Appendix V 



The Romance of Fur 



LONDON THE MARKET OF THE WORLD 



A VISIT TO THE WAREHOUSES 

 (From The Times, London, March 19, 1914) 



LONDON is the chief fur market of the world, and the spring sales, 

 the most important of the year, are now going on. They will 

 continue daily for a fortnight yet at the public auction-room in 

 College Hill, and in the course of the three weeks, it is probable that 

 some 10,000,000 or 12,000,000 skins will be disposed of. 



Yesterday, there were sold in the morning, 183,754 skunk skins; 

 in the afternoon, 136,623 American opossum and 80,242 raccoons, as 

 well as 3,602 civet cats. To-day, will be offered 430,401 skunks, and to- 

 morrow 2,500,000 muskrats of various classes. In all there will be sold 

 over 4,500,000 muskrat skins; and it is no wonder that the once 

 familiar musk-rat "houses," which used to dot every lake and pond all 

 over Canada and the United States, looking like great mole-hills stick- 

 ing up among the rushes, are growing scarce. 



VARIETIES OF SKINS 



Muskrat, skunk, raccoon, American opossum, and the various 

 foxes: these are the furs which are most in demand at the moment. 

 -Sable, seal, mink, chinchilla, otter, beaver, and other skins are, of course, 

 always valuable;but, for the moment, they are "out of fashion," and the 

 chief interest at these sales centres in the half-dozen creatures mentioned. 

 The stock is unusually large; not so much because the supply has been 

 exceptional, but because Germany has taken less than its usual share. 

 None the less, prices are good — better, perhaps, than was expected — 

 and the bidding in the sales-room goes on briskly from 10 o'clock in the 

 morning until a late luncheon time, and again in the later hours of the 

 afternoon. Besides the furs already mentioned, an extraordinary 

 variety of items makes the sale catalogue a fascinating document. 

 Among the lots sold this week there figured 208 grizzly bears, 141 black 

 bears, eight brown bears, 16 polar or "white", 411 lynxes, 14 leopards, 

 and 41 wolverenes. Among those still to come are 70 tigers, 1,100 

 leopards, 3,000 lynxes, 30 musk-ox, 18,000 wild cats, 658 emus, 181,943 



