A good Wellington boot of the softest calf-leather, the sole moderately thick, the waist hollow and well-arched, firm and yet flexible, cut to go on without dragging all your might with boothooks, and made with an intermediate sole of felt to prevent creaking, is the best boot for general wear that can be made. The varnished or patent leather Wellington, is a handsome article of the same class, and is generally made with a tongue, the legs being of colored morocco leather. It is now brought to a great state of perfection, and our bootclosers are the most perfect in the matter of fancy-closing and stabbing, in Europe. For many years, this department of the trade has been quite distinct from shoemaking, or boot-making. Originally, closing, making the boot, shoe, and slipper, and even ladies’ and children’s shoes, was the work of one individual; now they are separate branches, and the closer has not only risen in this country, but his work is universally celebrated from this circumstance, for its strength and beauty. Perhaps nothing in the way of workmanship is equal to what is termed _blind-stabbing_: the leather, held between the workman’s knees, is pierced with a small pointed awl, which he holds together with the flax or silken thread that is to follow, in his right hand; his left on the inside of the bootleg, and _in the dark_, in an instant sends through the bristle, and receives through the same little hole the point of the right hand one; the thread is drawn, the stitch formed, quickly another hole is made, and the same operation repeated. Nothing in the way of sewing or stitching, can equal this blind-stabbing, one half of which is done in the dark, the skill being acquired by constant practice, and the extreme delicacy of the touch; from twenty to thirty stitches have been done to the inch in this way, and in _prize-work_ as many as sixty, every stitch being clear, sharply defined, beautifully regular. THE ELASTIC BOOT FOR GENTLEMEN, is a light and easy article; it does not encumber the leg, and, unlike the half-and-half Clarence, with its valve of folded leather, and all kinds of holes and contrivances, it fits the ankle like a stocking, and readily yields and elasticates to every motion of the feet and legs. [Illustration] The cut represents an elastic boot with a golosh of leather all round, the upper part being cloth, silk, prunella, cashmere, kid, or the silk-stocking net; the material generally determining the kind of boot it is to be, and the thickness of the sole. When it is required that the elastic boot should have the appearance of a Wellington, it is made entirely of leather, spring and all, and thus made, when on the foot, has every appearance of it, as no join is ever detected above the instep, when the trowsers accidentally rise a little higher than the wearer of a would-be Wellington sometimes wishes them.