 

 I think I have made out in my own case alone a sufficient 

 ground of complaint against railways. 



What I should wish to see, would be n fixed and uniform 

 rate for exhibition poultry, higher than ordinary parcel ratee, 

 but not the exorbitant cliarges we have now ; more carefulness 

 in ascertaining tho weiglits of baskets and birds, and in filling 

 xip tho details of freight notes, which I always require as a 

 receipt, and every facility of can-iago offered by lines of railway 

 on which shows are held, by which both the line and the town 

 would derive even more advantage than they do now. I do not 

 care for any half-price measures. I do not want my birds sent 

 back from shows as empties, which last, from my experience, 

 do not always reach their destination. I want a plain, straight- 

 forward, common sense charge, nniform throughout the king- 

 dom, known at every station, and as fair to the railway as to 

 the exhibitor. 



I must apologise for this lengthy communication, and its 

 intf.r alia ramblings, but I cannot drive the "Wiltshibe 

 Rector " out of my head. I thought a little while ago he was 

 on for chapters on Pigeons, and scarce books ; but, no, he 

 dropped that, and took to reporting shows, till finding himself 

 at Birmingham, and feeling, I suppose, there, a very Malay of 

 critics, he went into our poor little Game Bantams. Why did 

 he do this just as I was being dimned for little railway bills in- 

 ciu-red in August last, just as I had found out that I was paying 

 a variety of prices for carriage, and just as my Game Bantams 

 had been delayed at Rochdale for a whole day ? — Egojiei. 



ga:me banta:ms. 



Before answering " Wiltpiiike Rector's '" reply to my 

 letter, published in your .Tournal of the 30th ult., I was anxious 

 to sec if others would t.ike np the defence of the mnch-abused 

 Game Bantams. I have not been disappointed ; and am much 

 obliged to " P." for his letter in your Journal of the 13th inst., 

 and also to " W. F. E." for liis in your last Number. 



" WiLTSHiKE Rectok " judgos tho entire chiss of Game Ban- 

 tams by a pen he has bred and others that he has seen in his 

 own imniediato neighbourhood, with the single Binningham 

 exception : is this fair ? Like " W. P. E.," I wish he had not 

 given them up. If he had kept them on and exhibiteil them, 

 lie would certainly not have written that " tbey are easy to 

 breed good." He says, " In poultry, popularity re^ts upon 

 two bases — usefulness and fancy : tho former a permanent 

 basis; the latter anything but permanent." Now, I should 

 like to know in what respect his favourite Blacks and Sebrights 

 are more usefid than (Jame ? From experience I s ly the latter 

 are much better layers, and are infinitely better fir the table 

 than either of tho former, and I have yet to learn that they 

 are less courageous, or more given to ramble. Can " Wilt- 

 siTinE Rector " explain what else it is than fancy that makes 

 any variety of exhibition poultry sell for the fancy prices we 

 daily see .and hear of ? If ever the poultry fancy die out, fancy 

 prices will die out too. 



