By the English method, the leather is not, as a rule, transferred immediately from one pit to another, as it is found preferable to lay the hides in pile for a few hours, by which means the great weight helps to force the tannin through them. By draining the hides, they are in good condition for the absorption of the next tan liquor. The English method of handling is too slow for most of the American tanneries, where the greater proportion of the hides are cut straight down the centre to form "sides," as they are technically known. In America, the pieces of leather, whether hides, butts, bellies, or shoulders, are often tied together and transferred from one pit to another by means of a skeleton reel, worked either by hand or mechanically. The latest type of reel is a great improvement on the old reel. The cost of manual labour in many English tanneries is very great, in view of the fact that the hides have to pass through many pits, and the work of transferring the hides from one pit to another is done entirely by hand. It seems that there is plenty of scope for mechanical ingenuity in overcoming this difficulty, and it may yet be found possible to construct a perforated brass platform, connected with a crane, by which the whole of the hides could be lifted out in a second, left to drain for half an hour or more, and then bodily transferred to, and lowered in, the next pit. Naturally, it is easier, and quite within the bounds of practicability, to raise the hides from suspenders by mechanical power, as it would not be difficult to fix a stout cross-beam to the pulley from which the hides are suspended. The leather can be safely treated with very astringent tannin in the last series of pits, and the use of strong extracts is, therefore, a common practice at that stage, not only to give solidity and firmness to the leather, but to increase its weight. It would be quite fatal to the production of good leather if strong tannins were used in the early stages of the process, because the surface on both sides would tan quickly, the grain of the hide would be badly drawn owing to the sensitiveness of gelatine to astringent solutions, and it would be impossible to make the tannin penetrate the hide. The final product would be a half-tanned leather which would be extremely brittle and poor in quality; in fact, quite unsuitable for sole leather. Despite the well-known axiom that the vegetable tannage (but not the mineral) must proceed slowly and gradually in the early stages of the process if the hides are to be properly tanned, the modern tendency is to speed up the tanning, with the result that, in some cases, the so-called sole leather is really not fit for the purpose for which it is intended. The root of the evil is the desperate attempt made by many boot manufacturers to produce lower-priced boots than those of their competitors.