78 • NETHER LOCHABER. 



except a small virle of brass at the point, and a thin edging of the 

 same metal round the orifice, on which is inscribed the date 

 "1747," and the initials " D. M. C." There is no reason, we 

 suppose, to doubt the genuineness of the article, though we hardly- 

 expected to find human skin — if it be human skin — of such thick- 

 ' ness. It maj', however, be partly the result of the tanning pro- 

 cess which it probably underwent, and of time. In connection 

 with this strange relic of a past age may be stated the extraordinary 

 fact — incredible, indeed, if it were not thoroughly authenticated — 

 that during the horrors of the French Eevolution there was a 

 tannery of human skins for many months in operation at Meudon. 

 The raw material, so to speak, of this strange manufacture, was the 

 skins of the scores and hundreds that were daily guillotined. It 

 is asserted that " it made excellent wash-leather." Montgaillard, 

 a prominent character of the period, who had the curiosity to visit 

 the works, and saw the tanning process in full operation, makes 

 the following curious observation : — "The skin of the men 

 was superior in toughness and quality to shamoy ; that of the 

 women good for almost nothing, so soft in texture, and easily torn, 

 like rotten linen ! " "We have had some rebellious revolutions, 

 civil wars, and all the rest of it in Great Britain and Ireland, with 

 their attendant iniquities, bad enough in all conscience, but the 

 Erench may fairly boast of having beat us ; a tannery of human 

 skins is a venture and enterprise that no one has been pushing and 

 patriotic enough yet to undertake amongst us, even when axe and 

 gallows wrought their hardest in days happily long since passed 

 away. 



