'Jack in the Atolls. 
7 l 
in the far north-west. Until of late years 
only the fins and tails were cut off, dried on 
strings, and sold by the natives to either 
resident traders or wandering trading vessels. 
By these latter they are taken to Sydney, and 
there sold to Chinese merchants, who in their 
turn ship them home to China. But nowadays 
not only are the fins and tails dried by the 
natives in increasing quantities, but the whole 
skin is stripped off, pegged out like a bullock’s 
hide, and sold to the white men. But the 
skins do not go to China. They are sold 
to German trading vessels, and no one even 
to this day knoweth for what purpose they 
are used; some new process of tanning the 
intractable cuticle of Jack Shark has been dis¬ 
covered in Germany, it is said. No one knows 
more than this ; probably the only man who 
does know is that modern Lokman the Wise, 
the Emperor William : may he tell us dull Eng¬ 
lish people all about it some day when he, in his 
Improvement-of-the-Universe Scheme, writes us 
something on the subject of cross-breeding in 
sharks, whereby a toothless and amiable variety 
may replace the present breed, which have no 
manners to speak of and are always hungry. 
