Daily Yellowstone journal., 1890-02-12
FACTS ABOUT FoOTGEAR.
A Massachusetts, Salesman Talks About
Phases Of the i~iusiness.

Phases Of the business.
There are more people wearing shoes
than there ARE who know about tire
shoes they wear. For the benefit of
the shoe wearing race in general ANA
the wcarcr Of Zine calf skin shoes in
particular, The Post has collected n
few facts. y reporter met at the Met
ropolilan the other evening Mr.. L. f..
Sawyer, the representative of a big
firm ut North Weymouth. Mass.
Washington said he, demands
a fine grade shoe, end Il good many
of them. The trade is steady the year
round. Take the heaviest firms YOU
have here and their stocks will not
vary $1,000 during the different sea-
SONS. There are so few novelties i'll the
business that the holidays make no
special demand.
Your asphalt streets and sidewalks
III very wearing ON shoes. The AS
phalt is slippery. Every time your
foot Is SIT down it slips Il little, and it
tells in time oil the sole of the shoe.
Asphalt wears leather faster than
brick, and brick faster than dirt. Ii is
not always economical 10 black your
own boots. You are apt To put the
backing on too thick and u~neyenly,
let it dry and cake on and ruin the
leather. Backing should be put on
thin and evenly and washed off occa.
sionally."
How can | pick out a good shoe."
asked the reporter.
We'll, it isn't SD easily told. You
have To learn by experience. You are
probably aware that a calfskin grows
tougher from the tail To the horns. Ii
does; the fiber gets longer and tough
CT. The skin 1t the tail is finer, but
not SO tough. The skin is tougher on
the sides than the belly; yet, strange
.ly, right along the backbone the skin
is SD weak that it a be torn like a
piece of paper. The lowerpart of your
shoe upper is called the vamp. The
vamps are cut from the two pieces Of
a calfskin, commencing at the tail.
The cutter puts on his patterns and
cuts one from each side, never cross
ing the back. Next two pairs come
out ver the ribs, n pair on the
shoulders and one pair from the neck.
The neck vamps have much more
wear than any of the Others. You can
tell them by the wrinkles. These
wrinkles, which were in the neck of
the calf, are still preserved in the
leather, and you can lind them by
close examination. But since the neck
vamps are coarse and heavy they are
never put in the finest grades Of shoes.
The belly of the calfskin needs tan
ming longer than the side; 50 within a
few years the tanners have tried "A plan
of taking the side out when il has tau.
ned long enough, and hanging il SO
that the belly remains in the pickle a
little longer.
Kangaroo leather makes the most
durable fine shoes in the world. Year
before last the tanners thought they
had found a way of tanning their kan
CARGO skins in much less time than
formerly by using Il new process. The
result was that they injured the leath-
er and il didn't wear we'll. This year
kangaroo shoes will wear 80 per cent
longer than last year.
when | first brought kangaroo
shoes into this section | could hardly
make the dealers believe that they
were what | claimed. Ii was by the
most strenuous effort that the stock
could he placed. But kangaroo shoes
have come to stay. When they were
first made the Australian government
paid Il bounty for their slaughter,
they were so destructive TO crops. As
a result they were killed by the thou
sands, and their hides were very
cheap. Now the government has re-
moved the bounty and restricted their
slaughter TO certain seasons, and the
price of hides has gone up so much
that the dealers are kicking on the
price of shoes. Still they will continue
to be popular. Australia is nearly as
big as the United States. and there is
no immediate danger of the extermina.
finn nf tln Esprap,n