Produced by Richard Tonsing, Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) THE BOOT AND SHOE MANUFACTURERS’ ASSISTANT AND GUIDE. CONTAINING A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TRADE. History of India-Rubber and Gutta-Percha, AND THEIR APPLICATION TO THE MANUFACTURE OF BOOTS AND SHOES. FULL INSTRUCTIONS IN THE ART, WITH DIAGRAMS AND SCALES, ETC., ETC. VULCANIZATION AND SULPHURIZATION, ENGLISH AND AMERICAN PATENTS. WITH AN ELABORATE TREATISE ON TANNING. “SUTOR ULTRA CREPIDAM.” COMPILED AND EDITED BY W. H. RICHARDSON, JR. “Give good hearing to those who give the first information in business.”—BACON. BOSTON: HIGGINS, BRADLEY & DAYTON, 20 WASHINGTON ST. 1858. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1858, by W. H. RICHARDSON, JR., In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PREFACE. [Illustration] In preparing the following pages, the author has aimed to supply a want hitherto unsupplied. No work devoted to the wants of the Boot and Shoe-maker, manufacturer, or merchant, has ever been compiled. Able articles upon the “Trade,” statistical statements, and general comments upon matters of interest local in their character, and having particular reference to the state of the times in which they were written, have been published, perused and forgotten. But no work, containing a history of this important mechanical interest, together with instructions in the science of the Boot and Shoe manufacture, has ever been written. The Author does not flatter himself that he has, by any means, exhausted so fruitful a subject, but that he has prepared and compiled important facts and rules, and submitted valuable suggestions which are correct in theory, and practical in their application, he has not a doubt.