FOWLS 53 



a few birds of other kinds, but fowls made by far the greater 

 part of the show. All the principal races of Europe and Asia 

 were represented. Most of the exhibitors lived in the immediate 

 vicinity of Boston. About ten thousand people attended this 

 exhibition. 



Such an event created a great sensation. Newspaper reports 

 of it reached all parts of the country. The Chinese fowls, so 

 large when compared with others, were most noticed. At once 

 a great demand for these fowls and for their eggs arose, and 

 prices for fancy poultry, which previously had been but little 

 higher than prices for common poultry, rose so high that those 

 who paid such prices for fowls were commonly regarded as 

 monomaniacs. While the interest was not as great in other 

 kinds of fowls as in the Shanghais, Cochin Chinas, and " Brah- 

 maputras," as they were then called, all shared in the boom, 

 and within a few years there was hardly a community in the 

 northeastern part of the United States where there was not 

 some one keeping highly bred fowls. When the interest became 

 general, the famous showman, P. T. Barnum, promoted a show 

 of poultry in the American Museum in New York City. Many 

 celebrated men became interested in fine poultry. Daniel Web- 

 ster had been one of the exhibitors at the first show in 1849. 

 The noted temperance lecturer, John B. Gough, was a very 

 enthusiastic fancier. 



After a few years the excitement began to subside, and most 

 people supposed that it was about to die, never to revive. A 

 Mr. Burnham, who had been one of the most energetic pro- 

 moters of Asiatic fowls, and had made a small fortune while the 

 boom lasted, had so little confidence in the permanence of the 

 poultry fancy that he published a book called " The History of 

 the Hen Fever," which presented the whole movement as a 

 humbug skillfully engineered by himself. This book was very 

 widely read, and the phrase "the hen fever," applying to 

 enthusiastic amateur poultry keepers, came into common use. 



