OLD FRIENDS TRANSFORMED.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1081, 21 March 1911, Page 9

OLD FRIENDS TRANSFORMED.

An Australian is inclined to wonder how on earth it is that even the schoolmistresses and shopgirls he passes in .tho London streets manage so often to keep their ears warm with the collar of a rich black or grey sealskin jacket, says'an English writer, lie would wonder a littlo less if ho knew 1 where the sealskin came from. There is marty a sealskin jacket in the .crowd which ' passes him which, if ho. only. knew, its history, he "wo'uldseize and wring by the arm -as an oljlacquaintance. . The chanccs aro that heha9 met some'of the seals before, dangling along head downwards, trailing their long ears in the dust and the ruts behind tho axle of a rabbiter's cart on the road to Blayney.- W'hen the man from back of -crimes Home to the. .Cpronajtion.. 'this' year and takes back to one of'.the ladies-.of- his family a brand new English ssalskin, he had better study tho ■ vocabulary of. tho fur trade before lie buys it; otherwise tho chances are ho

might just as well have stayed at home and shot, that seal in p. hack paddock. Some amongst tho London furriers, and drapers have been noxious of late to havo rabbit skins named and labelled justrabbit—or rather "coney," which is the tride name, for rabbit. What is called seal coney is just rabbit sheared and dyed seal colour, and the desire of the reformers—as oie of them wrote the other day to . the papers—is "to amend'the permissible descriptions so as to make :it perfectly, clear that, say, a lady's coat called seal coney is not a seal ooat but a coney-.coat dyed seal colour." -The reformers managed to dig the fur trado into having-a conference on the subject, from which the press was excluded ill spite of the reformers' protests; and all that tho conference achieved was to draw up the. following . list of "permissible descriptions"—which the reformers have- nowdisclosed. ■ The trade still allows "rabbitdyed" to -be described as "sable coney." "Seal coney, or musquash coney" is rabbit sheared and dyed., "Mock ermine" is white rabbit. "Chinchilla coney" is white rabbit dyed. "Beaver opossum" is opossum sheared and dyed; "skunk wallaby," wallaby sheared and dyed. Ivids Can be called "Caracul kid." No one would buy the common or backyard goat, so they have to elevate him "to "bear goat." There are a number of others on the list, including tho "fox hare" and "sable hare." The sheepdog and tho household cat are not there, or they would appear as the "wolf-kelpio" and the "tiger-feline."