years must elapse before the island pelts again appear on the English and German markets.
Companies owning prolific Class A vixens have paid sumptuous dividends to their stock-holders, most of whom have been farmers, shop-keepers and other moderately circumstanced citizens living on the island. Everywhere one sees new foundations, rebuilt barns, expanded acreages as a result of wealth acquired with intoxicating ease. A man and wife had saved a thousand dollars to build a house. Instead they put it in foxes. Now they have the house and $30,000 besides. A druggist in Montague bought stock in five companies which earned in one year dividends of 110, 125, 60, 200 and 130 per cent, respectively. A bookkeeper's investment of $300 returned him $45,000 in three years. These are not exceptional cases. Farmhands, women clerks, ministers. Government officials will tell you others to match them ad nauseam. Substantial men of affairs say the demand for captive breeders is justified by the unfailing prestige and market valuation of the pelt which for centuries has been one of the chosen furs of Madame Croesus.
The introduction of mongrel foxes from the Far West, the over-capitalisation of stock companies, the unprincipled advertisement of broker and promoter and the uncertainty of nature's decrees are the sinister elements of a venture which in princi-
