It may seem, at first thought, as we look at a boot after it is made, that the leather will accommodate itself to the shape of the foot with the greatest ease. It appears perfectly pliable, ready to take any form or place that the foot may give to it; and this is true to a great extent, but it is not so entirely. When the boot is made the leather is _stretched_, and worked into a definite shape—that of the last. When a foot large enough to fill it is put inside, if it be of a different form there will be more or less force exerted to change the shape and adapt it to that of the foot. This is one reason of the difficulty often experienced the first time, or first few times, a new boot is worn. The resistance, pressure, and friction may be considerable, or only slight, with a corresponding effect. This misplacement of the instep is true of the ordinary right-and-left lasts, and it is necessarily still more marked in the _straight_ lasts on which the great majority of ladies’ boots and shoes are made. If women’s insteps do not suffer from this difficulty more than men’s, it is because they wear softer material, and boots fitting less tightly than those of men. The latter have an advantage of the former in this respect, as in some others; for while they have right-and-left lasts wholly, with ladies the straight last is the rule, the other the exception. As long as woman does not have her boots and shoes made _right and left_, she is losing one of her “rights,” and subjecting her feet to an “oppression” which, unless they can bear a great deal, they will be likely to complain of in an unpleasant way. And this right is not so unimportant, but that it will be found best to give it a little attention, although the remonstrating “subject” may be in a very humble position. The best thing to be done for feet with sore insteps is to have lasts made to fit them, and their coverings made by some one who knows the real source of the trouble. The sore will generally disappear soon after removing the pressure. The prevention of it is a much better thing, and will come with a more general understanding of the foot’s nature, and with the more correctly-shaped lasts and more perfect skilfulness which that knowledge will give to the shoe manufacturer.