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84 NATIONAL STANDARD SQUAB BOOK 
Squabs delivered by our customers there invariably bring 
from one to one dollar and fifty per dozen more than the 
Boston market. This is because there are more rich people 
in New York than there are in Boston, and they are more 
free with their money in providing luxuries for their table 
than Boston folks. We do not mean to disparage the Boston 
market for squabs, which is always good, averaging three 
dollars a dozen, but we wish to emphasize the fact that the 
New York market is a phenomenal one. Anybody living 
near New York can make a fortune raising squabs. Our 
largest orders have come from customers who are shipping 
to New York. 
Not all the New York newspapers print market quotation 
of squabs. The New York Evening Sun is an exception. 
All through the winter squabs are quoted’ in the Evening Sun 
at five dollars a dozen. This means that a squab breeder 
shipping to New York should have got six dollars and seven 
dollars for a choice product, from private customers. 
A correspondent in New York State sends a clipping from 
the New York Tribune’s market columns and asks for an 
interpretation. We quote from it as follows: 
“ Pigeons, 20c.; squabs, prime, large, white, per doz., $3.50 
and $3.75; ditto, mixed, $2.75 and $38; ditto, dark, $1.75 
and $2.” 
The quotation, “‘ Pigeons, 20 cents,’’ means twenty cents 
a pair for common old killed pigeons. These tough old birds 
are occasionally found in the markets and are worth only 
ten or fifteen cents apiece. They are neither squabs nor the 
old Homer pigeons, but are common pigeons such as fly in 
the streets. A small boy might get a pair of these street 
pigeons and kill them and give them to a butcher who would 
pay him fifteen or twenty cents a pair. These cheap pigeons 
come into the eastern markets largely from the West in barrels 
and are sold to Boston commission men for five cents apiece, 
or fifty cents a dozen. They are retailed at from one dollar 
to one dollar and twenty cents a dozen. They are in the 
Chicago market masquerading as squabs. They have been 
killed with guns and have shot in their bodies. If you ask 
for pigeon pie at one of the cheap Boston restaurants, you 
will get a shot or two against your teeth with mouthfuls. 
After every trap-shooting contest some skulker goes over the 
