FUR OF HARES AND RABBITS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 588, 25 July 1873, Page 3

FUR OF HARES AND RABBITS.

At a recent sitting of the Special Commission appointed by the House of Commons to inquire into the working of the Game Laws, Mr. Samuel Peck, of the firm of Leeding, Son, and Co., in his evidence, de posed that his firm was engaged in preparing the fur of hares and rabbits for use k by the hatters. Ho exhibited to the Committee hare ami rabbit skins in various stages of preparation. First they took out the long hair; then they dressed the fur ; thirdly, they removed it from the skin ; and lastly, the sums went to make size or weak glue. The furs were mostly used up in England ; but his firm had a considerable export trade to Hamburg, Italy, and various Continental ports. Os tend rabbit skins were but little used, being inferior in quality. The silvergreys were more expensive, and went to another market. From their hooks and other sources, lie had ascertained that about two million hare skins were annually used up in this country, about one million tame rabbit skins, and about seventeen million wild rabbit skins. A good many skins came from Scotland, and a few from Ireland. The trade was chiefly carried on in London, hut was pursued in some half-dozen other places. Ten mil iou skins were exported, in addition to the twenty million used in Great Britain, or thirty million in all. Prices had risen to 3s. per dozen for hare and rabbit skins mixed. The skin of the tame rabbit was worth more than that of the wild, on account of its larger size. Shins of silvergrey rabbits were mostly exported, and were worth about Is. each. Eighty furcuttiug machines were at work in London and the provinces, each cutting up about four hundred and twenty dozen skins per week, making nearly twenty million and a quarter per year. Each machine employed twenty-five workpeople on the premises, or about two thousand altogether, earning in wages about 1,120/. per week, or about CO,GO,'/, per annum. Each machine required about cue hundred people out of doors collecting, sorting, and drying, about four months iu the year. During the other eight months they became costermongers, Ac. He could not say' liow many people were employed in turning the fur into hats. The total value of the thirty mi.lion skins Would he about 5--0,000/., while lie estimated the value cf the flesh at somewhere about 1,725,000/.