CHAPTER XXXV. 



" HOLD YOUR HOESBS." 



My competitors in the hen-trade, by this time, had got 

 to be exceedingly active and zealous, though they rarely 

 indulged in personalities towards me, at all. Generous, 

 disinterested, liberal, kind-hearted, valiant men ! Provr- 

 denee t^U reward you all, I have no doubt, som,e day or 

 other ! 



The following article, which appeared in a "respectable" 

 agricultural sheet (which, though I was solicited so to do, 

 I neither subscribed for nor advertised in), I offer here as a 

 sample of the puffs that were extended to me for five years, 

 by the small-fry humb»gs whom I rarely condescended to 

 notice. This "elegant extract" appeared in a northern 

 Farmer : 



"We did suppose that the strait-jacket we fitted to 

 this fellow (Burnham) would be worn by him, but it ap- 

 pears that, on reading our article relative to his movements 

 in England in regard to Grey Shanghae fowls, he cast it 

 off, and made an attempt to put us hors du combat, in his 

 usual style. 



