Los Angeles herald., 1910-02-04
The Leather industry
Bv Frederic j. Haskin

tion renders the leather porous enough
for the admission of air, but tight
enough for the exclusion of water.
Who does not remember the days
when boots and shoes had to be
creased to keep the leather soft and
pliable?
The most costly leather in the world
is known to the trade as piano leather.
|The old and the new world must unite
in it's making. A family of German
tanners hold the secret of its prepara-
ton, and it can be made only from
the skin of the American gray deer
found in the vicinity of the great lakes.
The tanners have an agency at De-
troit, where the skins are purchased
from the Indians and half-breeds. The
leather is used exclusively for covering
piano keys.
An eastern shoe house has put out
a line of ladies' opera shoes which are
to retail at $50 per pair. Not all of
the intrinsic value of these shoes comes
from the leather that is in them nor
from the workmanship. The gold and
pearl trimmings and Jet beads are
what bring the cost up so high. One
shoemaker has turned out pair of
shoes costing $4,000, but their principal
value lies in the diamonds with which
the vamps and heels are studded. In
certain kinds of shoes the leather Is
made rough by being ground ON rap
idly revolving emery wheels The
grinders have to wear silk masks or
wetted sponges over their faces to keep
the dust from their lungs. 1t Is eX-
pected that bronze shoe leather VIII
be the vogue during the coming sum
mer season.
While great strides have been made
in the methods of tanning, 1t must be
conceded that the Indian perfected the
art to a degree never yet attained by
the white tanner. Some years ago a
Sioux Indian chief produced piece of
buckskin that had been tanned fifty
wears before by q member of his tribe.
A leading leather expert compared IL
with the best bucksllin he could pur-
chase in the market, and stated that
the Indian leather was superior in pill
ability and every other particular.
Specimens of Chinese Leather 1000
years old are as soft and pliable today
as they were when new.
Special methods of tanning are re-
quIied in making some of the big
driving belts used in factories. What
is believed to be the biggest belt ever
made was turned out recently by Il
New York firm for lumber mill in
Louisiana. Five hundred and forty
specially selected Texas steer hides
were used in making this belt. 1t is
240 feet long, six feet wide and cost
$500.
The feathers which are used for
ladies' gloves and also for mems finer
gloves are not tanned, but tawed, and
millions of eggs are used in this pro-
cess. The finest glove leather comes
from France. The advent of the coal
tar dyes in the coloring of feathers has
proved to be harmful to the leather.
1t is not as noticeable in glove leath-
ers, however, as in book leather. Bind
ings are supposed to last through years
and years, but the aniline dye has
proved so deleterious to the lasting
qualities of leather that the English
Library association has made a care
full examination of the subject. 1t de-
clares that after all there is no tam
ming for book feathers like that in
which sumac is used in connection
with vegetable dyes.
A writer for the Smithsonian insti-
tuition beautifully expresses the inti-
mate relationship of leather to the race
by tracing the activities of the savage
woman after her hunter-husband laid
the first deer at her feet. "She strikes
off a sharp flint flake for knife and
becomes the first cutler the real found
er of Sheffield. With this knife she
removes the skin, little dreaming that
she is to become the patron saint of
all the butchers that shall come after
her. She rolls up the hide, then dresses
it with the brains of the animal,
smokes it, curries it, breaks it with
instruments of stone and bone and es-
tablishes her reputation as the first
tanner and currier. With fingers
weary and worn, with needle of bone
and thread of sinew and scissors of
flint she fashions the clothes Of her
family; and though there is no sign
over the door she becomes the first
tailor and dressmaker. She fashions
the moccasins of her lord and is the
worlds first shoemaker"
rro,,,o.,o,r ryI. Cost Of TIxip1