41 



THE FURRIERS. 



At the present time the dividing lines between the dif- 

 ferent branches of the industry are not drawn as closely as 

 in the early days. Even the Hudson's Bay Company has 

 stores for the sale of manufactured furs, and some of the 

 large manufacturers have their own trading posts and 

 supply stations in the remote regions and are Skin Dealers 

 as well as Furriers. 



Fifty years ago, the business of selling manufactured 

 furs in America was entirely in the hands of the fur 

 manufacturers themselves, and the wholesale and retail 

 hatters most of whom had a good general knowledge of fur 

 values and qualities. 



About 1870, some of the New York manufacturers, in 

 an effort to increase the outlet for their products, induced 

 some of the wholesale dry-goods houses and larger 

 department stores to engage in the business of selling 

 furs; and ever since that time there has been a steady 

 rush of people, in all lines of business, to get a share of 

 a trade which they evidently believed still yielded to 

 those engaged in it as large a percentage of profit, as 

 was secured by the Traders who two centuries ago swapped 

 beads and jack knives for skins with the unsophisticated 

 savages. 



Many to their sorrow soon discovered that if honestly con- 

 ducted the fur business, like any other commercial pur- 

 suit, pays the dealer only a fair margin ; and that success 

 there as elsewhere depends upon a thorough knowledge 

 of the business. Where one has dropped out however 

 a poorer and wiser man, two have always been waiting 

 for a chance to risk the money gained in pursuits with 

 the possibilities of which they were familiar, in an uncer- 

 tain experiment along lines of endeavor of the inner 

 workings of which they knew little or nothing. The 

 natural result is that where two generations ago there 

 were a dozen responsible Fur JNIerchants, there are today 

 thousands of dealers handling furs Avith varying 

 degrees of success ; and there has been a corresponding 

 increase in the number of so-called fur "factories." 



