DYEING AND DRESSING OF FURS 85 



To come back to dyeing — Indians used water made from ashes 

 for cleansing furs and the brains of the buffalo to grain the pelts. 



In London, before the War, were 14 great houses exclusively 

 devoted to dyeing, where men grew up from apprentices to experts 

 and were regarded as a sort of secret order of their own. The 

 same was true of at least two centres in Germany ; but as the War 

 stopped the supply of raw material, both the dye secrets and many 

 of the dye operatives came to America, where fur dye works have 

 swollen to such enormous proportions that any figures given to-day 

 would be wrong to-morrow. 



The real secret of the success in seal dyeing will never be given 

 to the world. It is held by only two firms, the London firm, who 

 have made the success of seal dyeing for 150 years — ever since 

 Cook's returned voyageurs round the globe brought back seals and 

 sea otters to the fur market — and two members of that firm, 

 who came to St. Louis with the process, when the American Govern- 

 ment began selling the U. S. seals at St. Louis fur auctions. It 

 is over the use of this secret London process that the lawsuit is 

 now in the U. S. Courts ; and it would be superfluous to register 

 any opinion on that lawsuit till the Supreme Court gives its de- 

 cision. Certainly, American fur traders are not going to ship 

 American Government owned furs to Europe to be dressed and 

 then pay for their reshipment back to the United States in dressed 

 and manufactured form. Canada has always felt aggrieved over 

 the award on pelagic sealing; but while lovers of wild life may not 

 approve of the legality of the decision, if pelagic sealing had not 

 been stopped, seal life would have been exterminated as sea otter 

 life has almost been. Pelagic sealing was a cruelty unspeakable; 

 for when heavy fogs lay over the Seal Islands, poachers of every 

 nationality — Japanese, American, Canadian, South American — 

 scooted in and massacred seals on the Islands, killing old and young, 

 mothers and pups and unborn pups. Slaying was done so hurriedly 

 and cruelly, that many seals were not dead when they were flayed ; 

 and the only way to stop the poaching was to stop pelagic sealing. 



