Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

BOOT AND SHOE MAKING. 53 attaches to the office. By “standard” I mean a fixed relative size of one portion or another to the length. Enterprising pattern cutters have started in business as designers to the trade, but with limited success in this country, although, strange to say, the practice of em- ploying such an outsider is the general one in the United States. With the last in hand, made by a last-maker to precise instructions, a pattern-maker clothes it with paper or with canvas, as a dressmaker would fit a model - A certain size is made knife he makes a clicking sound. In view of the amount of skill that is required from the “ clicker ” in cutting up a skin to the best advantage from patterns of different sizes and shapes, it is surprising how poorly he is paid, the average wages only approximating to 30s. per week. It would seem simple enough to an outsider to drop a pattern upon a skin and cut round it, but every clicker worth his salt knows which way the leather will stretch when worked into an upper, and up first and offered to the factor or retailer, and orders are taken from this sample for the various sizes of the same pattern, be- fore others—above or below it—are graded from the original. The upper patterns consist of a more or less numerous set of parts, and in leading fac- tories the reproduction of these various parts in sizes is performed on a machine, which is a complicated adap- tation of the “ Panto- graph ” with which in our youth we enlarged the photographs of our relatives—to their horror. Upper patterns are cut in zinc, sheet- iron, or card-board, but in the latter case the IN THE “ CLOSING ” DEPARTMENT. patterns are afterwards bound with a thin, square-edged bead of brass or mild steel. So far as patterns for soles are concerned, they are only of such a temporary nature as will be sufficient for the smith to shape his knife to. Bottom leather is “died out ” by a “ pressman ” by means of a shaped knife under the buffer of a powerful press ; whilst the upper leather is cut out by hand on a board. Linings, facings, and button bits are cut out by either process, the first of these several at a time. The cutter is called a “clicker,” because in using his slender he has to so adapt his cutting of the skin as to get the best results. The area of skins can be taken by a machine such as is depicted in our illustration. This is the type of machine used by the firm of Smith, Faire & Co., of Park Vale Works, Leicester, manufacturers of women’s and girls’ goods, to whom I am indebted for the photographs from which the accompanying engravings were obtained. What the clicker leaves after cutting from his pattern is known as offal, which, when not suitable for cutting tongues, toecaps, etc., or for making children’s