Mr. Green was cured, of course; and though his anticipations were great, yet he had his predecessors and his successors in the hen traffic, who were almost as sanguine as he, and who not only "paid through the nose" for their experience, but who came off, in the end, really, with quite as little success. Mr. Green was but one of many. Mr. Green was one of "the people."
It will be remembered that my correspondents allude to the fowls they "see in the noospapers."
I had seen these birds, in the same way, before they did. And a London dealer wrote me that he could send me a lot of Egleton's "famous" stock, "which took the three first premiums at a metropolitan show, and two descendants of which, at the close of the late exhibition, were sold at auction for forty-eight guineas ($262)."
I immediately sent out for a few of these monsters. They were described to me as being of enormous size, and feathered upon the legs; and I was now somewhat surprised to note that several of the English societies decided that the true "Cochin-China" fowl (as they term this variety) come only with feathered legs. The very stock above alluded to, however, came direct from the city of Shanghae; and duplicate birds of the same blood were delineated in the London Illustrated News. The metropolitan associations required that all Cochin-China fowls put in competition for premiums must be feathered-legged. This was a new decision, as it is well known that every importation of domestic fowl yet brought out from China direct come more or less clean-legged; and that fully one half of their progeny are so, with the most careful breeding, both in England and in this country. This was immaterial, however; and I repeated the story to my correspondents in good faith, and sent them copies of the portraits of these new, "extraordinary," "splendid" and "astonishing" hens, precisely as their history and pictures came to me. The result can be fancied. Here is the "original" portrait of one of 'em.
This was the kind of thing that "took down" the outsiders. Orders for this strain of pure blood poured in upon me, and I supplied them. I trust the purchasers were always satisfied. In my case, it might answer; but I would not recommend the practice generally of purchasing chickens out of the newspapers. Such a portrait as the above might chance to be a little fanciful; or, perhaps, it might be a trifling exaggeration, you see. Yet this was the breed that were always "put in the newspapers." You very rarely found them in your coops, though!
CHAPTER XXVI.
"POLICY THE BEST HONESTY."
This reversion of the old saying that "honesty's the best policy" seemed to have finally attained among many hen-men, and the ambition to dispose of their now large surplus stock, at the best possible prices, had become very general, while the means to accomplish it came to be immaterial, so that they got rid of their fancy poultry at fancy figures.