SNAKES COME UP THE THAMES

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 February 1940, Page 8

SNAKES COME UP THE THAMES

BUSINESS TO UNIQUE TANNERY.

A cargo of snakeskins, giant anacondas from Uruguay, glides down the River Plate, steams up through the South and North Atlantic, the English Channel and the River Thames, to a small tannery near London, . Bridge. Later, those same reptile skins, but now tanned, dyed and polished, sail across the North Sea, and eventually become handbags, shoes and belts for the elegant women of Sweden and her neutral neighbour countries. A minor, and commercial, victory from the River Plate this time, yet a victory nevertheless. More than 1,500,000 snakeskins and lizard skins are sent from tropical countries each year to the little factory near London Bridge, and the. war has had the effect off stimulating the trade now that Germany,. one of the chief reptile skin tanning countries of the world, has- been cut. off from, supplies. Business with the Scandinavian countries has notably in-, creased. " ’ m Besides the anacondas .-from- South America hundreds of thousands, of . ratsnakes, and pythons and. lizards ’from Nigeria, Rhodesia, Ceylon and Borneo are imported by Mr S. O. Rowe, the owner of this reptile tannery which is a typical example of one of Britain’s “little industries.”

It is the only snakeskin tannery of any consequence in the country. Pluck and faith kept it going when foreign competition made times bad. Now it is firing its broadsides in the war of commerce.