I have smiled over this document, so full of feeling and earnestness, so lively and touching in its recollections of the days when we went _chicken_-ing, long time ago! But I have never been able to reply fully to my ardent friend's numerous inquiries. I don't want those "three hundred Shanghae devils," though. I have now on hand _nine_ of them (only, thank Heaven!) myself; and that is quite enough for one farm, at the present current price of grain.
What has become of all the friends about whom my correspondent so carefully inquires, I don't know. Not _five_ of them are now _in_ the hen-trade, however; and there are not ten of them who got _out_ of the business with a whole skin, from the commencement.
The engine has collapsed its boiler. There was altogether too much steam crowded on, and the managers were not all "up to snuff." The dead and wounded and dying are now scattered throughout New England and New York State chiefly, and their moans can occasionally be heard, though their groans of repentance come too late to help them.
They recklessly invested their twenties, or fifties, or hundreds, and, in some instances, their thousands of dollars, in this hum, without any knowledge of the business, and without any consideration whatever, except the single aim to keep the bubble floating aloft until they could realize anticipated fortunes, on a larger or smaller scale, as the case might be. But the "cars have gone by," and they may now wait for another train. _Perhaps_ it will come!
Poor fellows! Poor, deluded, crazy, reckless dupes! You have had your fun, many of you, and you will now have the opportunity to reflect over the ruins that are piled up around you; while, for the time being, you may well exclaim, with the sulky and flunkey Moor,
I was sitting before my comfortable library fire in midwinter, 1854, and had been reflecting upon the mutability of human affairs generally, and the uncertainty of Shanghae-ism more particularly, when I finally dropped into a gentle slumber in my easy-chair, where I dozed away an hour, and dreamed.
My thoughts took a very curious turn. I fancied myself sitting before a large window that opened into a broad public street, in which I suddenly discovered a multitude of people moving actively about; and I thought it was some gala-day in the city, for the throng appeared to be excited and anxious. "The people" were evidently abroad; and the crowds finally packed themselves along the sidewalks, leaving the wide street open and clear; and I could overhear the words "They're coming!" "Here they are!"