The following capital sketch (which appeared originally in the Boston Carpet-Bag) is from the pen of the late Secretary of the Mutual Admiration Society,—a gentleman, and a very happy writer in his way. It gives a faithful and accurate description of what many of these monsters really were, and will be read with gusto by all who have now come to be "posted up" in the secrets of the hen-trade.
The editor of the above-named journal remarks that "as our Carpet-Bag contains something connected with everything under the sun, we have abstracted therefrom a chapter on chicken-craft, which embraces a very important detail of that most abstruse science. When our readers scan the beautiful proportions of the stately fowl that roosts at the head of this article, they will acknowledge that we have some right to cackle because of the good fortune we have had in securing such an uneggsceptionable picture, exhibiting the very perfection of cockadoodledom. Isn't he a beauty, this Bother'em Pootrum?
"Examine his altitude! Observe the bold courage that stands forth in his every lineament! There is no dunghill bravery there! See what symmetry floats round every detail of his noble proportions! What kingly grace associates with the comb that adorns his head as it were a crown! What fire there is in his eye! With what proud bearing does he not wear his abbreviated posterior appendage! Looking at the latter, we, and every one knowing in hen-craft, will readily exclaim, 'Gerenau de Montbeillard! you must have been a most unmitigated muff to designate that beautiful fowl the gallus ecaudatus, or tailless rooster.' For ourselves, our indignity teaches us to say, 'Mons. M.! your Essai sur Historie Nat. des Gallinacæ Fran. tom. ii., pp. 550 et 656, is a humbug!' We know that the universal world will sympathize in our sentiment on this point."
Peter Snooks, Esq. (a correspondent of this journal), it appears, had the honor to be the fortunate possessor of this invaluable variety of fancy poultry, in its unadulterated purity of blood. He furnished from his own yard samples of this rare and desirable stock for His Royal Highness Prince Albert, and also sent samples to several other noted potentates, whose taste was acknowledged to be unquestionable, including the King of Roratonga, the Rajah of Gabble-squash, His Majesty of the Cannibal Islands, and the Mosquito King. Peter supplies the annexed description of the superior properties of this variety of fowls:
"The Bother'em Pootrums are generally hatched from eggs. The original pair were not; they were sent from India, by way of Nantucket, in a whale-ship.
"They are a singularly pictur-squee fowl from the very shell. Imagine a crate-full of lean, plucked chickens, taking leg-bail for their liberty, and persevering around Faneuil Hall at the rate of five miles an hour, and you have an idea of their extremely ornamental appearance.
"They are remarkable for producing bone, and as remarkable for producing offal. I have had one analyzed lately by a celebrated chemist, with the following result:
| Feathers and offal, | 39.00 |
| Bony substances, | 50.00 |
| Very tough muscle and sinew, | 09.00 |
| Miscellaneous residuum, | 02.00 |
| ——— | |
| 100.00" |
A peculiarly well-developed faculty in this extraordinary fine breed of domestic fowls is that of eating. "A tolerably well-fed Bother'em will dispose of as much corn as a common horse," insists Mr. S——. This goes beyond me; for I have found that they could be kept on the allowance, ordinarily, that I appropriated daily to the same number of good-sized store hogs. As to affording them all they would eat, I never did that. O, no! I am pretty well off, pecuniarily, but not rich enough to attempt any such fool-hardy experiment as that!