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Show LONDON COBBLERS. A man who is a cobbler is often one who has been a very expert shoemaker, but he is much oftener one who has never been an expert. When a workman finds that he can no longer make so fast as the new generation, or seize with their readiness upon each improvement, he often takes to the repairing; and were it not that he is generally too far fallen into the sere and yellow leaf, such a man would be very valuable to his employers. From his past experience and skill he knows exactly what can be done to boots and shoes, and how to do it, and does not spoil the article in putting it together after he has partially pulled it to pieces, whereas less skillful hands often injure the shape. But the majority of them have never been craftsmen at all, they are men who have been brought up by their fathers to work at the stool as soon as they were old enough to do anything; they have learned to mend, but never to make, and are cobblers, therefore, pure and simple. Some, too, are the unfortunate parish apprentices, the bonus of five pounds with whom was enough to tempt some "little" man to take them - a man who either could not or would not teach them much, or who, caring chiefly to get some profit out of their labor, set them at once to the commonest and easiest work, and kept them at it. Of course, the lazy and irregular habits which seem to be indigenous to the tribe, flourish especially in these poor fellows; some, however, of the more provident among them - save the mark! - take the precaution of enrolling themselves in the militia. It is hardly too much to say that a larger percentage of working shoemakers of all descriptions are found in the ranks of the militia than is furnished by any other trade. Not all cobblers, however, are irregular and lazy, some men will work all their lives for one shop, and their sons will follow them. I have even known three generations working at the same time for one firm. Cobbling cannot be an absolutely unhealthy calling, because we see so many old cobblers, and these very often are merry enough old fellows, yet if a man has a tendency to consumption, the cramped position on the seat soon confirms it. Few persons give a thought to the uncomfortable, almost painful nature of a shoemaker's work; but let any moderately tall man, unused to it, sit for a few hours on the low stool, and he will have more sympathy with its occupant in future, and will cease to wonder at the everlasting short pipe. Shoemakers are generally reckoned a quick and shrewd although a rather narrow-minded race, and I think this estimate a tolerably correct one. An instance of sharpness occurs to me which does not redound very much to the credit of the craft - it is to be observed that they usually speak of themselves as the craft, or his craftsmen. It is briefly this: A house in Whitechapel did a large trade in exporting ready-made boots and shoes, chiefly to the West Indies, and of course employed a great number of hands. A man would receive the material for half a dozen pairs, and would bring them back made up, one heel tucked into the front of the other boot - they were all bluchers - and squeezed tightly down, as some of my readers must have seen them. The men noticed that when the foreman took them in he merely counted the pairs, and then, just glancing at the lower boot, to see that the work looked all right, threw them into a corner of the warehouse, from whence they were taken and packed into hogsheads or chests and sent off. Probably some one among the workers sharper than his fellows, first caught the idea, and communicated it to the rest. But, be that as it may, it is very certain that the whole of one consignment of boots, when arrived at Jamaica, were found to be deficient in each pair of one heel and half of one sole. The rascals knew that of the boot which was tucked into its fellow only a portion of the sole could be seen; the remainder they never worked on at all, and so the consignment was worthless. It would be too much to expect of men very imperfectly educated, as cobblers are, and with so little to elevate them in the circumstances by which they are surrounded (that they themselves are to a great extent responsible for these circumstances has nothing to do with the question, which is simply one of fact) - it would be folly to expect a very high standard of practical or conversational morality. Forty years ago the working cobblers, and shoemakers too, of London might have been described as amongst the lowest of its denizens. Their language was foul to a degree, and their habits were almost in keeping; but a change has taken and is taking place. As regards their professional progress, the influx of French and German shoe-makers has put the regular craftsman very much on his mettle, and they, as with other English artisans, find that to keep the cream of the work to themselves more brain and ingenuity must be called into play, and this, with other influences, has extended downward. Then education has become so cheap and so common that his children shall have none at all - apart from all compulsion - when every child around is learning something; and so each addition to the ranks brings a worker far better educated, poorly though that may be, than would have been deemed in keeping with his calling forty years ago. At the West End of London this change was very visible, and even in the slums of Whitechapel an alteration for the better has set in; and now that decent lodgings and more wholesome workshops are becoming the rule, the progress will be very rapid. -Harper's Weekly. |