Birmingham age-herald., 1894-10-28

fnal did not survive tho skinning opera tion. They wore kid gloves, and after the session was over the ladies formed into little groups, and the most of them began to talk about furs.
 One of the ladies' whose soft eyes had more than once filled with tears while speaking of the wanton slaughter of birds, said that she was having 0 long mantle made of moire astrakhan. It would take 40 of these skins to make her wrap at $5 each, but it was to be something elegant when done I was not among the speak CTS, or should have liked to rise and say something about that beautiful fur called moire astrakhan. 1 wonder how many women who wear that fur know that it has cost the life not only of the little ani- nal, but also that of the mother. She is cruelty murdered just before the time for her young to be born, and the unborn creature is instantly skinned before the hair has chance to curl. It is afterward dyed to that glossy black.
 The curled astrakhan or Persian is pro- duced in a manner scarcely less cruel. The animal as soon as it is born is sewed into a sack of coarse cloth, with it's head and feet out. It may live in this way few miserable weeks, when it is sacrificed. The hair is by that time linked up close ly. It takes hundreds of ermines, little creatures no larger than one's hand when living, to make medium sized wrap, and thousands upon thousands of other ami mals arc killed to obtain their fur to adorn beauty. Perhaps these women think with Lockyer:
 You lucky little kid,
 You perished, so you did,
 For my sweet
 From the beginning I think women must have been born cruel Men as soon as they could find wool, cotton flax and linen left off wearing furs but no woman is perfectly happy without something that costs not -only money, but life and blood. I do not blame the tender hearted ones for saying all they do against the slaughter of the birds for ornaments, but why do they never say anything against the killing of animals, the boiling of the silkworms and such things? Why are they not consistent enough to wear cotton gloves, only wooden and cotton fiber, with perhaps little linen, too, when the weather permitsf But, then, who ever knew consistent personf It does look odd, though, that the men who do the kill ing don't wear the furs and the women who preach kindness, etc., are the ones who will have them, no matter if baby seals and goat mothers cry out pitifully against it.
 But, after all, there is a sense of com fort that nothing else can give in warm fur garment. It not only feels nice; bu looks so, too and so the wearers quietly ignore the slaughter of the animals and talk about the inhumanity toward the birds. What with flowers. ribbon velvets and lace and metals and jewels they can adorn their hats without feathers, but furs are a necessity, and besides the ami mals, being dead, do not need their skins any longer. That is how they reason, and think did, too, during the past week. have been to the openings" of the swell fur houses, and If anything is calculated to blunt the sensibilities on the point of the slaughter of the animals it is to look at, admire and handle the beauti- ful garments made of fur
 First among all furs is the Russian sa- ble. I saw mantle of that peerless fur lined with ermine. The mantle was about