The work is divided into separate branches. packed, ready for sale and transporta For men's dress boots, the "fitter" is paid tion. 75 cts.; for crimping, 10 cts.; for bottom- Another part of the building is occupied ing, $2 50; heeling, 12 cts. A fast work- by the women who tend the stitching man earns about $12 per week. The pro- machines, which are also run by steam: duction of boots and shoes in Philadelphia thus saving them from what otherwise must in 1860 was $5,474,587, besides nearly prove a laborious and fatiguing operation. $4,000,000 in other articles of leather. The introduction of sewing machines has had an important effect upon the manufacture of both boots and shoes, and more recently, the invention of a machine to peg soles promises to make a still greater change in the principal branch of the Lynn manufacture. The machine in question, for which a patent has recently been issued, punches the leather, and inserts the pegs, in an incredibly short time, with the utmost accuracy and efficiency. The sole, when pegged, is perfectly pliable, the pegs forming, apparently, a portion of its substance. The use of these machines is as well adapted to the limited wants of small western towns, as to the grand operations of metropolitan manufacturers, and local wants may, by their action, be so gradually supplied, as to dry up those streams which unite in so extended a demand in Boston. A dozen hands employed in the manufacture of these pegged shoes will complete about 20 cases per week; and the work being almost entirely accomplished by machinery, gives it a uniformity as to style, shape, and general appearance, which it is impossible to obtain by hand. The pegging machine has been invented but a few years. The work, even now, is said to be fully equal to that performed by hand, and must, therefore, we think, certainly supersede it when the machinery is brought to a higher state of perfection, which, in the nature of things (it being impossible to stay the progress of inventive Yankee genius), must be continually taking place. The style of making boots and shoes. changes in some degree, and is leading manufacturers to introduce improvements, like that of a steel shank, so called, which is a steel spring fixed firmly in the heel, and exLet us go into an eastern machine shoe tending under the hollow of the foot between factory. In a small room, partitioned off for the soles, to give elasticity to the step. the purpose, is a neat and compact steam The grades of city work vary with the qualengine, which carries all the machinery, even ity of the material and the labor bestowed. to the stitching machines. The remainder The patent leather custom-made boots comof the basement is occupied by machines for mand $20 per pair; and the high Russia cutting, stripping, rolling, and shaping the leather Wellington boots $18; and so down soles. The stock is then passed to the story to $16, 13, and $11, for calf-skin; with lower above, where the shoes are lasted, and the rates for split leather, and ordinary material. outer soles are tacked on by hand; by which The scarcity of material, and the high prices process they are prepared for pegging. The of stock, have driven the poorer class of pegging machines are simple in their con- shoe-makers to the use of old tops, or upper struction and mode of operation, but per- leathers, for both boots and shoes. These form the work with great despatch and are not only refooted for the use of the accuracy, driving the pegs at the rate of wearer, but are cut down to make new shoes fourteen a second. One of the most curious and boots of a smaller size. Many take operations of the machine is the manner in much pains to buy up old articles of that which it manufactures the peg for its own description, and reproduce them at rates far use. A strip of wood of the required width, below what they could be afforded by reguand neatly laid in a coil 100 ft. in length, is lar shoe-makers from new stocks. Much art put into the machine, and at every revolu- is used also in economising the soles of tion it is moved forward, and a peg cut off cheap goods. A thin under-sole is used; and driven into the shoe. The rapidity and between which and the in-sole, pasteboard, unerring accuracy with which these machines old slips of leather, and other cheap subperform the work, is truly astonishing. After stances, are inserted, to give an appearbeing pegged, the shoes are passed up to ance of substance. These cheap varieties the third story, where the bottoms are of shoes supply the wants of those whose smoothed, scoured, and brushed, and then means are small, with a semblance of shoesent into the front of the building to being. The phrase, "paper soles," is not unfrequently used to designate the extremely thin substance attached to the casings of the dainty little feet of our fair sex, but still that substance is leather. Recently, however, a pair of veritable paper soles were put upon a customer, and worn, though for a very limited time. The victim in the case was a strapping negro fellow, who, allured by the seductive invitation to "walk in and see the cheap clodings," entered a Jew's museum, and purchased a pair of laced boots for $1.50. Tanneries,... Establishments. Hands. They fitted well, and wore well for a few hours, but great was his astonishment when his trotters parted company with his boots, and he was once again barefooted. On examining more closely his purchase, he found that the soles were composed of thick paper board, colored to resemble leather, and pegged to the uppers. The sympathising justice heard his complaint, but could grant no relief. The New York state census of 1865 gave the following summary of the production of leather, and the manufactures therefrom : Capital. Raw material value. Value of products. $10,386,639 $24,971,708 820 6,035 $13,762,384 52,825 The French excel in the manufacture of kid gloves, and Parisian gloves are still without a rival. The difference is seen in the cutting of the skin to the best advantage. This is performed with scissors, after stretching and rubbing the skin upon a marble slab with a blunt knife. The manufacture of gloves has not extended itself in this country so much as some other industries, with the exception of buckskin gloves, which are peculiarly American, combining utility with dress. The use of gloves is becoming far more general in cities than formerly. In early times, the practice of presenting a pair of gloves at A skin is first cut longitudinally through funerals to the attending clergy, and others, the middle, by which it is divided into two was carried to such an extent in Massachu- equal and similar parts; and the single strip, setts, that the legislature forbade the prac- for the palm and back, is next cut off from tice, under a penalty of £20. In cold re- one end of the half skin. The pieces for gions, gloves are of the warmest wool, or the thumb, the gussets for the fingers, and skins, with the fur side out. Buckskin lined other small pieces to be inserted, must all with soft wool is often used: the texture be worked out either from the same skin, changes with the climate to the softest kid or from others precisely similar. In this and silk. India-rubber gloves are used for work, it is said, "a Frenchman will genmany purposes, such as saving the hands of erally manage to get one or two pairs of females in many kinds of domestic labor. gloves more than an Englishman can from Some years since, the French government the same skins, and these not inferior or undertook to clear the sewers of Paris from scanty, but as well and handsomely shaped the multitude of rats that infested them, and as the rest. This clever and adroit manipwhich had become a formidable nuisance. ulation of the leather is an object of great These rats were of large and divers breeds. importanee in France, where not less than It was stated that a contract was entered 375,000 dozen of skins of all kinds are cut into with a Parisian glover to purchase the up into gloves every year." The nearly skins for the glove manufacture at a certain square piece cut off is folded over upon price, on the condition that they should not itself, giving a little more width for the side exceed 1,000,000. It resulted that many designed for the back of the hand; and upon millions were procured; and the Parisian this oblong, double strip, the workman, house having declined, a London glover measuring with his eye and finger, marks took the "lot." It is not certain, however, lout the length for the clefts between the that the skins are of practical value. fingers, which he proceeds to cut and shape. | combination with certain resins makes a tolMaking the hole for the thumb is a matter erable substitute for sole-leather; the artifirequiring the greatest skill, for a very slight cial leather which by chemical and mechandeviation from the exact shape would cause ical processes is transformed from old leathern a bad fit when the parts are sewed together, scraps into a homogeneous material, and the resulting in unequal strain and speedy frac-modern preparations of papier-mache, which ture when the glove is worn. By late im- possess the lightness, durability and imperprovements, introduced by M. Jouvin, the viousness to moisture of leather itself. The thumb-piece, like the fingers, is of the same Lineolum or flax oil-cloth, in some of its piece with the rest of the glove, requiring forms, also makes a fair substitute for no seam for its attachment. The cutting leather, as do some of the preparations of also is performed in great part by punches india-rubber and gutta-percha. But after all, of appropriate patterns, and some of these for many of the purposes for which it is inare provided with a toothed apparatus some-dispensable it is still true, that "there's nothwhat resembling a comb, which pricks the ing like leather." points for the stitches. The seams are sew- It follows, from what has been said, that ed with perfect regularity by placing the the United States are large consumers of edges to be united in the jaws of a vice, which leather; and when we consider that we are terminates in fine brass teeth, like those of largely a grazing and cattle-growing nation, a comb, but only one-twelfth of an inch long. manufacturing from our native hides a Between these the needle is passed in suc-greater quantity of leather than any other cessive stitches. When the sewing is com- nation of equal population, in addition to pleted the gloves are stretched, then placed large imports, it would seem to indicate in linen cloth, slightly damp, and beaten, by an extravagant, if not a wasteful use of which they are rendered softer and more leather. flexible. The last operation is pressing. The chief branch of the manufacture carried on in the United States is that of buckskin gloves; and the most important seat of this business is at Gloversville, Fulton county, N. Y., where nearly a million dollars' worth were produced in 1860. The statistics of the glove business in Fulton Co., N. Y., in 1865, were as follows: Manufacturers, 87; hands employed, 811; capital employed, $323,825; raw material used, $500,396; value of products, $1,187,686. We are informed by Adam Smith, who has delineated every point and line of every branch of political economy, and who has, apparently, collected and compressed into three volumes more of the critical history of the individual, as well as the general economy of human society, than any one author, and with less of error and mistake than most authors, that it is characteristic with savage nations to export their raw hides, and neither to manufacture nor ase much leather; while civilized nations import largely of raw hides, The old proverb, "There's nothing like and manufacture and consume large quantileather," seems to hold good yet, though ties of leather. It is a fair corollary, then, great and partially successful efforts have that our excessive consumption of leather been made to substitute other materials and indicates our superior degree of civilization; combinations for it. The most noticeable of and such is undoubtedly the truth. The these have been the "Pannus Corium," a high grade of civilization of the people of composition kept secret, and now but little the United States is abundantly evident, and used; the hemp or flax leather, which by universally acknowledged. FIRE-ARMS. CHAPTER I. COLT'S REVOLVERS-SHARP'S RIFLES even when armed only with pikes, and recent events have shown that it cannot reach infantry in line. A remarkable change has come over THE improvements in fire-arms are making "Brown Bess" of late, and it seems now such rapid progress among civilized nations, to have seen its best days. The rifle, or a that we may indulge the hope that they screwed barrel, was among the first forms will soon cease to be wanted at all; since, as of the manufacture of small arms in the extremes meet, they may become so effec- sixteenth century; but the musket was pretual in their operation, and war reduced to ferred, on account of its more speedy loadsuch a science, that an attempt to fight will ing. The rifle was, however, the favorite only be entire mutual destruction, like that with the American colonists, and its execumost effectual combat between the two Kil- tion in their hands during the Revolution kenny cats. The war of 1866 in Europe, in brought it into general notice. The adding which Prussia, in seven weeks, broke the of the percussion cap was a great improvepower of Austria, is an example of the ment to it. Recently it has become so imforce that may now be exerted in a short proved as to supplant not only the old space of time, and the newly-invented needle- musket, but artillery also, since the events gun had a powerful agency in bringing of the last few years have shown that it is matters to a close. After the invention of easy to silence cannon by shooting down gunpowder in the fourteenth century, the the gunners at their pieces, beyond the art of gunnery made great progress, and the reach of grape. In the text-book of the musket came to be the most important St. Cyr Military School of France, it is weapon. The Roman legions used the short directed that the fire of artillery should stabbing sword as their favorite weapon. In cease when the enemy is distant twelve the age of chivalry, the lance of the horse- hundred yards. At Waterloo, the opposing man was the queen of weapons, and con- armies being twelve hundred yards distant, tinued so up to the battle of Pavia, in 1525, were out of reach of all but solid shot when chivalry made its last charge, and from field guns, as they were then served. went down with the white panache of the It is now stated that the Minié rifle is effecgallant Francis I. From that time the ar- tive at a mile distant, and at two thousand quebuse, then a matchlock, improved into a yards troops can easily shoot each other. firelock, displaced the English bow, acquired It follows, from these simple facts, that arthe bayonet, and became, in its turn, the tillery must improve or become ineffective. queen of weapons." When the musket, The improvements in the rifle were mostly or "Brown Bess," was furnished with per- in the ball. The French pin rifle had a cussion caps instead of flints, and the sword small steel "pin" in the bottom of the bayonet was added, there seemed to be little chamber. The powder filled in around this to hope for in the way of improvement. pin, and the ball, of a conical shape, hollow Since the "wars of the Roses" in England, at the base like a thimble, had a small metal nine-tenths of all the battles of the world plate, which, on being rammed home, struck have been decided by projectiles, artillery, against the pin, and spread the ball so as to and musketry, without crossing a bayonet or slug the piece. The Minié rifle was nearly drawing a sword. The cavalry, as an arm, the same, without the pin, because it was has continually lost ground, except in the found that the explosion would of itself rout of a defeat, when it follows up a fly-spread the ball. The performances of this ing enemy. It never could break a square, weapon are somewhat marvellous, since it is |