598 
FANCIERS’ JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 
and which, therefore, I shall not quote entire, though its 
character would thoroughly justify my doing so. It con- 
sisted of four closely written pages of letter-paper, of which 
the following paragraphs are specimens, and will serve as a 
comment upon the sincerity of the sentence quoted above : — 
“ I repeat it: I was utterly ignorant of the virulence, the 
total falsity, the bitter misrepresentations, the carping, silly, 
unwarrantable language you had adopted towards me in 
your two books [“The Brahma Fowl” and “The Illus- 
trated Book of Poultry ” are here referred to] until the last 
few weeks, when I for the first time had access to these 
ignorantly composed and miserably spirited volumes! 
Wherein have I ever offended you , that you should thus in 
your books blackguard, malign, vilify, and prate like a hen 
with a sore head about Burnham this, and Burnham that ? 
I am a gentleman, sir, by nature, education, fortune ; and 
never did a human being wrong, so help me God, to my 
knowledge, in my life. 
“ When you — 3000 miles away — undertake to commingle 
and involve me in this cursed, obnoxious, Burram-pooter, 
Brahma-pootra, Burmah-pater, Bahama-poodra, Sailor, Cor- 
nish, Chamberlain, Bennett, Hatch, Wright, Plaisted, Knox, 
balderdash— I protest, . . . and shall endeavor, in my 
own way, to answer and refute your infamous and spiteful 
tirade against me. Before I get through I have no doubt I 
will succeed in impressing upon Mr. Lewis Wright, of Eng- 
land, if upon no one else, that that gentleman had much 
better have informed himself of the facts in this case, ere 
he so maliciously and so stupidly ventured to assail and 
malign the undersigned.” 
This is pretty strong, and there is much more of it ; but I 
will respect Mr. Burnham’s “ private mark ” so far as to 
content myself with this sample of the bulk; and I would 
not have done even this had the “ private ” letter stood 
alone. An anonymous 'printed, article, however, informs me 
that this same gentle gentleman has “ mildly characterized” 
what I have published as a “ most disingenuous, erroneous, 
and dastardly assault ” upon him personally. 1 am sorry to 
say I have not been able to find the article containing these 
expressions; but as I only receive a few American papers, 
and he seems to have “spread himself” pretty much over 
all of them, this is perhaps not to be wondered at. And as 
this has been going on for many weeks, during which Mr. 
Burnham has had the field all to himself, I am not surprised 
that it is beginning to produce some impression ; and that 
one writer in the Fanciers' Journal should allude to the 
“ little onpleasant difference, which B. so far seems, to my 
view, decidedly to have the best of;” while another re- 
marks, “ The personal strictures in that lengthy extract 
[from the “ Illustrated Book of Poultry ”] upon Mr. Burn- 
ham I think are highly prejudiced, as well as unwarranted, 
and are not in Mr. Wright’s usual clever vein ” [much obliged 
for the lump of sugar in this dose.. — L. W.]. Finally, both 
Mr. Burnham and others have professed to analyze the evi- 
dence and dates I adduced, and to show by such analysis that 
it is “conflicting” and the dates unsatisfactory. 
Thus it is that I am now compelled to go into the matter 
fully. Mr. Burnham has challenged me, and I shall take 
up his challenge at every point, so far as anything I have 
ever said about him is concerned, and show out of his own 
mouth that in no point have I ever exceeded the truth, but 
on the contrary have fallen short of it. I, too, will make 
my analysis of dates and “ records,” adding a few particu- 
lars which Mr. Burnham has forgotten to afford, and which 
will, I trust, add some interest to even this old controversy. 
While it will appear that further evidence has in some de- 
gree changed my views as to the origin of the Brahma — the 
three editions of my book on that subject prove, long before 
all this nonsense, that I had modified them precisely as fresh 
evidence from time to time turned up — I shall show that if 
I have done this “gentleman by nature, education, and for- 
tune ” any injustice, it has not been in the direction he im- 
plies. He complains of what I have said of him ; I shall 
present what he has said of himself. This, however, must 
now be left till another occasion. L. Wright. 
PiqEo^ Def/^TiwEflT. 
THE MELBOURNE PIGEON MART. 
A visitor to the Eastern (commonly known as “ Pad- 
dy’s,”) Market on Saturday nights sees much that is interest- 
ing and characteristic. The first impression is that of a seeth- 
ing purposeless mob, jostling each other in admirable confu- 
sion ; but when the eye settles down to clear detail, then the 
wondrous diversity, yet unity of purpose, strikes the mind as 
something deserving of study. Here we find a coster’s lorry 
filled with scarlet-colored crawfish barely cold, there anoth- 
er loaded with barracouta dried and smoked, while a third 
trembles under the weight of flathead and mullet, each pro- 
prietor vying as to strength of lungs in disposing of his 
wares. Along the pavement are wooden shops, where the 
riches of Pomona are sold at wondrously cheap rates, while 
in the rear are rows of tables where the lovers of Sydney 
rock oysters can get their fill at 6 d. per plate. Then we 
come to itinerating rifle galleries kept constantly going by 
lads improving their sporting proclivities at a halfpenny a 
shot, the prize for a bull’s eye being a handful of Barcelona 
nuts. Penetrating further into the market, the visitor is 
regaled with a mixed effluvium arising from cabbages un- 
dergoing a state of vegetable perspiration. Cheeses of every 
quality from the mity to the mouldy, secondhand boots 
and shoes smelling of Crispin’s wax and dirty feet, peram- 
bulating draper’s shops with the peculiar scent incident to 
confined haberdashery, lean and scraggy mutton, beef that 
looks pleuropneumoniacal, old book-stalls with their musty 
treasures, stands garnished with John Chinaman’s wares, 
laden with the peculiar odor of the Flowery Land, piles of 
tinware and heaps of crockery, enlivened by an ever-surg- 
ing busy crowd, chaffering and buying, and departing 
heavily laden with the bargains that can here be obtained 
for ready cash. Outside this commercial Babel congregate 
the dealers in Pigeons. Between the side arcade, where 
poultry-dealers and bird-fanciers love to congregate, and the 
market proper, is a dark street where about two hundred 
lads gather every Saturday night to swop and sell Pigeons. 
These vary — that is, the bipeds — in age from seven to six- 
teen years, and all have one, but the majority two or three, 
feathered favorites to dispose of. Pouters and Dragoons, 
Tumblers and Bronze Tipplers, Skinners, Jacobins, and 
Commoners are here to be found in every variety, and a 
brisk trade is constantly carried on by these youthful mer- 
chants . — New Zealand Illustrated Press. 
