Chapter I: Preface

In preparing the following pages, I have had the opportunity to inform myself pretty accurately regarding the ramifications of the subject upon which I have written herein; and I have endeavored to avoid setting down "aught in malice" in this "_History of the_ HEN FEVER" in the United States.

I have followed this extraordinary _mania_ from its incipient stages to its final death, or its _cure_, as the reader may elect to term its conclusion. The first symptoms of the fever were exhibited in my own house at Roxbury, Mass., early in the summer of 1849. From that time down to the opening of 1855 (or rather to the winter of 1854), I have been rather intimately connected with the movement, if common report speaks correctly; and I believe I have seen as much of the tricks of this trade as one usually meets with in the course of a single natural life.

Now that the most serious effects of this (for six years) alarming epidemic have passed away from among us, and when "the people" who have been called upon to pay the cost of its support, and for the burial of its victims, can look back upon the scenes that have in that period transpired with a disposition cooled by experience, I have thought that a volume like this might prove acceptable to the hundreds and thousands of those who once "took an interest in the hen trade,"--who _may_ have been mortally wounded, or haply who have escaped with only a broken wing; and who will not object to learn how the thing has been done, and "who threw the bricks"!

If my readers shall be edified and amused with the perusal of this work as much as I have been in recalling these past scenes while writing it, I am content that I have not thrown the powder away. I have written it in perfect good-nature, with the design to gratify its readers, and to offend no man living.

And trusting that _all_ will be pleased who may devote an hour to its pages, while at the same time I indulge the hope that _none_ will feel aggrieved by its tone, or its text, I submit this book to the public.

Respectfully,

GEO. P. BURNHAM.

RUSSET HOUSE, _Melrose_, 1855.

CONTENTS.

Chapter Page

I. PREMONITORY SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE, 9

II. THE "COCHIN-CHINAS." BUBBLE NUMBER ONE, 14

III. THE FIRST FOWL SHOW IN BOSTON, 21

IV. HOW "POULTRY-BOOKS" ARE MADE, 26

V. THREATENING INDICATIONS, 32

VI. THE EPIDEMIC SPREADING, 37

VII. ALARMING DEMONSTRATIONS, 41

VIII. THE FEVER WORKING, 47

IX. THE SECOND POULTRY SHOW IN BOSTON, 52

X. THE MUTUAL ADMIRATION SOCIETY'S SECOND SHOW, 58

XI. PROGRESS OF THE MALADY, 65

XII. MY CORRESPONDENCE, 70

XIII. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE QUESTION, 85

XIV. "BOTHER'EM POOTRUMS." BUBBLE NUMBER TWO, 90

XV. ADVERTISING EXTRAORDINARY, 98

XVI. HEIGHT OF THE FEVER, 104

XVII. RUNNING IT INTO THE GROUND, 111

XVIII. ONE OF THE FINAL KICKS, 119

XIX. THE FOURTH FOWL SHOW IN BOSTON, 124

XX. PRESENT TO QUEEN VICTORIA, 129

XXI. EXPERIMENTS OF AMATEURS, 137

XXII. TRUE HISTORY OF "FANNY FERN," 147

XXIII. CONVALESCENCE, 155

XXIV. AN EXPENSIVE BUSINESS, 160

XXV. THE GREAT PAGODA HEN, 165

XXVI. "POLICY THE BEST HONESTY," 176

XXVII. A GENUINE HUMBUG, 182

XXVIII. BARNUM IN THE FIELD, 190

XXIX. FIRST "NATIONAL" POULTRY SHOW IN NEW YORK, 198

XXX. BARNUM'S INNATE DIFFIDENCE, 204

XXXI. A SUPPRESSED SPEECH, 213

XXXII. A "CONFIDENCE" MAN, 220

XXXIII. THE ESSENCE OF HUMBUG, 224

XXXIV. A TRUMP CARD, 229

XXXV. "HOLD YOUR HORSES," 237

XXXVI. TRICKS OF THE TRADE, 243

XXXVII. FINAL DEATH-THROES, 252

XXXVIII. THE PORTE-MONNAIE I OWE 'EM COMPANY, 259

XXXIX. A SATISFACTORY PEDIGREE, 263

XL. DOING THE GENTEEL THING, 273

XLI. THE FATE OF THE "MODEL" SHANGHAES, 279

XLII. AN EMPHATIC CLINCHER, 288

XLIII. "STAND FROM UNDER," 294

XLIV. BURSTING OF THE BUBBLE, 302

XLV. THE DEAD AND WOUNDED, 307

XLVI. A MOURNFUL PROCESSION, 312

XLVII. MY SHANGHAE DINNER, 318

THE HISTORY OF THE HEN FEVER.