Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1894-10-10
WHALEBONE SUBSTITUTES.
CAUSES THAT ARE KILLING A
GREAT MARITIME INDUSTRY.
Fac Froduc. of the Levfathan of tho
Seas Being Driven Out of the Mar
ket BY Cheap Devices.

seas Doing DTlVeH out OA thC
ket BY Cheap Devices.
yOR the last ten years there has
H. has been a widespread feeling
among the coast towns of New
England as well as among
iealers in sperm oil and whalebone in
all the large American seaports that the
American whaling industry is, to use
the language of one of the largest deal
ers in baleen, the whalebone of COM
merce. in this city, con its last legs. :"
With the extinction of whaling vii!
end one of the most glorious periods
of American sea life, for more true
heroism and romance have clustered
about the hardy mariners who have
sailed out of Nantucket and New Bed
ford hacbors three hundred years and
more to engage in the perils and hard
ships of whaling voyages than Sir Wal
ter Scott ever dreamed of investing his
heroes with. But, like the feudal
times of the Middle Ages, with their
barons and knights and mail-clad war;
riors, the whaling epoch of American
seafaring life, it seems, must disap-
pear. Already its sun is far down
toward the ocean rim, though stout
craft and stouter hearts are still fitted
out in New Bedford to chase the sperm
whale through the rolling forties" of
the Atlantic, or to follow the ''bow-
head" in the frozen seas of the Arctic.
Devices to supply the place OF whale
bone have been multiplying with fear7
full rapidity of recent years, until now
he Down East whaling masters are
lreading, as stated above, that the
actual extinction of the whaling indus
Try is only question of few years
A dozen years ago the thin, flat strips
Of whalebone were considered as es-
sential in the makeup of q woman's
corset as the laces that drew it snugly
to the form of the owner, while now,
according to the statement of leading
manufacturer of corsets, it is the eX-
ception and not the rule that whale
bone is found in corset. The factory
made corset is ribbed with such SUBJ
stitutes for whalebone as "feather
bone" hornbone, fiat strips of steel,
wire, rattan, reed and coralline, and
even vegetable fibre that grows on
the Spanish dagger plant of the Far
West is brought into play, sewed down
end passed off on the public because it
is cheap, and much of it palmed off as
genuine wnalebone.
Nor are corsets the only things into
he manufacture of which whalebone
enters largely that is being cheapened
and the business being revolutionized
by substitutes for the whalebone
~ L.,
whalebone out of the factories where
whip handles are made, and from the
milliners' establishments where whale
bone has been used largely in the fash
ioning of hats and the shaping of
waists of dresses, especially the latter.
Steadily, but surely the cheap substi
tutes are forcing out the genuine ar
ticlc in dozens of other direction ,
where it long held a monopoly, su I.
as the stiffening of shoes for persol !,
with weak ankles, etc.
The flooding of the markets with
substitutes for whalebone began q
dozen years ago, but the practice re-
ceived an immense impetus in 1888.
partly through natural causes and
partly through the folly of n few owr
ers of whalebone in trying to put an
outrageous price on the stock of bono
held by them, practically all the bone
in the market at that time. In the
summer of 1891 sale of whalebone
was made in this citv, SOC pounds for
500 n pound, whicn vas the tiptop
price ever paid for whalebone in this
or any other country. At that time
practically the only whalebone held in
the world was the stock of $4,000
pounds owned by the Pacific Steam
Whaling Company of San Francisco.
This short supply was due to several
successive seasons of poor luck and
disaster for the whaling fleet in the
Arctic. TIE records of whale fishery
show that in 1854 the bone brought to
American ports by vessels engaged in
the pursuit of right whales, nearly all
American vessels, by the way, witia
seasoned and salted Down East skip.
pers in command, reached the splendid
total of 3,445,2 pounds, which
was worth an average of forty cents n
pound. Notwithstanding improved
and more destructive methods of fish
ing, the use of steam vessels which
could follow the whale in young ice,
and the invention of the terrible boom
lance or harpoon, and its accompany
ing destroyer, the shoulder gun-the
industry in 1892 yielded only 271, 999
pounds OF bone, which, however, sold
1t an average of Sill pound. The
ysar 1888 was one of miserable luck in
the Arctic. The catch amounted to
o.iy 25f, ,037 pounds before the fleet
was blown ont of the whaling grounds.
The price, because of the shortage.
began to rise, and it rose steadily,
though wi h tiuctustion as the news
came, good or bad, from the North to
the excessive figures reached in 1891
mentioned above.
As the price scared the milliners and
OF Europe and America !
became desperate, and substitutes be-
gan to appear rapidly. The Pacific
Steam Whaling Company realized that
been laying the golden eggs for CEN
tury. 1t is related that Mann Isaac, Of |
Berlin, one of the heaviest users OF
vhalebone in the world, when the price
got to So, gave out notice that he
would not buy n pouad. He kept his !
VOID. Wðe- he usel substitutes or
what he did, none of the AMeficec
dealers seem to know. Last |
s,mmer, however, when the price had
-ecaded to = somewhat lower figure, |
asr. Isaac placed an order in America |
or 10000 pounds. What he did on q
arge scale nearly every body else =
u, business did in lesG>- de-
The cheap divice to fill /
the place of the genuine bone multi
oiled and fiourished rankly, like the