equal proportion of wood on each side the centre line. No 2 requires considerable fulness of the inside joint, to allow for a bunion; the great toe requires a bed for the ball to rest in; the waist must be very hollow, else the quarter will bag; while No. 3 requires a wide flat tread and great thickness of wood, for the toes which are covered with corns.

Many persons have an idea that right and left shoes are a comparatively modern invention, but the illusions and illustrations to the contrary, in pages 39-44 disprove this; straight lasts are decidedly a modern invention, and notwithstanding what many persons say to the contrary, are decidedly inferior to a well-formed right and left pair.

The great evil has been that all right and left lasts, of late have been crooked. It was thought in abandoning the straight last with its faults, that a perfect fit could be secured in rights and lefts; and from one extreme, as is generally the case in fashion, the opposite was adopted, and a twisted right and left made the matter still worse.

It was thought nothing could be right and left but that which took a decided turn, and the consequence has been that for years lasts have been made with an ugly twist inward, where no wood was required, and on the outside, where the toes

with all their tenderness and liability to injury have required thickness and breadth, nothing has been left.

I have pointed out this fault to last-makers a thousand times-have stood by them at their work, and have seen the part-where, of all things, I wished the room to be left-cruelly sliced off, or rasped away: the consequence to the unfortunate wearer of a shoe or boot made on that last must have been, months of torture.

Some workmen, however, have at last seen the error they have all along been committing, and adopted the improved form, wondering how it was never thought of before.

No. 1 represents a sketch of the foot and the sole

usually formed to fit it. No. 2 is a well-formed sole, straight, suitable, and far more elegant.

The straight last has often been a better right and left for certain feet, than the pair made for them, the room having been given at the part most wanted, which was the chief thing: and although the hollow of the foot was not at all fitted, and the quarter gaped outside, yet it was easy. On the other hand the right and left was deficient on the outside, and having nothing for the second, third, and little toe, they were cramped together, and the consequences were immediate pain, a hard corn on the joints of the little toe and a soft one between the others.

All this may be avoided. The form of the feet should be taken in outline on a sheet of paper, and the prominent toes noted down at the time, and immediately after a pair of lasts made suitable in

every way.

But instead of this, hundreds of shoemakers in the country have been making all their lifetime, from some old misshapen pieces of wood, that perhaps had done service to their fathers and grandfathers, and been patched and altered to suit the wants of a whole parish. Even in town, where we have last-makers at our

elbow, we have been far

from doing what we ought in this matter. Instead

of fitting the foot to the shoe, the business of the tradesman certainly is to shape his last so correctly that the shoe should fit the foot.

Petrarch is said to have nearly lamed himself from the attempts he made, and the pinching he underwent, to display to his Laura a neat foot. Cases of this kind are frequently met with every day, where every sacrifice is made for this end, and pinching all over the foot may be tolerated, and no bad consequences ensue for a time; but the pinching at one place is the point which ought immediately to be "reformed altogether."

It is extremely amusing to witness, on the other side, the care some old gentlemen take to get their shoes made easy; while the Petrarch of the present day, orders his boots to be smart, and threatens his bootmaker that if he can get into them, he "won't have 'em," the old gentleman of experience and wisdom comes with two pairs of thick lamb's wool stockings on, which his friend who accompanies him waggishly says, are—

"His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank ;"

he looks knowingly in return and whispers, that he put on two pairs of the thickest stockings he had, on purpose to deceive the shoemaker.

In the early English translation of "Lazarillo de Tormes," is this passage: If you bid a shoemaker who has been thirty years at his trade make a new pair of shoes with broad toes, high in the instep, and tight about the heel, he must pare your feet before he pleases you"-a sly, but sarcastic allusion to the imperfect fitting of the shoemaker, and an admission of the pride of the wearer.

Ladies and gentlemen, and even children, should have their own lasts, and be sure they are carefully and correctly made to the feet.

It would, however, be expecting too much that for a single pair of shoes or boots, a shoemaker or bootmaker should make for his customer a pair of lasts, free of charge; as prices are now, he would be a considerable loser-the customer might never favor him with another order, he seeks a cheaper shop-goes abroad or dies. The lasts on which a skilful workman has been employed for perhaps a whole day, and which cost at least four or five shillings, are left on his hands perfectly useless.

For my own personal comfort I would weigh my own lasts which have been carefully made, in a scale against their weight in silver, and consider them cheap; numbers of our nobility and gentry, in effect, do the same, and to a much greater amount, for their personal comfort, in matters of