cutter's counter, she briskly whipped off the
feet (which are always left attached to the skin);
slit the little arm-holes; then ran the blade up
the neck and head. The skin now showed a
tolerably even surface. After thus operating
upon a large portion of the bundle, she caught
up a piece of whiting, and where there were any
signs of fat upon the flesh side of the skin
rubbed it over therewith. Sometimes her work
was hard and ridgy, from not having been
properly stretched out while drying. In that case
a pan of water and a hare's foot took the place
of the whiting. She next picked up a skin,
laid it upon her knee, slipping a string loop
over it, and under her foot as a shoemaker does
his stirrup, and after protecting her thumb with
a stout leathern stall, took her knife once more
in hand and began pulling. The tail end of the
skin was turned from her, that she might work
against the grain. Now and then some tuft or
knot in the wool brought into play the card, a
kind of curry-comb. Its back and handle are
of wood, and for its teeth it has close rows of
pin-wire. At every pull of the knife, out came
a bunch of grey hairs, till presently a most
beautiful under clothing of delicate wool, darker
than the surface hair, was disclosed. The
pullings are allowed to fall upon the floor, and at
the end of the task carefully gathered up and
stored away. They will make stuffing for cheap
beds. Cheap lodginghouse-keepers, too,
remarked my guide, very often impose a rabbit
for a goose-down bed upon their customers.
"The price of down just now is bad. Not worth
more than threepence per pound. That's
because feathers are cheap. Some time back it
brought sixpence."

"What becomes of your waste?" I asked.

"Waste, sir! No waste here. All our
trimmings and stuff, being of a very heating
nature, makes an excellent manure for some
things, hops for instance, and finds a ready
market. The pullers all work piece work, and
if they stick to 'collar' can earn ten or twelve
shillings a week, but a great many of them, as I
told you just now, will keep Saint Monday, and
some do not come to shop before Wednesday.
Pretty creatures among them I can tell you.
They take their dinner and tea upon the
premises, the employer finding firing accommodation.
They come at nine in the morning, and
quit at eight in the evening. Formerly much of
this work was given out, but it is more to the
interest of the employer to have everything
done upon his own premises."

I was now taken into the machinery
department. A shop eighty or ninety feet long
and some five-and-twenty wide opened before
me. On one side and near the roof ran a shaft
and drum, whence leather bands were made to
connect themselves with a series of six
machines ranged down the middle of the floor.
They were not very complex of structure. The
drum-band moved a wheel which moved
another wheel, which moved a cylinder about a
foot and a half long and six inches in diameter.
Upon this cylinder were arranged diagonally
five knives, which in their revolution came into
the most delicate articulation with a perfectly
straight-set bed knife. Two fluted rollers in
front were used as a means of feeding the
knives. The nose end of a skin was introduced
between these rollers. Away it glided, and lo,
in a second or two the fleece or lock of wool
began to descend into a tin receiver. The skin
proper, or pelt, fell upon the floor cut up fine as
hay. The fleece was now turned over in a sheet of
brown paper, and laid upon a kind of counter.
Having had certain portions removed by a
picker, it passed into the hands of a young
woman, called a locker, who sorted out other
parts; for be it known a rabbit's, unlike a
gentleman's coat, is not expected to be of the
same quality all over. The pate, cheek, and
sides had been put apart, and the most valuable
portion of the lock, the back, remained. This
was dexterously made into a flattish kind of
ball, and with the grain still unbroken placed
carefully into a brown paper bag, ready for
sale. While the backs were worth six shillings
a pound, the sides were valued by the pound
at four shillings, and the pate and cheek at not
more than two and sixpence.

I observed that a number of the skins
being cut, were of a very deep orange cast, and
asked the reason. "After the skins have left
the pulling-room," said my informant, "they
are taken into a shed, and the wool is damped
with a preparation of aquafortis, mercury, and
other chemicals. They are then carried into
a heated apartment where they dry, and in so
doing, turn to the colour you see; that is, they
are what we call 'carroted.' We mostly give it
them in a milder form, and then they don't
change colour."

"And why are they carroted?"

"That is to make the wool easier to work,
when in the hands of the hat maker."

Each machine then requires four attendants,
a feeder, a picker, a locker, and a clipper. The
picker is always a girl of fourteen or fifteen.
The other three are young women. The clipper's
duty is, with a pair of shears, to snip off
the wool from any fragments of skin that cannot
be passed through the machine, or that fall
off while the skins are being cut. Feeders and
lockers alike are paid twelve shillings a week,
clippers nine, and pickers six shillings. All
employed in this shop were of a superior cast
to the pullers, evidently a remove or two above
them, and were dressed in neat cotton gowns
and coarse linen aprons. There was a man
to superintend the whole of the machinery,
see to the grinding of the knives, and so forth.
Every night the wool cut during the day is
carefully weighed and compared with the
number of skins given out, and a pretty just
estimate formed of the amount of care and
honesty exercised in this department. The
instrument by which the work is performed is
known as the American machine, and was
introduced into England about five-and-thirty
years ago. Before that, for some fifteen years,
the chopping machine was in use. It was a
vast improvement upon hand labour, but slow
in comparison to the machine which takes its