The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 16, 1898, Page 17

aQ 0 ) . writes of the |ocal fradein [ M shrugged her shoulders with-a - little Mipet a lady- “Oh, students, medical students and, delicate, sensiti edding. hand—re in her dered if the belt man’s skin. A born to the wc 2 1 wondered if piece of skin from?” . mother herself 1 belt. And sald. “Not witko:t their noticing it,” T selt. I won- I don’t know, doctors, I suppose. Do shiver. je of a wo- ¥you know anybody you could get a “Ugh!” she said. “I haven’t looked at it for ever so long.” “Perhaps,” I said quickly, “youw'd rather not this morning.” nd in all b at hr in then I won his mother knew “Don’t you know any.medical stu- “Oh, yes,” she said, cheerfully, com- AL .s on and how she dents or youngz doctors?” \e Toutiot her ER{ver! (TARHLE TainaTE Nt how oneratheriex iy (IVhy, yes atis. isn't a bit awful. It's just the idea of go on through the “There you are, then!” said the Mald ‘it » she took a bundle—quite a large T rough the changing of Homor. “That's all you want. Tell ' \w "}qie oo the drawer and ame feelings them to look out for a good piece for |, 2 =2 ns. be the effect on don’t know much about it except 1ade of the dress suit e e e 5 And then I vou. There's lots of difference, but I that nable folk, well- backs are the biggest. Wait. Come up 000000000000 0000000000O000000000000 handed it to me. It was wrapped in pink tissue paper. “Open it,” she said. I unrolled it slowly. A broad piece of firm, tan-colored leather rolled stiffly on my lap. I did not touch it. I felt none of the horror I had expected to o : ¢ cel W looked at it, none of the o= ° FF C N HU H E feel when I looke; , none o : o TRAFFIC | MAN HID i T o it at first. When I did I marveled at r ) its: board-like stiffness, its thickness BY MEDICAL STUDENTS. Used on Belts and Purses by Fashionable and the unlikeness of it to anything suggesting human skin. And yet it was human skin. It had been cut away from a human body—a woman's body, like my own, like that of the little - Women. flower faced girl on the floor D) —who was going to have a belt ERSONS in this city are trafficking in the skins of human beings. and a purse and a dress suit case some information first reached The Call in the form made out of it some day. It had Alice Rix was detailed to investigate the found them all too true. Several reputa- f rt they play in the matter. 1g of all articles they make, the de- a rumor, and Mr evolting charges. ng upply The skins are cured from medical students, particularly those in atte at tain institutio city, and who, under have ¢ s to the County Hospital and Almshouse. They among the living for nens. 1t adapted for the purpc g purses, selected and so marked that they = handed over 1to various rtisans, who 0000000 OCO0COOO0Q00000000 and of placid to my d wish piec went lightly up the stairs b me—a dainty little Dres herdess figure in her flowered If. And then I re- on the landing turned an inno 00000000000 CO0000000000000C0 000000000000 0000000000000000000000 room and I'll show you my efore en Shep- silk f everybody Was matineé and lacy little pettipokes—and cent, s Is the first sign of flower-like face over her shoulder, so fulfilled its manifold duties of protec- tion, absorption, repulsion. It had cov- ered nerves, blood, muscle, all the mys- tery of physical life. It had known sen- sation, heat, cold, pleasure, pain. It d been caressed or perhaps abused. had respond the skin responds, or shrunk as the skin shrinks and it had come dn death to the tanner’s vat to be cured and colored and to lie across the knees of one living woman while another planned how it should be cut to serve her for a gawd. “You see, it's a beautiful piece smooth—and isn’t it a fine color?” She stretched out her hand for it and I let it go. She fingered it almost ca- ressingly. She scemed to have forgot- ten anyway to shudder over it. “There’s enough,” she said, “for a small trunk. She must have been im- mense!" “I think I-must go,” I said, rising quickly. She scrambled to her little feet. The So X s and I should go mad on small, so fair, of such white and pink Woman's skin fell to the floor. She & % i the bride—but purity. She did not look like a girl pushed it aside and stepped over it s behind me—and 8ot who would want to carry a grip cov- BNty on her way to the door. it's sunshiny streets in ered with the skin from a dead “Oh,” 1 said, stopping at the head of behind me. tell. other girl I met \kes care of all china effects. She dropped on the i and tanned lower drawer of it and stopped rousseline many women to get one of those eaven forgive me I came—" she said. “Yowd “Why, of cours like to see the sKin irse you know you'll have to ur belt made. You can’t buy it I believe they’re not al- easy to skin her little nose nd smiled up huddery I followed her into a room which, r belt, and Provi- herself, had certain delicate Dresden i /;v,,,r ! ummer weather woman’s back. But, ah! you never can like floor s, alone knows how beside a chiffonniere and pulled out the and i )fl "I i i . i l,r”‘,%/’////;’é/ " ! L/w" v’/ 4y o m i /)7’{‘ j the stairs, hom do you get to make up these things?” “Shreve.” A . . . . “Have you any belts of skin?” T asked across the leather counter at Shreve’s. “Beg pardon?” sald the clerk on the oo foerda i i [l i i i 7 / 4}%/)’/})"/,,',, i (’ f 17 7 /%/"/év"‘?m”"v / | “SHE WAS A4 TAILOR'S DREAM.” other side of it. “What kind of belts “Why, no,” replied the clerk. “Why T % 4/// @%// /,,‘2’:; did you say?” should they ?” 7 “Skin.” . N . . . “Snakeskin, madam?”- Mr. Wegener of the Visalia Stock ‘N, G Baddle Company had nothing made up ‘Pigskin, madam? in human skin to show me. He said No. he wished he had. He said he could “My FRIEND THE MEDICAL STUDENT WAS BENDING OVER THE CADAVER OF A MAN.” “Calf? or monkey? or elephant skin? Monkey is about the newest.” “Is it the very newest?"” “I beg pardon?” “Isn’t there anything newer?” “Not that I know of, madam.” “I understood,” I sald, desperately, “that.human skin was being worn this season.” “Oh, ye replied the clerk com- posedly. “We're making up some human skin belts, but more purses and card cases than belts.” “Doesn’t it make—" “Strong belts? Oh, yes, it's a very good strong skin. Only there's been more of a demand for purses. I dare say there will be a call for belts.” “You think it's going to be fashion- able, then?” “1 think so, yes.” “And the purses and card cases, have they been for men or for women?"” “Oh, ladies, nearly always. You know ladies like all such little oddities. We use some silver or goid in the trim- ming or a special design. We made up a purse for a young lady of the Red Cross Society not very long ago, and she wanted it fastened with the regular Red Cross design. It looked very neat.” “You could furnish the skin, I sup- pose?” The clerk hesitated. “You’d better get your own skin” he said. “We'll have it tanned for you or tell you ‘where to take it to have it tanned.” “Here 1n the city?” “Oh, yes. There’s a man down here on Market street, Wegener of the Vi- salia Stock Saddle Company, who handles it, and then there’s the Novelty Leather Company over on Montgomery avenue—218 Montgomery avenue. I think they may have something made up to show you.” “Thank you. You don't think they would mind?” “Mind?" 2 “Admitting that they do the work?" sell all the purses and card cases and belts and satchels he could make. He said he would like a few samples to put in his window. The trouble was to get the skin. He did not think it could be bought. All he had handled had come to him from Shreve & Co., or had been brought in by young doctors and medical students who wanted a purse or a belt or something made up to give away to their girl friends. He said he could not tell off- hand just how many orders he had filled in the last year, but it had been a good many. Yes, it made very hand- some belts, he thought, “especially the black skin.” “When it’s tanned black?” “No, when it's born black. Coons.” . . . . . “Would you like it with the fur on?” asked the manager of the Novelty Leather Company. “I—I hadn't thought,” I replied, feebly. “We've got a sample here—let’s have that human skin sample out there! One With the hair on!—There! That’s a poor piece of work. That's no tanning at all. That’s just been stretched out on a board and oiled and dried, and it made a poor job. We made a card case —a gent’s card case—out of that, and it was a miserable greasy-looking thing when it was finished, although we took a lot of pains with it. You can see for yourself, there's nc style to that.” There certainly was not. There was only a hideous idea, a terrible, ghastly association to mark it from the com- monest, coarsest hide that ever hair grew on. And hair grew on this—alight, strong, wiry hair of a peculiar bright- ness that had triumphed over death and the tanner. It shone. against the ma- hogany color of the leather on which it bristled, stifffy curling, with fearful likeness to life. I sickened as I looked. The piece that had once been part of a Continued on Page Twenty-six.