The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-03-16
THE UNCOMFORTABLE BOOT.
It is Thought in England That Black

It is Thought in England That Black
 ing Hardens and so Injures the
 Leather.
 The complaint is common enough that the boot is the most difficult part of our clothing in regard to securing q really comfortable fitting and there is little doubt that the prevalence of de- formities of the feet and even lameness may often be referred to the badly fit ing boot, say the London Lancet. It must be readily conceded, however, that during recent years considerable ad- vances have been made in regard to standardizing the size and shape of boots, so that less trouble is given than formerly to find comfortable pair for everyday wear. This progress has been such in fact, as to threaten the last with extinction.
 Even this improvement however, does not deter some people from ex- pressing the opinion that the brown or tan beather boot is much more com fortable to wear than the black boot and is, moreover, more durable. It seems pretty certain that for some req son or other tan leather keeps softer than blacked leather and one explana- tion of hhis may be ha in he grea num- Der of cases he backing used for poli- ishing black boos has strongly acid properties whereas he pastes used for polishing brown boots are never acid and consist of a kind of .varnish made of oils and waxes.
 In many af the formulas given for making backing a very large propor- ton of oil of vitrlol or strong sulphur ic acid is directed to be used, The chief ingredients of blacking appear to be ivory black, treacle and oil of vi- ttrol. Sometimes hydrochloric acid is used, The object of the acid apparent ly is to dissolve out the mineral matter | (chiefly phosphate of lime) of the ivory black and so to reduce it to very fine spongy state. The result is hat the backing is very acid, if not with sul- phuric acid certainly with phosphoric acid
 l As a matter of fact, we have found sufficient free sulphuric acid in black | ing which we have examined to char | paper when rried upon it. It is con- ceivable, therefore, that the constant use of backing on leather is likely sooner or later to have an injurious an- ctio upon it, to render 1t perhaps hard | and unyielding and less durable, If such is the case the boot may well be- come uncomfortable to its wearer.
 The destructive action of sulphuric acid on leather is very well illustrated 1 in the case of the leather bindings of books which have been kept on the top shelves of a library, at level, that is to say, above that of the gaslights We have known it possible to scrape off the binding a powder resembling | snuff in appearance which on analysis | proved to contain quite an astonishing | proportion of free sulphuric acid. The view that the leather of the brown boot, polished, that is, with wax | and oil, keeps softer and more com | fortable than the leather of the black boot, polished day by day with black l ing, may find this explanation-tha in the latter case the acid backing slowly destroys the pliable qualities of the leather, while in the former the neu- | tral oils and waXes preserve the soft ness of the leather. If that be so, acid backing might be given up with ad- I vantage and neutral boot polishes sub- stituted, for there is no greater dis comfort in regard to matters of per sonal dress than a badly fitting boot \ or one the leather of which is, or be- comes, as hard as wood.