rip in the sewing, than if put together with hemp and wax; and being cheaper than shoes, are in more general use, although there are few people, particularly females, who can afford it, who do not keep shoes for Sunday or holyday wear. The brogue-makers pride themselves in the antiquity of their trade; and boast over the shoemakers, whom they consider a spurious graft on their most noble art.” Sir Walter Scott, in his “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,” has noticed a peculiarity in the make of the “original” shoe of that country, in the notes to the ballad of the “Souters,” or shoemakers of Selkirk, who achieved immortality in song, by their bravery in aiding their sovereign, James IV., in the fatal field of Flodden; he says “the single-soled shoon,” made by the souters of Selkirk, were a sort of brogues, with a single thin sole; the purchaser himself performing the further operation of sewing on another of thick leather. The rude and imperfect state of this manufacture, sufficiently evinces the antiquity of the craft. He notices “a singular custom observed at conferring the freedom of the burgh. Four or five bristles, such as are used by shoemakers, are attached to the seal of the burgess ticket. The new-made burgess must dip in his wine, and pass through his mouth, in token of respect for the souters of Selkirk. This ceremony is on no account dispensed with.” And when Sir Walter afterward adds, in a note that he has “himself the honor to be a souter of Selkirk,” we may feel the additional zest that would give to the chorus of their old trade-song:-- “Up wi’ the souters of Selkirk, And down wi’ the Earl of Home; And up wi’ a’ the braw lads, That sew the single-soled shoon.” CHAPTER IV. COMMENCEMENT OF THE TRADE. At what period of the world the trade in question became a separate means of obtaining a livelihood, it is now impossible to say. At first no doubt, every one made their own shoes; the mere wrapping up of the foot in a piece of flexible skin being matter of little difficulty, but according to Rosseline, whom we quoted in a former chapter, shoemakers’ shops existed in Egypt at a very early period. That it became, however, in a very early age, a trade, we may infer from the fact of it being an injunction of the Jewish social system, that every one, no matter what his rank or wealth, should be compelled to acquire the means of self-support by an acquaintance with some art or other, the better to secure himself against the adverse vicissitudes of life. (See note on Mark vi. 3, in Pictorial Bible, vol. 3.) This obligation naturally affords reason for belief in a variety of professions; and the shoe, from its constant requisition, may, therefore, be supposed to have given rise to one of the earliest.