Nothing that could be said against me and my stock was neglected, or omitted to be said. But, as long as fowls would sell at all, I had my full share of the trade, notwithstanding this. The following veritable letter, received from a noted "breeder," in 1853, will explain itself; and it exhibits the disposition of more than one huckster still left around us. It will be observed that this gentleman called me his "friend"!
"Friend B——: What has become of all the trade? I haven't sold twenty dollars' worth of chickens, in a month! I've now got over three hundred of these curses on hand—and they're eating me up, alive. What'll we do with them? Do you want them? Will you buy them—anyhow? And give what you like for them.
"They are a better lot than you ever owned,—everybody says so,—Greys, Cochins (pure) and Shanghaes. D—n the business! I'm sick of it. My fowls and fixin's cost me over twelve hundred dollars. What do you think of an auction? Has the bottom fallen out, entirely? Could I get back two or three dollars apiece for this lot, do you think, at public sale?
"B—— is stuck with about five hundred of the gormandisers. I'm glad of it—glad—glad! An't you? He always lammed you, as well as me; and though I think you can swinge the green 'uns as cutely as 'most any of 'em, he has been an eye-sore for three years that ought to be put down. He got his stock of you, he says,—but (no offence to you, friend B——), it an't worth a cuss. All of it's sick and lousy, and he shan't sell no more fowls, if I can help it.
"Have you seen W——'s stock, lately? Isn't he a beauty! I told him, last week, he'd ought to be ashamed of himself ever to gone into this trade, at all. He's well enough off, without stealing the bread out of the mouths of them that's a long way honester than he ever was. I'll have a lick at him, yet.
"Come and see my stock,—and buy it. I don't want it. I must give it up. I'm too busy about something else. Come—will you? I don't say anything against your fowls, outside; but you know, as well as I do, that you haven't got the real thing. Bennett says you haven't, and everybody else says so. As to your 'importations,' you never had a fowl that was imported from any further off than Cape Cod, and you know it! But that is neither here nor there. I don't care a fig how much you gouge 'em. All I want is to get rid of mine. If you don't buy them, I shall sell them,—somehow,—or give them away, sure. They shan't eat me up, nohow.
"They don't eat nothing—these fowls don't! O, what an infernal humbug this is! I never got much out of it, though. I tell everybody what all the rest of you do,—of course. But I had rather keep the same number of Suffolk pigs, anyhow, so far as that's concerned. I an't afraid of your showing this letter to nobody—ha! ha! So I don't mark it 'private.' But of all the owdacious humbugs that ever this country saw, this thing is the steepest,—and you know it!
"Write me and say what you'll give me for my lot. I won't peach on you. You can buy 'em on your own terms. I want to get out of it. And you may say just what you've a mind about 'em. I'll back you, of course. Couldn't you take them, and get up another fresh guy on a 'new importation'?? That's it. Come, now, friend B——, help me out. And answer immediately. All I want is to get out of it, and catch me there again if you can!
"Yours, &c.,
"—— ——.
"P.S. If you don't buy them, I shall kill the brutes, and send 'em to market; though they are too poor for that, I think."
This complimentary epistle from a brother-fancier was rather cool, but it didn't equal the following. I had more than one of this sort, too,—of which I had no occasion, for the time being, to take the slightest notice, for I had "other fish to fry," decidedly!
"Mr. Burnham.—Sir: How is it that you have the impudence to try to palm off on the public those fowls of yours for genuine 'imported ones,' when it is known that you bought them all of me, and A——, and B——? How can you sleep nights? Don't you feel a squirming in your conscience? Or is it made of ingy-rubber, or gutter-perchy? You have made hundreds, and I don't know but thousands of dollars, by your impudence and bare-faced deceit. They are not genuine fowls. I say this bolely. I wish there was a noospaper that would show the inderpendence to print an article that I could rite for it, on this subject of poletry. If I wouldn't make you stare, and shet your eyes up, too, then I aint no judge of swindling!
"Why don't you act like a man? Carnt you? Havn't you got the pluck to own up that other people have done for you what you never had the gumption to do for yourself? Why don't you act fair,—and tell where the genuine fowls can be got, and of who? You're a doing the poultry business more hurt than all the rest of the men in the country is doing, or ever did, or ever will, sir.
"I don't mind a man's being sharp, and looking out for himself. I do that. But I carn't humbug people as you are doing,—and I won't, neither. You're sticking it into the people nicely,—don't you think you are? And they believe it, too! The people believes what you tell them, and sucks it all down, and wants more of it. And you keep a giving it to them, too! How long do you suppose such infamous things as these can last? I hope this letter will do you good. I havn't no ends to answer. I keep but a few fowls, and I have never charged over twenty-five dollars a pair for the best of them,—as you know. You get fifty or a hundred dollars a pair. So the noospapers say, but I believe you lie when they say so. You carn't come this over me! You don't pull none of that wool over my eyes! No, sir!
"If you want to get an honest living,—get it! I don't say nothin against that; you've a rite to. But don't cheat the people out of their eye-teeth, by telling these stories that you carn't prove.[11] You've no right to. You sell fowls, by this means, but you don't get no clear conscience by it. It's wrong, Mr. Burnum, and you know it. While you do this, nobody can sell no fowls except you. Give other people a chance, say I. I wouldn't do this, nohow, to sell my fowls at your expense; and I go for having everybody do unto others as I would do to them. This is moral and Christian-like, and you'd better adopt it. That's my advice, and I don't charge nothing for it. So, no more at present—from
"Your, resp'y,
"—— —— ——."
These missives never disturbed me. Why should they? These very men would have sold, from that very stock,—had done so, repeatedly, before,—whatever a buyer sought to purchase. I never knew either of them to permit the chance of a sale to pass by him, on account of the variety of bird sought! They invariably possessed whatever was wanted. With them, "policy was the best honesty." I did not complain. I was a "hen-man," but no Mentor.
CHAPTER XXVII.
A GENUINE HUMBUG.
It was now getting pretty clear to the vision of most of the initiated that the hen fever was in the midst of its height. Buyers with long purses were about, but they were not so ravenous as formerly. They talked knowingly and cautiously, and chose their fowls with more care than formerly; but still a great many samples were being circulated, and at very handsomely remunerating prices.