INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



them to the factories, where they were finished and sent 

 to the market packed in wooden boxes. Thus the 

 industry developed and prospered and was carried on 

 without any further improvement in methods, until 

 the introduction of machinery a little more than a 

 half century ago. 



THE APPLICATION OF MACHINERY 



"The first machine which proved itself of any prac- 

 tical value was the leather-rolling machine, which 

 came into use about 1845 and with which it was said 

 'a man could do in a minute what would require half 

 an hour's hard work with a lapstone and hammer.' 

 This was closely followed by the wax-thread sewing- 

 machine, which greatly reduced the time required for 

 sewing together the different parts that formed the 

 upper, and the buffing-machine, for removing the 

 grain from sole leather. Then came a machine which 

 made pegs very cheaply and with great rapidity, and 

 this in turn was followed by a hand-power machine for 

 driving pegs. In 1855 there was introduced the split- 

 ting-machine, for reducing sole leather to a uniform 

 thickness. Peg-making and power-making machines 

 were soon perfected and there had appeared a dieing- 

 out machine, which was used cutting soles, taps, and 

 heels by the use of different sized dies. The year 

 1860 saw the introduction of the McKay sewing-ma- 

 chine, which has perhaps done more to revolutionize 

 the manufacture of shoes than any other single ma- 

 chine. The shoe to be sewed was placed over a horn 



