The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-16

Man Who Has-But Women Are the Best Customers the Taxidormtsts Have aud New York Gets the Bulk of Their Trade. There is one menagerie in town where a man who is not a Daniel can walk through the lions den unharmed, where elephants lose their appetite for pea nuts, and a snake charmer would pc out of a job. The only formidable 1n- habitant of this regenerated jungle IS man with hammer and saw ana a mouthful of nails, and even he does not seem very dangerous. This mans du- ties are varied. The other day he sat astride a wooden framework of curious pattern, into which he drove ten-penny nails with vigorous blows.
 "This is the skeleton of an elephant he said in response to query from chance caller. This IS his pacKpohe that I'm sitting on.'
 The visitor looked up wonderingly at the razor-edged vertebrae on which the man balanced himself in evident dis comfort. Where is the rest of him was asked He isn't all backbone IS he?"
 "Oh, dear mo-" said the man. His skin is soaking in a vat in there Tn the next room, those pillars and posts ana crossbeams are the rest of his bones, and after while I'm going to complete his anatomy by winding the framework round with cord and padding it with tow, He'll be a remarkable fine specl- men when get his skin stretched lnto place. It is one of the best hides we ever handled, notwithstanding a mul- titude of mistakes in the dressing. We got 1t only few days ago. The olo fellow was show elephant. He died on the road down in Texas and the manager sent him up here to be stuTed. It is a pretty tough job too, The peo- ple who performed the autopsy were not at all competent to sit in the ca pacity of coroner on an elephant that IS destined to srine in museum, anu they bungled the carving fearfully.
 An elephant is not like cat. There are a dozen ways to skin puss, but only one to skin an elephant The process is simple as A B c if you only under stand it. That condition, however, IS necessary. A very few strokes do the
 
 business First, you cut him along the hack from the neck to the tail, then along the belly from the neck to the tail. and then sever the head from the body. After that all you have to do is to make an incision on the inside of each leg from the feet to the abdomen, and the skin just slips on the carcass like water on ducks back. But those Texas fellows made botch of it. They carved the cuticle of this elephant into souares and triangles and it took all my ingenuity to piece 1t together again.
 "He must have been pretty big" said the visitor, standing a little to one side and surveying the Improved skeietoh with critical eye.
 ''Well," said the man, facetlously, he had his growth. Of course, I don't claim that he was a match for that giant in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, Mass, nor even for some elephants in our own museum but that Is nothlong to his credit. The Cambridge chap is the largest in the country, and just because this fellow did not come up to the champion Ill bulk and stature Is no sign his life was a failure And he was fully matured in point of price, too. I shall charge $9O0 just for mounting him, and by the time the owner gets him back home and set up in permanent showroom he will be worth s2,000 or $3 0oO.
 "Some dead elephants are worth more than live ones I guess it is that way with all animals, even to men. Take that group of Rocky Mountain goats, for instance" The man dismounted from his anatomical platform and led the way to the opposite side of the room where several dusty animals were pos ing for each other in graceful and be- coming attitudes. "Alive, those goats were not worth s5 a head" he contin- ued "but the piece as it stands now would easily bring $500. Group work always comes high. It is much more difficult than individual mounting. l have had men employed here who could achieve excellent results so long as they confined their endeavoss to single pieces but if I let them try their hand at a collection they were sure to spoil the whole effect. They seemed totally un- able to grasp the possibilities of any picture suggested to them.
 "It takes a real artist to arrange a number of stuffed animals in such re- 1ation to each other that the scene will convey meaning to the observer I can count on the fingers of my two hands the number of set pieces in the country that have life in them and are really ar +iatic. The best of these is family of oranp- outangs in a Washington muse nm. That is masterpiece of the tax idermist's art and is worth $3,O00 at the very lowest calculation. Another ex- cellent achievement in this line is a oro,,p of orang- outangs located in New York. Of course, these things are not ir the market, but if financial difficult +ies should necesstate putting them up For sale the New York specimen would be cheap, at S2,ooO
 "Any taxidermist that is really com netent doesn't have to spend much time Tn r,lowing his own horn, because the +rade will be out looking for him in- stead of his having to drum up the trade So far as quantity is concerned America beats the world in taxidermic work. When it comes to quality we fall bv the wayside, according to number of foreign critics, but with the excep- tion of A few specimens in Continental museums. they have no grounds or which to base their claims of super iority. For one thing, the general r1n of european taXidernlJ- is different
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