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 J had been! 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 guid 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’? Icarry 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 havea 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 arecorrect. 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,” &e. 
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,’ &c. 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. Ist. 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. Iam older than I was at 25, now 35 
years ago, and feeble, as you may see by this article. But 
Ido the best Ican. 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.”’? Ido 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 
