I do not say that certain persons who have kept a few fowls (from twenty-five to a hundred, perhaps), and who have looked after them carefully, may not have realized a profit upon them, in connection with the farm. But, to make it a business by itself, I repeat it, a mass of domestic and aquatic fowls cannot be kept together to any advantage whatever, their produce to be disposed of at ordinary market value.
The fever for the "fancy" stock broke out at a time when money was plenty, and when there was no other speculation rife in which every one, almost, could easily participate. The prices for fowls increased with astonishing rapidity. The whole community rushed into the breeding of poultry, without the slightest consideration, and the mania was by no means confined to any particular class of individuals—though there was not a little shyness among certain circles who were attacked at first; but this feeling soon gave way, and our first men, at home and abroad, were soon deeply and riotously engaged in the subject of henology.
Meantime, in England they were doing up the matter somewhat more earnestly than with us on this side of the water. To show how even the nobility never "put their hand to the plough and look back" when anything in this line is to come off, and the better to prove how fully the poultry interests were looked after in England, I would point to the names of those who, from 1849 to 1855, patronized the London and Birmingham associations for the improvement of domestic poultry.
The Great Annual Show, at Bingley Hall, was got up under the sanction of His Royal Highness Prince Albert, the Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Charlotte Gough, the Countess of Bradford, Rt. Hon. Countess of Littlefield, Lady Chetwynd, Hon. Viscountess Hill, Lady Littleton, Hon. Mrs. Percy, Lady Scott, and a host of other noble and royal lords and ladies, whose names are well known among the lines of English aristocracy.
But, as time advanced, the star of Shanghae-ism began to wane. The nobility tired of the excitement, and the people of England and of the United States began to ascertain that there was absolutely nothing in this "hum," save what the "importers and breeders" had made, through the influence of the newspapers; and while a few of the last men were examining the thickness of the shell, cautiously and warily, the long-inflated bubble burst! and, as the fragments descended upon the devoted heads of the unlucky star-gazers, a cry was faintly heard, from beneath the ruins—"Stand from under!"
I had been watching for this climax for several months; and when the explosion occurred, as nearly as I can "cal-'late," I wasn't thar!
CHAPTER XLV.
THE DEAD AND WOUNDED.
I have never yet been able to ascertain, authentically, all the exact particulars of the final catastrophe; but, basing an opinion upon the numerous "dispatches" I received from November, 1854, to February, 1855, the number of dead and wounded must have been considerable, if not more. I received scores of letters, during this last period mentioned, of which the annexed is a fair sample: