The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1896-04-10
FACTS ABOUT FURS.
St. Paul, Mimi, Is the Leading City
i'm the Business.
The Best Furs Come from the North
westerR States-Many of the Fur
Bearing Animals Have Been Al
most Totally Exterminated.


most Totally Exterminated.
Perhaps incredulity will sit in the
eyes of the readers, but it is neverthe-
less a fact that in ST. Paul every year
there are upward of 225,O00 dogs cut up
for the man ufacture of fur coats. In
the last year or two there has been u
scarcity of dogs, and the prices natural
ly have advanced. The dogs come from
China, and are that peculiar animal
with the black mouth and black tongue.
They are queer animal, aud are known
in China by the name of 1.-THE monks"
Nobody is prepared to believe, per-
haps, that in this city annually about
100000 coonskins are cut up and made
into coats, but it is true, for We have the
word of prominent fur man who deals
extensively in all kinds of skins, from
the skunk to the seal. In 1898 his firm
cut up 10000 coonskins alone, and will
keep it up SO long as the animals exist.
There are certain animals that have
survived civilization, as, for instance,
the skunk, the raccoon and the opos-
sum, while the wolf, the bear and ami
tirely disappeared.
In Louisville there lives an old fur
buyer by the name of John White, who
has followed the business of buying and
selling furs for the past so years. When
asked short time ago by ST. Paul fur
man what difference he noticed in the
business now from the first time he
went into it, White replied that the
people are getting more coons, opos-
sums and slxunlxs now than ever before.
proving conclusively that these animals
are not affected by civilization, and go
ahead multiplying without stint.
The vast majority of the otter, beaver.
mink and other skins of that ilk are
captured in the northwest, throughout
Manitoba and the northwestern states.
The wombat of Australia was for many
years a drug on the market, and dealers
found ii impossible to dispose of them
until the coat manufacturers OF st.
Paul took them up. They were found
very excellent for the purpose of coat
making, and the hunters who had pre-
yiously become discouraged and refused
TO kill any more found their occupa-
ton renewed and profitable. In the last
two years the stock has been cleaned
out, the wombat has become scarce and
the prices have advanced proportionate-
ly. Everything seems to be declining M
quantity but the raccoon, the skunk
and the Chinese dog or monk, and these
constitute the bulk of furs from which
the coats are manufactured to-day.
The buffalo coat at one time was the
most popular of them all, and it was the
prevalence of the buffalo that gave st.
Paul such a start in the industry Of fur
cOatmaking. At the time the buffalo
were plenty on the western plains fully
30 per cent. of the fur coats manufac-
tured were made of buffalo skins. 1t
was great industry, not alone for the
Indian, but the white hunter, who
locked to the buffalo swamps by the
hundreds. The decline of the buffalo
was SO rapid as to almost exceed belief.
When the industry first started the
plains fairly swarmed with the animal,
and it was the easiest thing in the world
to kill all that were desired, but in three
years this noble animal was almost en-
tirely extinct. When the Northern Pa
cific road was put through to Miles
City, Mont, in 1888, there were 225,000
or 100000 buffalo hides shipped out of
that town. That was in 1883 alone.
All that number had been killed by
white hunters, while the Indian collec-
ton amounted to 10000. The Indians,
of course, were not possessed of the i'm
proved firearms and other methods of
destroying the restless creatures, and
that accounts for the size of their col
lection. So that in 1888 the collection,
all told, amounted to about 27O, 900 hides
and robes.
In 1884 there were not over 10000 col
lected by the Indians and white hunt
ers, and in 1885 there were less than
5000. In 1886 there were none, and now
the only buffalo that exist are the prop
erty of the government and live under
it's protection in the Yellowstone park.
Previous to 1888 all the southern herds
were killed off, then the northern herds
were attacked, and they disappeared,
it seemed. in the twinkling of an eye.
One fur that is not used extensively
in st. Paul is the seal, although great
many ladies' garments, coats, muffs and
the like are made from this most desir-
able of furs. Strange to say, every seal
that is captured in Canadian or Ameri-
can waters must be shipped to London,
England, for dressing and dyeing. They
arc then returned to the United States
and made up. Naturally, all this trans
portation adds to the cost of the gar
ment, and that explains why seal is so
much higher than the other furs. Raw
skins. of course, have no duty on them,
and most other skins can be made up
in this country, but all efforts to dress
and dye the seal successfully in this
country have failed.-St. Paul Dispatch.
THE OLD YELLOW RIVER.
Romance of the Wreck and Recovery of