CHAPTER XLIII.
"STAND FROM 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 squandered, 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 inexplicable mania.
A copy of the Liverpool Express in January, 1854, now lies before me, from which I notice that the great metropolitan 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 thousand 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 character of the exhibition has been already indicated; but this is one of those cases in which no description, however elaborate, can supply the place of personal inspection."
The British correspondent of the Boston Post, but a short time previously, writes that "the fowl fever, which has raged with so much violence in New England during the last three years, has extended to this country. There was a great crowing among the cocks at the late Smithfield cattle-show, and there seems to have been a still louder one at the Birmingham fair.
"The mania for the purchase of fine fowls," continues this writer, "was as furious there as if each of them had been the hen in the fable that found the jewel in the dunghill. Some pairs brought as high as forty pounds (two hundred dollars). One very fine pair of Cochin-Chinas sold for fifty pounds (two hundred and fifty dollars). In the catalogue some were marked at one hundred pounds, the valuation prices of owners who did not wish to sell. With you, in America, the rage for fowl-raising is simply one of fancy and profit,[16] but here it is the result—and a very beneficial one, too—of free trade. The price of eggs and poultry, owing to the great demand, does not fall; the price of grain, owing to free importation, does fall; and hence the great profit which is realized from keeping fowls. The Dorkings are great favorites, less difficult to raise than with you; and, though not abundant layers, still command, from the greater whiteness and superior delicacy of their flesh, a high price in the market. But the new Cochin-China varieties are in the greatest demand; the display of them at Birmingham exceeded all others, and they are now much sought after here."
Such accounts as these continually occupied the papers; and the fever had been kept furiously alive, by this means, until far into the year 1854. The most glowing accounts of the poultry-shows, at home and abroad, were kept up, too; but, in the mean time, Shanghae chickens multiplied rapidly, and grew up, and filled the barns and yards of "the people,"—and at the same time they did not forget how to eat corn, when they could get it.
And, in spite of the best endeavors of interested parties to galvanize the hum into a continued existence, it was now evident to those who watched its progress, as I had done, that the death-rattle was clearly in its throat.
At this juncture I was reminded of the details of the mulberry-tree bubble, the tulip fever, and the Merino sheep speculation; and I had taken care not to become involved in the final ruin of the hen-trade (as I knew many had been, and more were destined to be), in the eventual winding-up of this affair, which was now close at hand.