165 
are of the kind called at the present day looped stitch, or button- 
hole stitch. The material employed for sewing was fine gut 
of three strands, an article still employed for the same pur- 
pose by many uncivilized nations.* The Roman shoes found 
in London, and figured by Roach Smith in his Roman 
London, exhibit a considerable amount of taste in their 
ornamentation, as well as neatness in sewing, so that we may 
infer care in the one case and variety of design in the other 
were as necessary to practise by the shoemakers of Roman 
times as those of the present, and that the occurrence of 
either is no proof of modern manufacture. 
A very extensive and interesting collection of ancient 
shoes is preserved in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy, 
all of which have been obtained from the bogs of that country, 
and are ably described by Sir Wm. Wilde in his catalogue of 
the above Museum ; but with none of these do our York- 
shire shoes exactly agree. Although I will not venture to 
declare they are Roman, yet, as they bear in many respects 
a closer resemblance to those of Roman manufacture than 
they do to those from the Irish bogs, especially the caliga 
worn by the military, there is a probability of their having 
been such. It may be well to draw attention to the general 
make of the fonner, of which there were five or six kinds : 
as the caliga, almost essentially a military shoe ; the crepida, 
or civilian shoe ; calceus, or close shoe ; the cothurni, or boot ; 
socci, or woman's loose kind of shoe ; and the campagi, which, 
however, appears to have been of foreign origin. 
Bruce, in his description of the Roman waU, relates that 
a considerable number of shoes were found September, 1852, 
in forts on the Roman wall, and their vicinity, at a depth of 
nearly seven feet, at Bremenium ; and at Whiteley Castle, in 
the remains of a Roman dunghill, amongst other refuse, was 
found a large store of old shoes, or sandals ; the soles were aU 
* WUde's Catalogue, 276. 
