provement is, to tear up the fibre with a
little instrument I have invented, or rather adapted (see Fig. 35),
which is simply a "hog scraper," ground up sharp all round, and then
filed up into short rounded teeth where shown; this will be found of
incalculable service in tearing off the hard upper skin or dried flesh
and blood, which locks up as it were the true skin, and which must be
got at before the pelt will become at all flexible.

Fig. 35--Scraper with which to dress skins.

Often a thorough wetting of the skin will considerably facilitate this
operation. Constant scraping and hard hand-rubbing, similar to a
washerwoman's "rubbing" of clothes, is necessary. In the cases of some
skins which are obstinate, thick, or have been simply sun-dried, as
are many tigers' and leopards' skins sent from India, it will be found
necessary to fix them over a sloping board or on the edge of a table,
and to use a spokeshave, or currier's thinning knife, to thin them
down--perhaps an eighth of an inch all over--then tear the fibre up
with the scraper, grease them with lard, to which has been added
essence of musk, and punch them for several hours or several days with
a "dolly" in a tub half full of bran or hard-wood sawdust; finally
covering them with plaster of Paris, or powdered whiting, to absorb
the grease; scraping off the old plaster or whiting, and adding fresh
from time to time, until the skin is freed of fat and perfectly
pliant. [Footnote: Professional workmen often knead the lard into
skins by the medium of their feet and hands--not too clean an
operation!]

To afterwards clean the fur, dress it down with a "scratch-card" (to
be procured of any ironmonger)--steel wire woven on cloth in such a
manner that short ends protrude like a wire brush.

Very fat skins, such as dogs' skins, may, if perfectly fresh, be
nailed out and gone over with a saturated solution of borax, or a
solution of one part borax to one-eighth part saltpetre, and left to
dry in the shade for three months, after which they may be scraped,
and their natural fat will, after all superfluity has been removed
with plaster, etc, be found to have sufficiently imbued the under or
proper skin to render the final greasing unnecessary.

The two foregoing processes seem to have been modified with some
success by Mr. R. Backhouse, of Stockton-on-Tees, whose process is
spoken of in the Field of June 3rd, 1882, as follows:

"The skin, which should be removed fr