CHAPTER IX. 
ON THE UTILITY OF THE POULTRY FANCY. 
In the preceding part of this work we have treated of poultry and their management in the general 
way, or with a special view to the production of eatable food ; we now propose to devote a few 
chapters to the practical details of breeding fowls of the highest class in accordance with the recog- 
nised show standards. But it may be well first to say a few words as to the utility of having such 
standards at all. Many people doubt it ; and when we admit, as we have done in our last chapter, 
that certain breeds have perceptibly deteriorated since they were first known owing to the effects of 
show competition, it may be thought that the question is at once decided in the negative. 
Thus, some of the largest Dorkings exhibited lately have shown a coarseness of bone and a 
yellowness in the skin, neither of which would have been tolerated in bygone years. Similarly, 
Brahmas and Houdans have in many yards lost their former reputation as layers or as table fowls, 
though easy victors in competition ; and other instances could be given if needed, to say nothing of 
the too evident decline in its constitution often visible, and clearly traceable to close in-breeding, 
unnatural breeding seasons, and stimulating food. This is only a very small part of the real work 
of poultry competition ; but it is apt to seize upon the imagination of those ignorant of the subject, 
to the exclusion of all other sides of the question, and to suggest that the poultry “ fancy ” may, 
after all, be more an evil than a good. 
The strongest expression of this view which we have met with for many years, was contained 
in two letters published by Sir Henry Thompson in the spring of 1885, in which he recounted how 
he had begun to breed Brahmas in 1881, erecting one of the most elaborate yards for the purpose 
ever designed, but sold off the whole in the summer of 1884. In taking up the pursuit, he said, 
he “ naturally concluded that the most perfect birds were either those best adapted for the table 
and the most welcome when served there, or those which produced the largest number of the 
finest and richest eggs for the same purpose. For what other purpose were poultry wanted if not 
for these ? ” But he very soon discovered, he proceeds, that however it might be in France, in 
England the object was merely “ feathers,” and that, as a consequence, “ we produce races inferior 
to those of France, cannot supply the moderate wants of our population, and pay enormous sums 
every year for the poultry and eggs of that country.” To leave no possible doubt of his meaning, 
after again recounting how prizes are awarded according to the development of arbitrary charac- 
teristics, he says, “ hence our inferiority to France in the quality and abundance of poultry products,” 
and he even traces the effect of this “baneful system” to the farm and cottage, alleging the 
“ deterioration ” of “ even the farmyard mongrels ” by the cockerel purchased from some celebrated 
source. Finally, he pronounces that “no compromise is possible” between the two ends, of com- 
petitive breeding and economic objects : “cither infallibly neutralises the other,” and nothing can 
be done really to improve poultry production “ until the prize feather system is swept away.” 
This is pretty thorough language ; and coming as it did from the premier surgeon of England, 
it naturally aroused considerable attention. Those who moved in poultry-show society at the time 
(for the cult has its peculiar “society” like every other), and who knew details not known to the 
general public; who knew something of the sources and cost of Sir Henry’s stock, and the results 
