Cruel Catchers.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 26 June 1914, Page 8

Cruel Catchers.

"The Cruelties of Trapping" is a ten-page pamphlet, published by the American Humane Education Society, winch tells the cost of furs in torture and death. A.s an illustration of how the white ermine is caught, the following conversation between a fur dealer and a prospective buyer is interesting. ) "This stole of imperial ermine is worth £200," said the dealer. "Just consider how the animals comprised in it were caught. "In the first place they were caught in a winter of extreme cold, for it is only in such a winter that the weasel or ermine turns from tawny to snowy white. In normal winters the ermine turns only to a greenish white—like this £80 greenish-white stole here. "In the second place the ermines were caught young, for when fully developed their coats are coarse and stiff—as in this £50 stole —and to catch them young the tongue trap must be used. Any other trap would tear the delicate fur. "The tongue trap is a knife —an ordinary hunting-knife—smeared with grease, and the hunter lays in the snow. The little ermine sees the blade, which it mistakes for ice. Ice it loves #o lick, and it licks the knife-blade and is caught fast, its tongue in that zero weather frozen to the steel. "Yes, sir ; when you see a stole like this, don't begrudge a good price for it, for every ermine in it was tongued-trapped in sub-zero weather—mighty slow and painful hand process."

Bake rice and dates together in milk, and the children Won't object to rice pudding-.