TO MAKE CAPONS. 73 



close coops, and have a similar acknowledgment to 

 make respecting capons, never having had any suc- 

 cess in cutting either fowls or rabbits for such pur- 

 poses, nor, in truth, much affecting the practice, 

 which, however, has long been successfully carried 

 on by the breeders of Sussex, Surrey, and Berks, 

 and seems to have been almost entirely confined to 

 that part of the country. In fact, the mode of per- 

 forming the operation seems to be utterly unknown 

 elsewhere ; or granting that the common cutters and 

 cow-leeches have some speculative knowledge there- 

 on, they generally kill the patient, in their attempt 

 at the practice. 



The Chinese are said to be particularly skilful in 

 this OPERATION, the outline of which, according to 

 their mode, I give as a matter of curiosity. The 

 wings of the fowl are folded back till they meet, and 

 the left foot of the operator is placed upon them, the 

 great toe of his right foot pressing upon the legs to 

 keep them fast. After pulling the feathers, an inci- 

 sion is made, one inch long, and one inch from the 

 spine, obliquely downward and forward. The reader 

 may smile at that which may be deemed false de- 

 licacy in me, but I have naturally a kind of dread 

 and abhorrence of all practices of this kind, however 

 profitable. I can take the life of an animal without 

 the shadow of a scruple ; but every act that bears the 

 semblance of torture, shocks me to the marrow. They 

 who wish to have their fowls or rabbits safely cut, 

 where the practice is not common, must procure an 

 operator from the proper district. 



The following remarks on the capon, in which, 







