r 



296 



GOODYEAR ON GUM -ELASTIC. 



spring for each suspender. When this fabric is cut up longitu- 

 dinally, in strips about two inches wide, one end of these strips 

 being split about five inches, and the button-holes being punched, 

 the suspenders are finished. See plate , fig. 



The other article of improved suspenders or braces is made of 

 woolen felt, in the first stage of its manufacture into felt cloths, 

 before it is sufficiently fulled for the ordinary kind of cloth, or 

 while it is mid-way between the fleece, or bat of wool, and felt. 

 In this state a sheet of gum-elastic is forced into the felt fleece, 

 and while it is passing through the calenders, with the sheet of 

 gum, the fibres of the wool are all drawn one way ; consequently, 

 when cut up cross-wise, the felt admits of almost as great ten- 

 sion as the gum, and when cut up, the suspender which is 

 made is evenly and pleasantly elastic the whole length of it, 

 and is finished when the button-holes are cut, as represented 

 figs. 8 and 9. 



Before being cut up the goods are perforated. They are 

 beautifully ornamented with the same facility as those before 

 described. 



SUSPENDER ENDS. 



In the economy and comfort to be derived from gum-elastic 

 suspenders, much depends upon the ends, which are now more 

 than formerly made and put in the market a separate article 

 from the suspender. And what is altogether in favor of these 

 elastic ends is, that they can be attached to the cheapest, as well 

 as to the most expensive and fanciful sorts. However cheap 

 and unyielding the web may be, if only a list or piece of cloth, 

 it will form a suspender sufficiently elastic, when the elastic end 

 is attached ; and in case of damage or loss, the end can be re- 

 placed at a trifling expense. 



The ends represented by figs. 10 and 11, plate xviii., are made of 

 stayed compound ; 12 and 13 are made of perforated stayed com- 

 pound. Those represented by figs. 15 and 16 are made of vulcan- 



