News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1883-10-18
A NEW INDUSTRY.
HOW RATTLESNAKES ARE UTILIZED
BY THE MOUNTAINEERS TO MAKE
MONEY.
Turning this Useful serpent into Articles Of
Ornament and Healing.

For many years different persons liv-
ing in the mountains of Sullivan and
Ulster counties, New York, the New
York Sun tells us, have made very snug
sums every year in the sale of rattle
snake oil, which is believed to possess
wonderful curative powers by large
proportion of the inhabitants of not only
those, but of adjoining counties. Many
snakes are killed during the summer
season, but the grand gathering of the
crop is in the fall, when they have re-
turned to their dens and wintering
places. These retreats are well known
to the snake hunters, and they choose
sunny days in October and November
for raiding them. On such days the
reptiles crawl out of their dens in the
rocks and huddle together by the score,
different varieties frequently being found
massed together. The snakes are dull
and sluggish at that time of the year,
and come out to bask i'll the sun.
The hunters arm themselves with the
old-fashioned fails, and when they como
upon a pile of snakes proceed at once
to thresh the life out of them. But few
escape. The rattlesnakes are assorted
from the other species and carried home,
where the oil is tried out as lard is
from pork. No treatment of the oil is
necessary. 1t is bottled up and Is
ready for the market. As high as one
dollar an ounce has been paid for it by
believers in its value as n liniment for
rheumatism and all kinds of ills.
The snake hunters of the Shawan-
gunk Mountains receive many orders
oh
| which they receive from fifty cents to
two dollars each, according to size and
condition; but during the past summer
an industry i'll snakes sprung up which
| is entirely new and novel, and bids fair
to become the most profitable of any of
the branches of the trade, for it has for
its foundation a new fashion in female
| adOrnment.
This industry is the supplying of
rattlesnake skins for ladies' belts. AL
most every village in Sullivan and Ulster
| counties Is a summer resort for city peO-
pie, and hundreds of New York ladies
| spend the heated term there. One day
! last summer the wife of well-known
chemist of New York, who was stopping
IN Sullivan county, attended picnic,
and while walking with another lady III
| the woods was confronted by an cnor-
! nous rattleSnalle, which ley directly III
| front of her i'll the mountain path. The
! lady who was with her screamed and ran
away, but the chemists wife picked up
cudgel and killed the snake. She
brought it to the picnic ground It was
! four feet i'll length, and had splendid
set of fourteen rattles. The markings
of a rattIesnake are very beautiful, but
| the skin of this one was particularly
perfect and brilliant in color. The
chemists wife caused a shudder of hor-
rOr to run through the assembIage OF
| her fair companions by saying if she
could by any means have the snakes
skin prepared she would wear it as a
girdle.
She consulted her husband. and he
| consented to experiment with the skin.
| 1t was removed from the snake the next
| day and stretched on a board. The
chemist treated it with some prepare
| ton of arsenic and sweet oil. Theprep
aration was applied daily, and in a few
days the skin was cured with all Its
! freshness, brilliance, and pliability pre-
served. The rattles and head were lef
on the skin. The husband took it tC
New York, where it was fitted with {
handsome silver clasp, and his wife ap
peared among the other guests with {
girdle that two hundred and fifty dollars
would not induce her to part with.
That set the fashion, and there was
at once big demand for rattlesnakc
skins among the ladies, not only in that
particular place, but at scores of other
places, for the news of MIS- girdlt
spread rapidly from one resort to an
other Dainty damsels, who week be.
fore would have tainted almost at the
mention of a rattlesnake, suddenly be
came deeply interested in the beauty anC
dimensions of the deadly reptile, and
lost no time III having its many-hue(
epidermis encircle their slender waists
Rattlesnakes quickly went up i'll the
market, until it was a very modest noun
taineer indeed who hadn't the hear
to ask S. for a skin with perfect rattles
q sound head and clear spots.
Next season they expect to do great
business in "hides," and some of then
predict that the price will go up to ST.
for primes with corresponding rates TO
lower grades for the nurse-girl an,
ladies maid market.