CHAPTER XLIII. 



"STAND FKOM UNDER ! " 



I HAVE asserted, in another place, that, in all probability, 

 in no bubble, short of the famous " South Sea Expedition," 

 has there ever been so great an amount of money squan- 

 dered, from first to last, as in the chicken-trade; and, 

 surely, into the meshes of "no humbug known to us of the 

 present day have there been so' many persons inveigled, as 

 could now be counted among the victims of this inex- 

 plicable mania. 



A copy of the Liverpool Express in January, 1854, now 

 lies before me, from which I notice that the great metro- 

 politan show in London, just then closed, surpassed all its 

 predecessors ; and that the excitement in England, at that 

 time, was at its height. The editor asserts that " it was 

 not an easy thing to exhaust the merits of the three thou- 

 sand specimens of the feathered tribe there shown. No 

 ,one," continues the writer, " who is at all conversant with 

 natural history, can fail to find abundance of material for 

 an hour's instruction and amusement. The general charac- 



