The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1889-08-26
MAKING WOMEN'S MUFFS.
4 GLIMPSE III Il TRADE THAT
KEEPS Many HANDS busy.

/ ~ MANY HANDS BUSY
Progress of the Fur from the
Cutters Knife to tho Finisher's Hands
Working ON Winter Goods in Hot
Summer Weather
A writer in the New York Star
gives the following description
of the process of making a
woman's muff, a work at which
thousands of men and women are EN-
ploYed during the heated term, some
in great factories, others in stuffy
little shops.
One man stands at a counter with a
pile of muskrat skins at his left hand
and In his right a keen little knife,
shaped almost exactly like the out
stretched wing of a bird. The skin of
the furs a been dampened so hat it
is plant. The cutter, as he is called,
seizes a skin, tnrns the fur down and
rapidly cuts out defects with his
bird's-wing knife. Scarcely one skin
in a hundred is perfect. There are
shot holes, from bites and
scratches, tears and other damage,
the result of careless curing. By the
time all defects have been cut out it
may have been necessary to divide
the skin into twenty strips and
squares. About twenty per cent. of
the fur is lost by the process of cut
ting; though the smallest pieces, even
those not more than an inch square,
are carefully saved, so long as they
are well covered with hair.
AS the knife slips through the
leather you notice that the under side
of the fur is a rich, golden brown,
while the outer surface is black. The
fur has been dyed, but the dye has
not penetrated to the skin. The dye
ing and curing are done elsewhere at
factories which receive the raw skins
by the thousand from the West and
South. They come turned wrong side
out and looking like great Japanese
slippers from having been stretched
and dried by the trapper on pointed
shingles.
From the cutters table the skins go
to the sewer. He sits in a corner and
works a strong sewingmachine, whose
needle is easily driven through the
skin. Ordinary stout thread is used,
and the sewer manages to piece to-
gether the various scraps in such a
way that no seam shows On the hairy
side. The seam on the upper side APP
pear like straight ridges or cords. The
skin comes from the sewer a patch
work of leather almost as strongly
held together as an uncut pelt.
From the sewer the material goes to
the blocker. In this instance it is a
muff that they are making. The
''block" is in seven pieces that fit to-
gether and form an implement that
looks almost exactly like a big wheel
hub. The skin, which has been sewn
end to end so as to form a hollow
cylinder, is placed on the block form.
1t extends a little beyond the block,
and a little wooden disk is placed in
each end of the latter. To these disks
the ends of the skin are nailed, and
the whole thing is then placed in the
window TO dry.
When the skin is partly dried it is
removed from the block and turned
over to the fnisher. He puts in wad-
ding and lining and sews on the cord
and tassels, if the muffs are to be orna-
mented. Finally the fur is carefully
brushed until it is smooth and glossy.
Then it is put into a round p~asteboaTd
box ready to be shipped to the mer-
chant, through whom it is distributed
to the retail dealers here and else
where.
Four men working together thus
ten hours a day can make three dozen
muffs. Cutters earn from $15 to $18 a
week, and blockers and finishers from
$40 to $12 a week. Women are some
times employed as finishers at about
the same wages. The busy season is
from about June to December. Sep
TENDER, October and November are
perhaps the most active months of the
season. In the spring and winter bust
ness is dull, and the few men EN-
ployed are at work upon inferior ma
terial, which cannot be worked profit
ably in the busy season.
Fashion in furs changes slightly
from year to year, and the growing
taste for summer furs now has to be
taken into account. Boas, capes and
muffs are now being made for next
winter. The cheapest and most
abundant skin is that of the hare; the
costliest is that of the beaver, sable,
seal, black fox and ermine. The last
named is extremely rare. The de-
spised polecat contributes fur to the
comfort and ornaInentationof beauty,
and nobody turns up their nos at
him. His unpleasant characteristics
disappear fin the curing. Pretty boas
are made OF the hare's skin, and costly
capes of lynx, sable and beaver fur.
Some of the costliest furs are imported,
but the great mass of fur garments are
made from native skins.
Foreigners have been pioneers in
the fancy fur business in New York,
and there are still many Frenchmen,
Germans and Italians employed in the
work; but native Americans are TAX
ing to the trade more and more. 1t
requires from to five years to be-
come an expert cutter, but other
branches of the trade are more quickly
learned. The costliest furs are made
UP in large factories, because it takes
considerable capital to keep q stock of
raw material on hand. The business
is rather dirty, but it is not specially
unwholesome,
How IN Came into Use in Siam.
The thimble has never been use in
Siam until a few years ago, when the
king, noticing that some American la
dies who visited his court used thin
bles, had one made for his queen. 1t
was made of gold, in the form of a
lotus bud, the lotus being the Siamese
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