The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1900-11-21

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girl
Whose gentle fingers bound it.
Whittier: "Ihe Shocmaker.n
When Whittier wrote, the cobbler
was the shoemaker Of the world; now
he is only the shoe-mender. He still
sits in his dingy shop, his "well.worn
stone" strapped across his knee, and
his polished hammer and his avis
and his pegs at his hand; but that
dingy shop is in the shadow of tho
real shoemaker-the factory, in which
thousands Of deft hands aud hundreds
of whirring machines throw out upon
the world millions Of pairs of shoes
between a year s beginning and year s
ending. In truth,
e the measured sound has grown
A quick and merry clamor.
But this clamor is no longer the
rap, rap, of the polished hammer
welded by the bent and smutty cob
bier; it is the whirl and the grind aud
the clank of the shoe machines. 1t
begins in the echoes of the whistles
call ct 8, it dies away in the whistle s
shrek at 6. It rumbles and roars-
clatters and clicks-through ten hours
each day, and with each groan that it
gives, a shoe lone new craft for that
myriad feet of leather and nails and
thread which bears mankind on his
ccaseless journeys launched into
the current of business to be rushed
along in scarch Of cargo and plot
perhaps to the other side Of the earth.
1t never so much as brushes by the
dingy shop of the cobbler on it's out
ward voyage; but perhaps
years-afterward it may lie, split and
battered and roughened, among the
derelicts that kaye drifted into his
humble harbor for repairs.
Iu the old days the cobbler was the
designer and builder Of this feet, as
well as its repairer. His hands and
his hammer alone wrought.it from the
rouga leather. He made it from sole
to NATURALIZATION hull TO rigging.
Now there are thousands to take his
place, and much intricate machinery
to suppla 1T tho humble awl and the
polished hamer; for it is an intricate
thing, this business of shoe building,
In its development. There are the
designers, the cutters, and the corps
OF makeTs-one corps to stitch the up
pers, another to stich the Innings. and
another to put them together; one
corps to make the buttonholes and to
fasten the buttons, or to rivet the
hooks and eyes in place: another to
make the soles, and another to fasten
the soles and uppers together; one
corps to build the heels, another to
scrape and brush and polish. And
then there are the inspectors and
the checkers and the packers; aud the
statesmen and the shippers; and the
clerks, aud the cashiers, and the s:eno.
graphers; and the presidents, and the
vice presidents, and the directors, and
the stockholders. And, day after
day-and sometimes night after night
this great thousand bodied shoe
maker tolls away at the trade, sending
forth stream of shoes that in any
one hour would SO completely fill the
dingy shop Of the old.fashioned cob
bier that its walls would bulge and
tho our -Sold bench break down un.
der the weight.
Now the sole is shaped by machinery;
now the 'glassy vamp" is .'deftly
curled" around it by machinery; aud
now the s'bright-eyed girl'' presides at
most Of the machinery. For there are
thousands Of girls making shoes every
day; not making thea. ss .he old cob
bier used to make them--with ham.
mer and avl and thread--hut with
machinery. They sit in chairs, aud
bend their backs over boards through
which busy needles ply up and down,
carrying yards Of heavy thread through
yards 5a Of iisaiher and cloth; they cut
and they fasten, and they soraps and
polish; aud they permeate the whole