The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-23
THE STOAT HAS HAD REST.
THE FUR HAS NOT BEEN IN FASH-
 ION MANY FEARS.
Its Present High Price and How 1t
 May he Initiated.

It's Present High Price and How 1t May be Initiated.
 With the enormous demand for flair
 efmlneS spotleSS as the snoWs they
 press" in view alike of the coronation
 and the marked revival the fur is now
 enjoying in fashionable favor, it was
 only to be expected that it's value would
 enhance very rapidly, and this week
 has seen various sensational statements
 afloat to to ''record prices" As far
 back as the occasion of the great fair
 at Mini Novgorod in the early sum-
 mer the advance in prices was fore-
 shadowed, and skins of all qualities
 were about fifteen per cent. higher than
 last year, when the first signs of the
 exigencies of the coming modes were beginning to become manifest. Yet, on
 the authority of the oldest and greatest
 wholesale furdealing house of the city,
 it may be stated that present rates have
 not yet reached the figures of fifty and
 sixty years ago. Then it was, in the
 forms of tippets, flouncings for mantles
 and muffs, that the little white belts had their last period of admiration
 Means of transport, it is true, were less perfect than they are with ourselves
 but, on the other hand, the love of fine dress was not nearly so widespread in
 all classes as it is to-day Then, as
 now, ermine was sold in bundles of for | ty skins, known in commerce as a | timber It Is on record that as much as two hundred and ten shillings per timber was not then an unusual price. The fur, however passed completely out of wear Stocks of it deteriorated in the warehouses of London and the continent and it was in such little re- ! quest that practically it ceased to ap- pear in the markets
 The vagaries of fashion in all furs save sable or sealskin preserve in a sense the sources of supply from com plete extermination. In the long peri cd of eclipse under which ermine has lain there has been time for great multiplication of the little stoat, or clubster, in the remote forest zones of Siberia. Hence more is available than might have been imagined, and present prices for the very finest skins now in the metropolis run in the trade at from eighte to twenty shillings per timber.
 lidl, llONtNtli lS e very ulllGIGuL Sulll from what the retail buyer must pay for finely matched garment. Even in the most carefully assorted timbers the non-expert can detect great diversities of texture and coloring. By the time that the selected specimens can reach the really fastidious customer the value of each separate skin will be from sev- en shillings siXpence to ten shilings The available portion of the skin is about twelve inches long and three inches wide When it is borne in mind that the Earl Marshal orders that the ''robe or mantle of a duchess is to be of crimson velvet, the cape powdered with four rows of errnine, the edging five inches, the train of two yards" it Is obvious that ultimate cost of a corona ton robe where the real fur is used must be very heavy. The bulk of the | ordinary ermine of commerce comes from the Irkutsk district of Siberia, but | the finest skins are derived from Is- chinski. Ermine seldom, or, indeed, never appears in the great fur sales 1 held at Mincing Lane, and is almost in variably bought and sold by private | treaty
 Ermine Is one of the most easily inn itated of all furs, and there are squir- l rel, and even white rabbit skins which l it is almost impossible to distinguish | from erinine. In this connection there | exists in hWitechapel curious little | industry, in the hands of a very few | women, experts in the making of arti | ficial ermine tails. At the present time | real tails (apart from those on the | skins) are scarcely obtainable even at | such a price as one shilling eixpence | each. But the limitations can be made | absolutely perfect hy these adroit | workers who employ tiny pieces of the real skin to form the white part near | est the body and the finest black hair for the tip" They are made upon a foundation of stiff white twine, and can be offered to those who would make them up for the retail trade at nine or ten shillinge gross. The small black dots, of about the dimensions of an or dinarycedar pencil, used for the correct "powderine" of heraIdic "n1iniver," and such as formed the lining of the late queens robe of the Order of the Garter, are usually of the firm, close hair oftb blue-black seal, dyed black and deftly inserted at regular intervals into the white fur. When the great ceremonia1s and rejoicings of next year are over, there are prophets of fashion who pre- dict that the present rage for ermine will wane, and some other skin will take it's place--London Telegraph
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