March 8, 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
303 
TEAK-Ol'F PAPER SOAP—TO OUTWIT THE SOAP 
BORROWER. 
The chronic borrower will be found among 
campers and travelers as in every other walk of 
life. Some are said to borrow umbrellas and 
never return them. Some “borrow” your cigars 
regularly, but did you ever see them back? Some 
would borrow your purse if they could, with 
like result. Some consider friendship only for 
what they can get out of “the other fellow.” 
A witty Paris cynic once sarcastically defined 
friendship as “a vessel that takes every oppor¬ 
tunity of sailing into your port—i. e., porte- 
monnaie” (purse). He was about correct. But 
what has all this to do with the outdoor life? 
Well, a Seine—and over-sane—sporting tourist 
was oft annoyed by soap borrowers. Nobody 
seemed to think of carrying soap along except 
him, and almost the first day out he would 
lose his assortment by borrowers. The excuses 
were: “Slipped out of hand into deep 
water and was lost,” or “Forgotten at inn or 
lodge,” or “Left unobserved at bottom of basin,” 
etc. Disgusted, our friend hit upon a form 
of impregnated soap paper. That was some 
score years ago. He patented it, and lost money 
on it. To-day anybody is free to take advan¬ 
tage of his invention and make the soap paper. 
With a dozen meter-square sheets of soap paper 
with him on a shooting trip, he could defy the 
combined efforts of all his soapless confreres to 
deprive him of his stock by cutting or tearing 
off a piece of the paper about the size of a play¬ 
ing card. This was ample for a face and hand 
wash. The paper lathers freely, and spedily dis¬ 
appears amid the foam into a small pellet-like 
wad—the remnant of the tissue paper sheeting 
which held the impregnated soap. 
A queer soap of Paris is human-fat toilet 
soap, recommended by medicos as a superior 
emollient. It is a dingy grayish-white, quite 
pure, retails at the high price of 5 francs ($1) 
per small cake, and the fat is obtained from the 
derelict cadavers of the dissection hospitals. 
Still, the “trying-out” of this human fat by 
violent ebullition completely sterilizes it. Medi¬ 
cal students have sometimes given festive ban¬ 
quets at which the sole illumination was that ob¬ 
tained from scores of candles made exclusively 
of dissection-hospital human fat. The candle¬ 
sticks on the tables were grinning human skttlls, 
poised face upward, with the U-shaped candle 
protruding through the eye-holes, so as to flaunt- 
ingly illustrate the adage of “burning the candle 
at both ends.” Possibly this bizarre death-candle 
was the origin of the expression. But those 
students made merry. 
FISH-ROE BREAD (SCANDINAVIA; ALSO BLACK SEA 
region). 
This is a well-known product among the 
fisher folk of Scandinavian countries. In many 
northern parts, grains or cereals are scarcer 
than fish roe, so the latter is boiled in whole 
roes, reducing the size considerably, then steeped 
in beeswax for a thin coating. This preserves 
the flavor and the moisture, and it can be kept 
for months. It is exported limitedly to 
Manhattan, and is wholly edible after months 
of storage, and retails at the stiff price—as a 
luxury here—of fifty cents per pound. In the 
countries of origin, among the nigh moneyless 
coast-faring population, the price would be about 
one-half cent a pound. As found in commerce 
in the Hudson city, the fish-roe bread, with its 
adherent thin beeswax covering, looks like so 
many degenerating half-squashed bananas. It is 
a nutritious, satisfying, filling bread, and the 
would-be purchaser can get it of Norwegian or 
Swedish importers and retailers in Manhattan. 
The Black Sea fisher folk have a similar fish- 
roe bread, but make of it a double use. They 
also salt it and smoke it, when it forms the real 
original Turkish delicacy known as caviar. I do 
not mean the Russian semi-tainted greenish-black 
mass known to the Tolstoi-landers as ikra (roe). 
These people do not use the word caviar, except 
in French or Teutonic conversation. But this 
Black Sea product preserves the natural pinkish- 
reddish color of the fish roe, and is—knife-cut 
in thin slices and eaten between slices of fresh 
bread and butter—a caviar delicacy worth know¬ 
ing. The Russian substitute product is quite 
high-priced—some $4 per pound—yet the far 
superior original Turkish caviar can be obtained 
any time among the Arabic-speaking citizens of 
our greater American cities for fifty cents per 
pound. 
The Japanese also send to Manhattan, in 
pound cans, a labeled fish-bread. It tastes like 
a well-boiled cod steak, without a particle of 
salt flavoring. The writer is familiar with it 
through a sojourn many years ago in the land 
of the inland sea. 
A singular Japanese travel biscuit or cracker 
is the almost snow-white sliced codfish wafer. 
It is thin as a visiting card, of not very pro¬ 
nounced fishy taste, and does not contain a 
particle of salt or other flavoring. The Japs 
prefer to add their own salt at table. The rea¬ 
son for this is that it prevents semi-putrid fish 
being dried and palmed off on them, as the taste 
would be immediately apparent in unsalted stock, 
whereas salting covereth a multitude of defects, 
as witness our own salted codfish packages with 
their oft found odor of putrefaction. 
[to be concluded.] 
Valuable Furs of Maine. 
A Maine fur buyer on a sixteen days’ trip, 
says the Lewiston Journal, through the Range- 
ley region this season bought $3,000 worth of 
furs. On a second trip he secured $2,000 worth 
more. For fisher alone he has paid $1,200 this 
season, paying for two skins alone $ 5 o each. 
At the present time fisher is the most valu¬ 
able of Maine furs with the exception of silver 
gray or black fox. Otter is a close second in 
value. Two trappers who have been in the 
Cupsuptic Pond region, about twelve miles 
above the lake of that name, recently brought 
out sev'enteen fisher, twenty-one sable, thirty- 
five ermine and a little other fur. 
TASAJO, 
Unsalted, Sun-dried Strip Beef. 
FISH ROE BREAD. 
MAIZE BREAD (TORTILLAt. 
