CHAPTER XXXII.
A "CONFIDENCE" MAN.
Towards the close of this show in New York, a somewhat noted cattle-breeder (who was then absent in England) wrote home to an agent in this country, directing him to secure all the Grey Shanghaes obtainable, and further to contract for the raising of hundreds or thousands more, to be delivered during the following season.
At this late day, such an undertaking appeared (to the initiated) to exhibit a most extraordinary confidence in the reality of the hen-trade; but, to those who "had been there," it was very amusing to witness the new-born zeal of this curiously verdant purchaser, who invested so large an amount of money, in 1854, in this hum!
The most extravagant prices were paid by this person for Grey fowls, and large orders were given by the agent, to different breeders, in New England, for future supplies. Several hundred birds were then purchased, at rates varying from four or five dollars to fifty dollars each; and finally some twenty cages were filled, and consigned to London, to be disposed of (as it was supposed) at enormous figures.
This speculation was a total failure. The fowls were inferior, and sick, and worthless. An auction sale followed quickly upon their arrival in England, the proceeds of which failed to pay even their freight and expenses out from this country; and the "confidential" proprietor of the stock, who had not the slightest conception of the details of the trade, was the loser of hundreds of dollars by this foolish and reckless undertaking.
But his contracts with home breeders, who had raised for him one hundred, three hundred, or five hundred pairs of chickens, each, were yet in statu quo! Two or three thousand Grey chickens were awaiting this confident gentleman's orders, and in the mean time were devouring huge quantities of corn and meal, then ranging at from a dollar to a dollar and ten cents a bushel!
Sales were merely nominal; buyers of fancy fowls were nowhar; grain continued on the rise; the chickens grew longer in the legs and necks, and devoured more corn than ever; cold weather approached, and the breeders had no conveniences for housing these thousands of monsters; and finally the victims became importunate.
The contractor didn't want the fowls. Of course he didn't. He had "put his foot into it" with a vengeance! But the parties who had raised these birds "to order" insisted upon the fulfilment of the contractor's promise to take them, at four, six and eight months old.