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Show Miscellany No Wooden Shoes Yet. The admonition from a shoe dealer's convention in Chicago that the United States will become "the next wooden shoe nation" unless a substitute for leather Is developed within the next two years will not scare Americans out of any of their normal growth. Wooden shoes are not half bad, according to some who have tried them. If our considerably deforested continent still affords the raw material tor an adequate supply of sabots, we can cheer up and wait for the high cost of wooden shoes to take effect. But it can scarcely come to that, so long as it needs only a leather substitute to save the day. Here, at least, the country is not caught wholly unprepared. It did not take the Kuropean war to advise Americans that every cow nas only so many hides. The automobile business, with its enormous and unexpected demand de-mand for cushion casings, attended to all that long ago, as the public was made painfully aware by the ever onward and upward tiend of shoe prices. Naturally, leather substitutes were produced pro-duced with neatness and publicity. Kx-isting Kx-isting articles of the kind were improved ! and new ones introduced. High-grade i furniture and vehicles may now be pur- 1 chased without depleting The leather supply sup-ply by one square inch. Imitation leather is no longer in disfavor. For all purposes pur-poses of upholstery some of the more successful substitutes answer every requirement, re-quirement, looking quite as well as cowhide cow-hide or iiheepskin and very likely giving quite as goad service. Without regard to the question of price, many buyers now pref-ir couches or motor ca rs covered cov-ered with other material than leather, if only for the public-spirited reason that there is no sense in wasting the makings of the people's simy. But the effort tu improve on the hides of hearts has not stopped with upholstery materials. The coun t ry's market s ai-r.ow ai-r.ow supplied with shoes soled with si:h-stitules. si:h-stitules. credibly as'-t-i ted to lie he: tvr than sole leather, if it proves necessary to make the top. vamp aud oilier portions por-tions of something besides leather, undoubtedly un-doubtedly that something will l.p forthcoming forth-coming in all desirable (pinlity. qt-antity and variety of color. Cleveland Leader. |