Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 129, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1914 — THE INIQUITIES OF RABBITS [ARTICLE]

THE INIQUITIES OF RABBITS

Milady’s Rarest Furs Often Are Bunnys’ Coats in Disguise—Modern Furrier Very Clever.

Paris. —That the evils of the gentlefaced rabbit live after him has been revealed in a startling manner by the exhibition of “living skins” which has opened In connection with the agricultural exhibition here in Paris. Many of the false sables and imitation marten, to say nothing of the rarer furs that adorn milady, may be traced, It has been shown, to the Innocent rabbit By means of the clever and more or less secret processes of the modern furrier-alchemists, gold-bringing ermine and sable are produced from the skin of the domestic rodent, especially bred and dressed. An advertisement of one merchant has been displayed which frankly offers: “Six thousand eight hundred rabbits, dressed and glossed, close-shaved or natural, with dark or light background, finished sable, marten, light, dark or chestnut” An American furrier declares that most of the chinchilla seen on the streets was once the property- of the opossum and that the rare Iceland fox, when he appears over an opera cape, is very often parading in sheep’s clothing, the fur, In fact, of a common Tibetan sheep. But the finer, rarer skins, such as the royal ermine and the silver fox, can be traced to the rabbit. In a country like France, where the little rodent is a welcome guest at the table of the bourgeois, the rabbitwarren proves a profitable venture with a by-product that pays running expenses.