Boot and shoe

“ One very important thing to be attended to, is, that the golashes and toecaps of all boots should come above or below the joint of the great toe. Very frequently the edge of the leather comes at the very worst part of the foot; and, strange enough, sometimes we see a hard seam put exactly on the corn, and running across the bunion. If no leather be put at all, the boot or shoe being made entirely of stuff, frequently a secret enemy lurks between the outside and the lining, in the shape of a leather side-lining ”

“ For tramping about the roads and hills one needs, as also for the city promenade, an absolutely comfortable walking boot, with broad soles, low heels, and a shape that fits the foot to perfection. Too loose a shoe is as disagreeable and as bad for the foot of its wearer as one which is too tight. ”

“ The army pattern boot or shoe, the native sandal, worn by aborigines of some countries, the shooting boot, and the light buck-skin shoe, all leave their well-marked and distinctive tracks. The particular manner in which a boot or shoe sole has been nailed or repaired will enable an experienced tracker to follow its print unerringly amongst fifty others; large or small, narrow or wide, the track will in almost all cases retain its individuality, except when cunning Europeans put on other men’s boots for the purpose of crime. ”

“ The best fitting boot or shoe is one made of the right shape to adapt it to the particular foot; which is just snug enough to confine it without any uneasy feeling; and into which it goes easily and naturally to its proper position. There is sufficient length to allow the toe to move without pressure on the nail, and sufficient width to let the toes lie side by side, in which position they appear much better than when piled one over another. There are no wrinkles made by loose leather—none by over-tightness. ”

“ But as this kind of sensitiveness is, in healthy persons, very much a matter of habit, it is perhaps quite as well for such to accustom themselves to wearing an ordinary doubled boot through the winter, unless much exposed, and put on a light boot, shoe, or gaiter for the summer. Appropriateness and adaptation to weather or circumstances are always to be considered. A heavy leather boot with double sole is as much out of place and time in a warm day, as a light cloth gaiter in a snow-storm. ”

“ Shoes thus cut, and made on such lasts are almost invariably bent in the shank in order to conceal the ignorance of the manufacturer or designer. But the foot is sure to betray the deformity of the last and the cut of the uppers. Boots and shoes thus made are literally spoiled, unless the wearer can keep the ankle back to an angle of forty or forty-five degrees, which is the position of the foot when thrown forward, while in a sitting position.
No. 5. represents a side view of a lady’s last for high-heeled boots, and its block. ”

“ The style of a boot is simply a matter of fancy. The boot-trees should more nearly imitate the natural limb, and not present that extreme swelled appearance, as many do, thus causing the side seam to burst out. Make the top of the boot leg slightly larger than the heel measurement as a general rule, and add to or diminish from it, as the instep is high or low. In some cases of high instep more room is wanted, consequently more leather in the instep; this is obtained by cutting the upper fuller at the bottom. ”

“ You need to exercise more care in the selection of shoes than of any other article of your outfit. Tight boots put an end to all pleasure, if worn on the march; heavy boots or shoes, with enormously thick soles, will weary you; thin boots will not protect the feet sufficiently, and are liable to burst or wear out; Congress boots are apt to bind the cords of the leg, and thus make one lame; short-toed boots or shoes hurt the toes; loose ones do the same by allowing the foot to slide into the toe of the boot or shoe; low-cut shoes continually fill with dust, sand, or mud. ”

“ Well-fitted as is a well-fitting boot for walking, there is nothing comparable in-doors, for either sex, to the shoe and silk-stocking. White and pale-tinted kid-boots may be worn with discretion by ladies for dancing. They do not suit all persons, though there are some feet that would look well in a clod-hopper’s high-lows or anything else. The French kid shoe, with etherial lace-like thread stocking in the house, and the rosetted satin slipper over silken hose for evening wear, have always seemed to us to come near perfection. ”

“ A boot or shoe ought to fit easily, yet snugly and smoothly, all over the foot—around the heel and ankle as well as the forward part There is no necessity for pinching the instep or crowding the toes; no occasion for loose [Pg 134] leather at the ankle and heel; no propriety in wrinkles over the instep of a flat foot, nor having a slipper loose at the sides. All boots must have wrinkles at the ankle, and all kinds of covering must have some across the foot at the joints. There need not be any of marked size elsewhere, nor should these be as large as they commonly are. ”

“ A boot or shoe consists principally of two parts: the sole, made of thick, tough, strong leather, and the uppers, made of a softer, more pliable leather. By the old process the boot or the shoe was made throughout by a single person. ”

“ The shoe or boot is the weak point of almost all military forces. The French are getting over it; and the English are learning from them. The number of sizes and proportions is, I think, five to one of what it used to be in the early part of the century, so that any soldier can get fitted. The Duke of Wellington wrote home from the Peninsula in those days,—"If you don't send shoes, the army can't march." The enemy marched away to a long distance before the shoes arrived ”

“ Fig. 3, delineates the most ordinary kind of shoe worn, with the opening to the toes already alluded to, for lacing it. But little variety is observable in the form of this article of dress among the Saxons; it is usually delineated as a solid black mass, just as the last figure has been here engraved, with a white line down the centre, to show the opening, but quite as generally without it, and these two forms of shoe or half-boot, are by far the most commonly met with, and are depicted upon the feet of noble and royal personages as well as upon those of the lower class. ”

“ Lady's Embroidered Silk Jacket. 1605-30. (b) Lady's Bodice of Silk Brocade. 1680-1700.
Fig. 39.—Decorated Leather, 15th and 16th centuries.
Shoes and boots were still worn with very long pointed toes till about 1465, when a proclamation was issued for beaks or piked shoes not to pass two inches, and after this time a broad round-toed shoe began to appear. Soft high boots to the top of the thigh, with folded top, belong to this century, as well as the fashionable boot to the calf. The sword or dagger was carried towards the front or side, and a small dagger across the belt at the back. ”

“ The breeches are loose, and reach to the knee, and loose boots of brown leather are frequently seen on the better sort, though it is very common to see the spurs upon the naked heel, and no boot or shoe of any kind. ”

“ It requires the nicest adaptation of skill to make a perfectly fitting shoe or boot, and no man, unless he who is fully conversant with the rules and principles which enter into the preparation of the stock, the correct measurement of the foot, the “cutting out” of the several parts of the stock, the lasting and fitting of the shoe or boot, can be successful in his profession. ”

“ There is also a boot or shoe for walking in frosty weather, which differs from the common one only in having under the heel iron tips, which, being partly bent vertically with a jagged edge, give a hold on the ice, which prevents slipping, and are particularly useful in ascending or descending the frozen mountain paths—reminding us of the sort of boot worn by Tartarian ladies, as given in fig. ”

“ Are these unnatural deformities required to make a well fitting boot or shoe? Why not make the last the natural shape, and let the shank remain firm and solid? If the last is made in perfect conformity to the foot, all parts of the boot or shoe would then remain in their proper positions, natural and easy to the foot. So far as our observation extends, there is no established principle in constructing lasts, as there is no conformity as a general thing, to the shape of the foot. ”

“ The heel thus formed, requires no nailing to affix it to the boot or shoe, a coating of solution being sufficient for that purpose. Thus arranged, the metal and gutta-percha mutually aid and support each other; no spreading can take place, nor can the edges become worn or ragged. These tips never become loose, neither are they liable to become 214slippery. Having worn them for more than two years, I can with confidence assert them to be the best contrivance extant for the purpose. * * * ”

“ Another variety of distortion is that brought about by wearing tight boots and shoes, or boots and shoes constructed upon false principles; for, a boot or shoe may be productive of considerable inconvenience to the wearer, as well as the cause of a certain amount of twisting out of place of the bones of the foot, without necessarily being too small. ”

“ On the outer side of this boot should run a metallic splint, jointed at the ankle and extending to a leather band surrounding the leg just below the knee. A broad leather band, attached to the outer edge of the sole anterior to the talo-tarsal articulation, also passes up on [p. 1160] the outside of the foot, gradually narrowing until, opposite the ankle, it passes through a slit in the side of the shoe, to be attached to the leg-splint. ”

“ Indeed, they were so wide at times, as to oblige the wearer to stride much in walking, a habit that was much ridiculed by the satirists of the day. There was a print published during this reign of a dandy in the height of fashion whose legs are “incased in boot-hose tops tied about the middle of the calf, as long as a pair of shirt-sleeves, double at the end like a ruff-band: the top of his boots very large, fringed with lace, and turned down as low as his spurs, which jingled like the bells of a morris-dancer as he walked.” ”

“ Get boots like those of a man, low-heeled and with a straight line from heel to back of top. Don't have the tops wider than absolutely necessary not to bind, and don't have them curved or fancy in shape. Be sure that there is no elbow sticking out like a horse's hock at the back of the boot, and don't have a corner on the inside edge of the sole. And don't try to wear a small size! ”

“ Travellers find these boots great comforts, they take up very little room in the portmanteau, are{128} soon cleaned, and are on and off in an instant; if made of patent leather, they need only a wipe with an old silk handkerchief. No boothooks are ever required, the best hooks being nature’s own, the fingers, and the only bootjack ever wanted, is the toe of one boot applied to the heel of the other.
Dress Pumps are almost the only shoes now worn; they are generally made of patent leather, and should be cut to sit well at the quarters. ”

“ Of the amplitude of its tops, the woodcut will give{50} an idea, it is copied from one worn by a courtier of Charles’s train, in the engravings illustrative of his coronation. The boot is decorated with lace all round the upper part, and that portion of the leg which the boot encases, seems fitted easily with pliant leather: over the instep is a broad band of the same material, beneath which the spur was fastened; and the heel is high, and toe broad, of all the boots and shoes then fashionable. ”

“ Each of the different kinds of boots has certain peculiar advantages which, in addition to its being fashionable, contribute to make it popular. The side-spring boot, that has been a favourite so long, seldom slips at the heel, and this is a decidedly good point; it also, by fitting closely at the ankles, gives a feeling of snugness and security which is comfortable, [Pg 140] while it admits of perfect freedom in all movements of the ankle in walking. ”

“ More, perhaps, depends on fitting the work, than the workmanship; a union, therefore, of skill, in these two points, constitutes a good boot-binder. The leg is next passed on to the closer, who, with the awl, instead of the needle, closes the seams of the golosh; and then, having lasted the boot, attaches the leather by means of a neat row of stabbing round the edge, thoroughly through the leg and its lining. ”

“ The sole does not hit a road with monotonous regularity upon the same dry spot of blistering skin.
I find that in the mountains a boot of rather lighter sole is preferable, with either brads or Phillips rubbers. One must nevertheless beware of shoddy. After the second scramble amid rocks I have seen the whole sole of a boot part company with the upper. I have seen the heel come off. Well established lines of workingmen’s boots are safer than fair-seeming boots for clerks. On the other hand, boots whose nails come through are a nuisance, digging holes in the soles of one’s feet. ”

“ It may be feared that a tongued boot—patent leather or Napoleon—may be more difficult to draw on the foot if made upon a last of this style. We believe that it can make but very little difference, probably not any after the boot is bent in the shank, while it will do much to prevent slipping at the heel when cut with a large ankle, as is usually the case. The pitch of the leg will be very nearly the same when on the last as when the boot is worn. ”