Too Many Horse Hides

1896

The hide of the horse has always been valuable for making ladies' fine shoes and thongs for belt-lacing. It is much finer than the hide of the beef, and when split makes a very fine and soft leather.

A few years ago the market could not get enough of them. That was in the days when a horse was a horse, and worth something, before the electric motor drove him from the street car service. As high as $5 was paid for a good hide, and it was a very poor one that would not bring $2.50. But as the horse got cheaper and the advocate of horseflesh as food was reinforced by the butcher who could palm it off for beef, things slowly began to change. Prices went down steadily, until now it takes a No. 1 hide to bring $1.50, while fair ones go for fifty cents and the poorer ones are thrown away.

The consumption of horseflesh in Europe, particularly in Paris, seems to have increased wonderfully, judging from the heavy importation of hides to this country, while in this country it is said there is not a large city where the horse is not slaughtered for the market and sold either openly or secretly. The meat-canning establishments are also credited with using a great many broken-down animals.

Thus, while the beef hide market has its fluctuations and days of glut and scarcity, the horse hide market is completely stagnated, and there does not seem to be any possible hope for a revival of it. — St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

Gas Masks Are Urged for Mail Train Men

1920

Skunk Pelts in Parcel Post Cause of Woeful Wail

LOCKHART, Texas, Feb. 26. — Bring out the gas masks, for they are sorely needed.

Mail clerks running on trains in the lower part of the State are said to have asked Superintendent Gaines of Ft. Worth to give them protection.

They declare they have been so badly "gassed" by the fumes of skunk hides that they are now incapacitated for further duties unless the proper protection is given them. They have suggested to the district superintendent that U. S. Army gas masks be secured for them to wear during the distribution of the mails.

Skunk hides, say the mail clerks, do not lose their flavor in packing for shipment. Hence, the closed mail cars, as they went their way to the markets of the North, fairly reek with the odor of polecats.

One of the clerks making this station declares the sickening odor of polecat hides, bunches of them, he had to handle on a recent trip, made him so weak that he was compelled to quit the run before he had half completed it.