THBROMANCEOFFUR 157 



wallaby, 40,000 wolves, and 8,592 kangaroo. It is a list to make the 

 Roman Emperors envious. And so it runs day after day; 3,000 bears, 

 we find in another column, 180,000 ermine, 5,600 Russian sable, 120,000 

 mink, 60 sea otter, 5,000 monkey, 1,000 grebe and 35,000 house cat I 

 Again, we have 4,675 house cats, unkindly sandwiched in among bad- 

 gers and marmots, leopards and Japanese foxes, and other agitating 

 things. It may not be inherently any more sad to kill 39,675 house cats 

 than an equal number of wallabies or foxes. But it comes nearer home 

 to us, and the thought of it awakens personal griefs for pussies which 

 have unaccountably "got lost." 



IN THE AUCTION ROOM 



In the sales-room itself one does not see any of these skins, but only 

 a hundred or so gentlemen sitting on the curved tiers of seats which 

 face the rostrum, each gentleman with a catalogue on the desk before 

 him and keenly interested in the bidding. If you listen to the scraps 

 of conversation you will hear all manner of tongues; fox buyers from 

 perhaps a dozen countries are here, and especially from Germany, 

 France, and the United States. The bidding is very quick, the skins 

 being put up in lots which may vary from a single silver fox or half a 

 dozen sables to 400 or 500 skunks or 4,000 muskrats. The bids for 

 these staple furs are commonly in shillings, and the values range very 

 widely for the same kind of skin. A silver fox may fetch, as it has 

 fetched, £440, and it may not be worth £50. Skunk vary from a shil- 

 ling or two to 28s., muskrat from pence to half-a-ciown, and house 

 cats fetch about the same. House cats are not valued oi graded as they 

 are not on the show benches. They are not sold as long-haired or short- 

 haired. Nor is any account taken of their qualities as cats, or their 

 dispositions, which are immaterial by the time they reach the sale-room. 

 They are simply "white" or "black" or— most unkind of all— "mottled." 



BUSINESS AND SPORT 



To see the skins themselves one must go to the warehouse of one 

 of the great firms in whose names the sales are held, which are all grouped 

 round the neighbourhood of the College of Heralds, in College Hill, 

 Garlick Hill, or Queen Street. The interior of one of these warehouses 

 is an extraordinary sight; a huge building, five storeys, perhaps, in 

 height, and with each of the vast floois packed from floor to ceiling with 

 skins. In one such building there are, literally, several millions. Science 

 has now fairly succeeded in deodorizing the individual skin, even of our 

 mephitic acquaintance the skunk. But in the aggregate — millions of 



