423 

 THE TRADE IN SKINS AND FURS * 



BY EDWARD B. ROBERTS. 



Furs have for many years formed a leading branch of commerce in 

 this country, England being possessed of so vast a territory in its Cana- 

 dian, Hudson's Bay, and British Columbia colonies, and of Islands on 

 the north-west coast of America, has long been the country to which 

 exports have tended, as preliminary to their distribution to the various 

 parts of the world in which furs are in request as articles of warm 

 clothing, of official costume, or for ornamental attire. 



The greater portion are annually imported by the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, and become dispersed at their sales, which are held three 

 times in each year : the first in January, which comprises beaver and 

 musquash, from their Canadian, Labrador, and Hudson's Bay settlements. 



The second in March, of bears, foxes, otters, wolves, fisher, marten, 

 mink, and minor furs from the same districts ; the third in September, 

 the products of their trade from the north-west coast of America. An 

 immense number of kind of the same kind are also imported by the 

 American fur merchants, whose sales follow immediately upon those of 

 the Hudson's Bay Company. The principal skin imported from the 

 United States, both for number and value, is the raccoon, of which from 

 350,000 to 500,000 are annually received and again exported for use as 

 a lining to the shube, or long travelling coat, and other equipments of 

 northern countries. The most costly furs are not adequately prized in 

 England, the choicest are therefore exported, a large portion being 

 consigned to the merchants at the Leipsic Easter and autumn fairs, 

 from wdience they are transmitted to France, Russia, and China, where 

 the climate and fashion not only demand their use, but higher prices are 

 more readily obtained. 



The value of the several skins greatly fluctuates, according to the 

 caprices of fashion or the limited or abundant importations : the dif- 

 ferences of quality also occasion extreme ranges of value — that of the 

 raccoon, for instance, varying from 6d. for the most inferior, to 58s. for 

 the choicest — it is, therefore, difficult to determine the value ; but as the 

 price realised more than a century since may be interesting, it is attached 



In 1738, the average value of bear skins was 12s. 10jd. ; of beaver, 

 5s. 5|d. per lb. ; of fox skins, 10s. 2|d. each ; fisher skins, 8s. ; lynx, 

 15s. 2d. ; marten, 6s. 5|d. ; common otter, 7s. 7d. ; wolf, 9s. 10|d. ; 

 wolverine, 6s. lOd. The whole imports from the Hudson's Bay territories 

 then were 266 bear skins, 69,911 beaver, 234 fox, 51 fisher, 1,011 lynx, 

 15,196 marten, 355 otter, 454 wolf, and 853 wolverine. 



The French were the first fur-traders to America ; and subsequently 

 the Hudson's Bay Company, in the reign of Charles II., received a royal 



* Altered and Enlarged from the Jury Reports. 



