The Fur Animals of Louisiana 13 



Abroad, furs had been the prized possession of royalty, 

 Kings and Emperors gave furs as gifts. They even were 

 used as forfeits in the exchange of royal prisoners taken in 

 war. In the ancient days furs competed with gems and 

 jewelry as articles of adornment for the rich and the fash- 

 ionable. So great was the demand and so circumscribed 

 the source of supply, it is small wonder that their use was 

 restricted to the nobility and to the rich. 



With the discovery of America came the discovery of 

 this wonderful reservoir of fur animals and a seemingly 

 unlimited supply of fur. Trappers and traders flocked to 

 the New World, all animated by the same ambition — to 

 make a fortune in furs — and few failed. 



Since the earliest time, the fluctuations of the fur mar- 

 ket have been as many and varied as the animals that 

 supplied the commodity. Hundreds of years ago, it was 

 the greatest speculative game in the world, and today, when 

 the raw fur market is at its highest pitch, the traditional 

 Black Friday of Wall Street is quiet and docile beside it. 



No other natural resource of the American continent 

 has been as productive over so long a period as a source 

 of wealth as has the fur of the animals native to our land 

 and — stranger still — the industry is not in danger of ex- 

 tinction in the very face of the fact that hundreds of mil- 

 lions of fur animals have been taken in traps and their 

 covering converted into suitable garments for lovely 

 woman. 



Trade monopolies seem to have been invented with the 

 genesis of the fur business and, today, as in distant 1670 

 when the Hudson's Bay Company was founded to monop- 

 olize the fur industry of North America, many modern 

 business organizations endeavor to exercise the same kind 

 of big business control over the pelt of the lowly fur animal. 

 In view of what has already been set down, we have it 

 demonstrated that the feminine yearning for furs is a 

 natural one — a throwback to the days of prehistoric woman. 

 Eve's daughters today wear furs to enhance apparel, 

 emphasize natural style and charm, or to satisfy that in- 

 herited desire for a touch of barbaric splendor that has. 

 come down from the Stone Age. 



