FANCIERS' JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 



389 



and hoping that none would feel aggrieved by its tone or its 

 text." 



My " History of the Hen Fever," in 1855, was written to 

 " expose the tricks of the trade " then current; to inform 

 the uninitiated in those early days as to " how the thing was 

 being done " by certain hucksters and ambitious small knaves 

 in the business ; and as a warning to those who had for years 

 then imposed upon the uninformed, through their deceit and 

 trickery in the chicken traffic. And this class of nominal 

 fanciers alone were ever its enemies. It broke them down, 

 and that was its purpose. 



No man in America had then (or has since) been the vic- 

 tim of these abuses, so severely as I had been I I had ex- 

 pended hundreds of good dollars, aye, thousands — first and 

 last — in my experience with these deceivers, for which I had 

 received no real quid pro quo. And when these sharpers had 

 completely run the thing into the ground, and I knew how 

 they had fooled and swindled both me and the public, from 

 Maine to Louisiana — and were then continuing to deceive 

 and defraud us all with their humbuggery, their falsehoods, 

 nonsense, and their chicanery in fowl matters — I wrote that 

 book. I now repeat it, that it would have been as well had 

 I left this sarcasm (laughable as it was) toother hands. But 

 " what is written is written," and what that volume contains 

 is truth. Thus, let it pass. 



Mr. Athole says, last week, he " has read with much 

 interest my adverse criticisms on the standard, and the doings 

 of the A. P. A. ;" and, " while agreeing with me, in some 

 points," he " is tired of the war " I carry on. I am glad he 

 agrees with me on any " points ;" others, it so appears, agree 

 with me on different points from those he likes. I trust (as 

 I believe) my advice on the standard matter will do them 

 all good. "We shall have a proper, acceptable standard now, 

 undoubtedly, by means of this discussion, or " war " as he 

 terms it. 



I never "lived in a glass house," and I never " throw 

 stones " at any body. An older adage than Mr. Athole 

 quotes is this, " Common fame is oftenest a common liar." 

 Neither he nor I can help what people say about us. And 

 I might add an older saying still, uttered by a wiser and 

 better one than this, in reply to Mr. Athole's suggestion, as 

 I find it recorded in sacred history : " If there be one among 

 you without sin let him cast the first stone." And these 

 last two proverbs I now submit for Mr. A. 's especial edifica- 

 tion, to wit: " It is the wounded bird that flutters;" and, 

 " He that shows his passion, tells his adversary where to hit 

 him." I am afraid Mr. Athole has been "wounded" by 

 somebody — he exhibits ill temper. I am sorry for him ; but 

 I never did him any harm, to my knowledge, and therefore 

 I prefer he would throw no stones at me. 



" You did your utmost to stamp out the chicken fancy 

 twenty years ago," says Mr. A. So I did, Mr. Athole, as it 

 was then conducted. You are correct. And I succeeded in 

 laying bare a good many tricks of the chicken trade, which 

 such men as you now profess to be, ought to thank me for 

 doing. "And you confessed (or gave it as your conviction), 

 Mr. Burnham," that " though you kept ten varieties of fowl, 

 pure bred, all were produced from white hens and a colored 

 cock of your imported Shanghai tribe. All this you admit 

 in your noted compound, ' The History of the Hen Fever.' " 

 Right again, Mr. Athole. I did so "give it as my convic- 

 tion." I said I had no doubt of this. I have not now. 

 Those white, light-colored, and black imported Shanghais of 

 mine produced all sorts of colors, in my hands— in breeding. 



Could I help that? I imported the birds at heavy cost, and 

 did the best I could with them. In those years we had not 

 got this thing down so fine as you and I have in these later 

 days of improvement in poultry-raising. Where exists the 

 harm, or the deceit, in this confession, pray? I sent my 

 customers what they wanted to buy ; and bred all colors very 

 frequently from the very same birds, in those days, as every- 

 body else did. And we did not know any better ! Bless 

 you, Mr. Athole, this was but the commonest result, every- 

 where. It did not change the purity of the blood, but sim- 

 ply the color. 



Mr. Athole says (though I do not believe he is serious in 

 this — he must be aiming at a joke here) that " one glaring 

 mistake the Convention people made, was, in not sending a 

 guard of honor to Melrose for me, and paying my expenses 

 to Buffalo, to make me President of the Convention," &c. 

 He says this, and adds, " then it would have been all right ■ 

 and your smooth tongue and ready wit would have devised 

 a way to keep the disaffected quiet," &o. No doubt of it. 

 Why did you not suggest this to the Buffalo people, Mr. A. ? 

 It would have been a good thing. And had I been there, 

 you can bet your bottom shilling we should have had no 

 such abortion as your new one dollar standard is. I will be 

 at the next Convention, if I can ; and I trust we shall meet 

 there, when I will give you " a new wrinkle," or two, that 

 you are evidently not up to now. 



Mr. Athole asks, I suppose for information (?), "why 

 don't I get some poultry journal office to keep my ' New 

 Poultry Book,' published in 1871, on sale for me? " Well, 

 for two reasons, Mr. Athole ; though I do not know that 

 this is any of your business. 1st. I sold my copyright and 

 all interest in that work, more than two years ago, soon after 

 it was issued, for $1200, after disposing of three large edi- 

 tions, clean. 2d. The present publishers, Messrs. Lee & 

 Shepard, Boston, do not send any of their valuable works 

 anywhere, " on sale." For further particulars, I refer you 

 to them. I am glad to add that a very good demand for 

 this work is now current ; and I am sure you have never 

 read it, or you would not so spitefully and so ignorantly 

 criticise it. If you cannot afford to buy this pleasant vol- 

 ume, at $2, I will mail you a copy, gratis, postpaid, if you 

 will give me your address. There is nothing " mean" about 

 me, I assure you. 



You are right, once more, Mr. A., when you say, " I do 

 not want to sell any more Cochins." I am pretty much out 

 of the business, now. I am older than I was at 25, now 35 

 years ago, and feeble, as you may see by this article. But 

 I do the best I can. I cannot write so sharply as you do, Mr. 

 Athole, for I am probably a good many years your senior. 

 But I am rich, Mr. A., because I am content. He is a rich 

 man who is content with his lot. You are a young person, 

 I know — from the impetuous, silly, extravagant style of 

 your letter. But I do not believe you are a " knave," a " de- 

 ceiver," or a "cheat." If I did, I am too polite to put 

 such offensive words upon paper, regarding you or any other 

 man. I have heard it said (mind, I do not say it, myself), 

 that " none but the contemptible are apprehensive of con- 

 tempt." I do not know how true this is, since I am never 

 knowingly caught associating with that kind of people. 



Mr. Athole then makes the "feeble remark," that if 

 poultry journals existed twenty years ago, as they do now, 

 "something might have happened" — which I will not 

 repeat. But he evidently is not "posted" in this regard, 

 either, and I refer him respectfully to the agricultural and 



