CHAPTER XX. 



OAPONIZING FOWLS. 



THE following history and method of caponizing, I extract 

 from Mr. Brown's Treatise on Domestic Poultry. He says : 



The art of making Capons has been practised from the ear- 

 liest antiquity, in Greece, India, and China, for the purpose 

 of improving the flesh of birds for the table, in tenderness, 

 juiciness, and flavour. But Capons, in point of fact, are 

 getting out of date, and are taking rank with oxen roasted 

 whole, and other barbarisms of the middle ages. They are 

 now rarely to be found in the London markets ; and when 

 procurable, are very expensive, but not unjustly so, when it is 

 to be remembered that two or three Chickens may have been 

 sacrificed, before ten Capons have been nursed into conva- 

 lescence. That they may be had in considerable abundance, 

 in China, the south of Europe, and, in a few instances, in our 

 own country, is not to be denied ; but wherever they may be 

 found, they cannot be classed otherwise than in the list of un- 

 called-for luxuries, of unnecessarily unnatural viands, such as 

 diseased goose-liver pies, fish crimped alive, or even those 

 frightful and portentous dishes recalled by Dr. Kitchener, in 

 the "Cook's Oracle." One thing, however, may be harm- 

 lessly resuscitated. As 



"the toad ugly and venomous, 



Wears yet a precious jewel in his head," 



