Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/257

Charles Dickens] sincere concern, commiseration for the childless rich man, and also with the thrill, half of curiosity, half of painless jealousy, with which one regards the familiar and beloved handwriting, when addressed, however formally, to another. He returned the letter to Mr. Gould, with a simple expression of thanks, and sat silent. No one noticed him. Every one had forgotten the dismal occurrence about somebody whom nobody knew, down in some place that did not belong to anybody. He had time to think unquestioned.

"I wonder she has not written to me. The accident occurred four days ago," he thought. "I suppose she has too much to do for them all. God bless her, she will be their best comfort."

Though unversed in the minor arts and smaller tactics of society, Walter was not so dull or awkward as to be ignorant of the skill and kindness with which Lady Caroline had acted on his behalf. When the ladies were to leave the room, as she passed him, their eyes met, and each looked at the other steadily. In her glance there was undisguised interest, in his—gratitude.

was a time when I was ignorant enough to wonder why a ragged little urchin with the London cry of "Any rabbit skins to-day, marm?" distressed himself to shout so often at my area steps. I then thought that he was a seller, not a buyer, and it had perplexed me to discover what use persons in private life could possibly find for the article he seemed to be offering for sale, a string of which he wore suspended about his youthful neck. That was crass ignorance, but now that I know better, ever so much better, I go about doubting whether one man in fifty thousand of all those I see about the world could give anything but the vaguest answer to the question, What's done with the rabbit's skin? Shall this state of ignorance continue? These disclosures are the answer to it.

The elementary fact is, of course, this. All hare skins and rabbit skins disappear. They are bought at our doors, taken away and never sold again. Nobody ever bought fur warranted as real coney, or met with rabbit's fur as such, in any other shape; and the only avowed form of hare skin is that sold by chemists as a "Hare-skin Chest Protector." I solved the mystery by getting an introduction to a wholesale skinner upon the south side of the Thames.

"Yes, sir, we perform the skinning part of the business," said he, as he led me through a dry and rather spacious warehouse, on one side of which, stowed away in racks, stood some hundreds of brown-paper bags, like so many half peck loaves.

"Contain rabbit wool, those, sir; ready for the market. Worth at the present moment six shillings per pound. That is, the best sort. During the summer months the wild rabbit is let alone, and at that season his coat is like the tame rabbit's, coarse and thin, what, indeed, we of the trade calls 'stagey.' About November my gentleman puts off his summer dress and goes into a new and beautiful warm suit. Then it is that collectors go round, both in town and country, buying up the skins. Now, sir, you would say a skin is a skin, we say it is a 'whole,' or a 'half,' or a 'quarter,' or a 'rack,' or a 'sucker.' Suckers are skins of infant rabbits, and of little value. Eight racks are equal to one whole. The relative value of the others is told in their names. Wholes are worth from three shillings to three and sixpence a dozen. At a rough guess more than two thousand dozen of coney skins are cut in London in one day. There are country towns such as High Wycombe in Bucks, where the business is also followed. The wool is chiefly used in the manufacture of felt hats. Cloth also has been made from it, When the cutting used to be done by hand it was a very slow process, but it is now done by machinery. A good workman by hand labour would get through sixty or seventy skins in a day. A machine can be made to cut one hundred and twenty skins in an hour. We can't find skins enough to keep it always going. The average day's work of a machine is seventy dozen. Before the skin is fit for cutting it has to be prepared by the puller; but if you will follow me you may see the process."

A long broad flight of stairs conducted us to a workshop from whence there came wafted on a strong animal effluvium, the refrain of "Champagne Charley." The strain, but not the stink, died away as we entered. Sitting upon low benches were ranged seventy or eighty women, young, middle aged, and old, busily pulling. They were all in rags; but I learned that ragged gown and torn boots was the regular working costume, and that most of them had other and better clothing stowed away in a room hard by. The stamp of very low life was on the features of many, more especially among the elder ladies. While passing along their ranks, once or twice there was a confusion of smells, including something unmistakably suggestive of Old Tom. My conductor accounted for this presently, by informing me that, as it was only Tuesday, a good many of the hands had hardly got into working fettle yet, after keeping the feast of Saint Monday, whose shrines are the bars of public-houses. The air was bad enough if there had been no smell in it, for dust and fine particles of hair were floating all around and settling quietly upon the heads and shoulders of the labourers.

I directed my attention to a woman who had just received a bundle of work. She took up a skin turned inside out, as it had been torn from the back of the rabbit. With a sharp knife, such as may be found upon any