89 



could be found where there was neither the good nor the bet- 

 ter ! The Chairman had the tact and good fortune, in the 

 outset, to have the duty assigned to him of recording the im- 

 portant decisions arrived at by his fellow members, and was 

 only required to give a vote in case of a tie. Hence he be- 

 came irresponsible for the awards on the shades of difference 

 in Rogers' thirty numbers, or the distinction without a differ- 

 ence between six and half a dozen, as in his own opinion 

 pertained to many other kinds ! And, furthermore, he es- 

 caped personally all abdominal and gastronomical pains and 

 penalties, gyrations and contortions, which must have afflicted 

 his colleagues ! If the *' fathers who eat sour grapes set their 

 children's teeth on edge," great and fearful must be the respon- 

 sibility of our fellows, to the third and fourth generation ! 



When a raging fever is consuming life, its subject perchance 

 a maniac, surrounded with sympathizing friends, with death 

 waiting at the door, one is moved only to pity, as all in the 

 course of events. But when the insane raves, and in his hal- 

 lucinations acts the grotesque, and utters the most ludicrous 

 absurdities, even friends are convulsed with laughter amid the 

 scene. So while the epidemic knoAvn as the grape fever is 

 sweeping the land with its inflated impostures and train of 

 evils, it is impossible for a quiet looker-on to treat the matter 

 seriously ; while the propagators, venders, and bookmakers, 

 being those who win, laugh and grow fat ! 



We would not imply that the victimized in this case are de- 

 ceived more than those of any other hobby with which New 

 England especially is periodically afflicted. This is, doubtless, 

 the year of the grape collapse, and it only requires a Burnham 

 to produce relapse and convalescence by exposure and ridicule. 

 A Rogers' hybrid will then excite as much disgust as a State 

 Constable or a Shanghae ! This latter nondescript, an appar- 

 ent cross of the turkey and the old-fashioned hen, is no more 

 like, or to be compared to either, than some of our hybrids are 

 to a Hamburg, or the old frost grape which every country boy 

 feasted on in his youth. 

 12 



