

CAPONISING FOWLS. 



HISTORY. 



To my own taste, their flesh is insipid, flavorless, and fulsome, 

 quite inferior to that of other Fowls, as we usually have them ; 

 those who are dissatisfied with a fat Pullet, or a plump Cockerel, 

 must surely want a little wholesome exercise of mind and body 

 to restore a healthy appetite. Fasting, or hard work even, 

 might do no harm in such cases. 



DlXOIT. 



THE art of making capons has been practised from 

 the earliest antiquity, in Greece, India, and China, for 

 the purpose of improving the flesh of birds for the table, 

 in tenderness, juiciness, and flavor. 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 point of fact, are getting out of date, and are taking 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 re- 

 membered that two or three chickens may have been 

 sacrificed , before ten capons have been nursed into con- 

 valescence. That they may be had in considerable abun- 

 dance, in China, the south of Europe, and in a few in- 

 stances 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 uncalled-for luxuries, of 

 unnecessarily unnatural vi 'lids, such as diseased-goose 

 liver pies, fish crimped al. re, or even those frightful 

 and portentous dishes recalled by Dr. Kitchener, in 



