Page:Tourist's Maritime Provinces.djvu/376

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THE TOURIST'S MARITIME PROVINCES

ple is as legitimate as the rearing of blue ribbon live-stock or pedigreed hens. Other farms have been established to raise sable, marten, mink, skunk and the Karakúl sheep which gives Persian lamb, Astrakhan, broadtail and krimmer fur under differing conditions of breeding and birth.

The economic revolution which has swept the island during this earlier and most lucrative period of fur ranching has brought about bizarre conditions unparalleled in a country community. Labourers of a few years back are the masters of their former employers. Ranch presidents ride in cars who cannot sign the cheques that buy them. Their wives wear jewels so immense that strangers unaware of the suddenly achieved gains as a matter of course think them artificial. Sons who always ran barefoot now tilt their sun-browned noses at any but the costliest boots. Farmers' daughters who once sighed to possess a cottage organ are bored by their new pianolas. Many modest fortunes have been acquired, but more immodest ones if we are to judge by the swagger of their makers.

The shops of Charlottetown and the press of bright new vehicles about Queen Square reflect the island's exuberant prosperity. "Charlotte Town" says the author of an ancient Account of Prince Edward Island in the Gulph of St, Lawrence. North America, "has a situation both centrical and convenient." It is not only the politi-