2245. Do you say that your profit upon your drapery goods is calculated at about 15 per cent.?-I should say about 15 to 25 per cent.; that is the ordinary retail profit over all. 2246. Supposing you were to make a profit upon your hosiery goods, what profit would you expect to get from your drapery goods?-I understand that in the south the profit in the drapery trade is generally estimated at 15 per cent. on an average. 2247. And you make it vary here, according to the different goods, at from 15 to 25 per cent.?-Yes. 2248. Is that in order to cover your risk upon the hosiery?-Yes; I should say so. It would be much better for us to sell for cash down, with a smaller price, than to sell at a higher nominal price, and to lie out of the money for perhaps a couple of years, and perhaps run the risk of making a bad debt with the hosiery. I may add that we sometimes do make bad debts to a pretty large amount. Some years ago I lost £150 by one customer. 2249. Was he a purchaser of hosiery?-Yes. 2250. Show me any entry in this book relating to a shawl made for you?-There [showing] is 7 oz. black, which was given to a woman for a shawl which she is at present making. Here is another, Mary Greig, who made a black shawl, and returned it. 2251. Does the book show how much was the payment usually got for the making of it?-She came back on 23d January, and she is credited with the amount. She had 2s. to get when she got the work to do. 2252. And she has now 7s.; but the difference between 2s. and 7s. does not show the payment to her?-No; because she might have got more goods at the time, and there would be nothing put down in the book then except the actual balance. 2253. You don't know what goods she got?-No; but I have no doubt the shop-girl will be able to tell. 2254. Can you tell me what payment would be made to a worker of that kind for such a shawl?-I think perhaps 10s. It depends a good deal on the size of thread and on the style of knitting. Of two shawls of the same size, and having the same weight of wool in them, one may be worth 2s. 6d. more for knitting than another, on account of the pattern the girl might put into it, and the style in which it was done. 2255. Then that shawl would be sent south, I presume?-We might sell it here. 2256. What do you consider the value of the material for that shawl, 9 oz.?-That black worsted would have cost us in England about 8s. a pound. 2257. Then the worsted would come to about 4s. 6d. as the value of the material?-Yes. 2258. And 10s. for the work: that would be 14s. 6d.?-Yes. 2259. And 6d. for dressing, or 15s. altogether?-Yes. 2260. At what price would that shawl be invoiced to a customer in the south?-It would depend upon whether it was to a wholesale house or to a retail customer. We have to sell these goods at a lower price to wholesale houses in the south, who have again to sell them, than we would sell them for to others.