15 DECEMBER 1838, Page 18

FRENCH AND ENGLISH BOOTS.

A ctusasst boot was till lately, a distinguishing mark of a true Englishman abroad : now, travellers get their feet neatly fitted in France, while all at home who regard personal appearance prefer French boots ; and the predilection of the fair sex for shoes of Paris manufacture is notorious. This competition has had the effect of improving the home-made article ; but still it is easier to bawl for prohibitory duties than to beat the foreign workmen out of the market. An intelligent cordwainer, named JAMES DEVLIN- an experienced workman, of a literary turn—has put forth a little book on The Boot and Shoe Trade in France ; recommending to his brethren of the craft the adoption of the French method, which he describes with technical minuteness; and denouncing in his "strictures on the character of English upper-leathers," the hurried and careless performance of the processes of the tanner and the currier. This iuferiority in the dressing of the hide he attributes—very justly—to the protecting-duty of 30 per cent, enjoyed by the English leather-manufacturer; yet, with singular inconsistency, he calls for equal protection to the maker of boots and shoes! This obliquity of perception is a charac- teristic of all class interests. The proper remedy for both evils would be the abolition, not the equalization, ol the ditties on foreign skins and boots. The Corn-laws have pinched John Bull's toes as well as his belly ; and, to use Mr. DEVLIN'S own words, " the pinch has come upon the entire sinews of industry."

The air of philosophic gravity with which the worthy disciple of St. Crispin treats his subject, is highly amusing: and his in- formation is not only interesting to the producer, but to the con- sumer. The following statistical facts are curious : istitiOCQ, it should be premised is the HOBY of Boulogne, as CONCANON is of Paris; and both have shops in London.

IMPORTATION OF FRENCH BOOTS AND SHOES.

I may say, speaking of the men's boot and shoe trade, that Lehocq makes now, on an average, for British consumption, about ten thousand pairs of boots an a year, and about two thousand pairs of shoes and pumps; that the two

Gradelles make between them, about two thousand pairs of boots for British consumption, and from seven to eight hundred pairs of shoes and pumps; aria that Mackey and others in Boulogne may make together from two to three thousand pairs of boots more, and the proportional number of shoes and pumps; or, no doubt, a far greater proportion of shoes; the more straightened class of purchasers generally wearing the most shoes. I might say again, and in all these particulars my information and my inquiries have been very close, that Concancon may yearly make for British consumption between four and five thousand pairs of boots, though not many shoes, perhaps not more than about five or six hundred pairs annually ; while again, the rest of the boot and shoe- makers of Paris, which it would be needless to attempt even the slightest enu- meration of, may conjointly dispose of to the same connexion about twelve or fourteen thousand pairs of beets in the twelve mouths, and better than half that number of awes.

Thus, then, at this estimate, in Boulogne and Paris alone, the British pur- chase of hoots would amount altogether to fully thirty-two thousand pairs as. lewdly, and in shoes to upwards of twelve thousand pairs annually ; and then, what average shall we put against the other great resorting-places, Calais, St. Omer, Dieppe, Havre, Tours, &c. ?

Cheapness is only one reason why French boots are preferred: the prices of the fashionable shopkeepers, however, are much higher than those of the best chamber workmen in Paris; where you may get a sound and well-made pair of boots for 20 francs : cheap ready-made bouts are as worthless there as in London. IN hat Mr. DEVLIN says on the subject of leather, accounts for the difference between a French boot that draws on like a glove, and an ordinary English one that confines the foot as in a vice while it hangs about the leg like a clog. We suspect, however, that there is more in the "make,' after all : the French operative is a bit of an artist, and takes pride in his work, while the English artisan is a mere mechanical drudge, without method or enthusiasm, and who thinks only of getting through his work and receiving his wages. Let us hope that "Mechanics Institutes" and "Schools of Design 'S will remedy this : a few years ago the idea of a shoe- maker studying the anatomy of the foot would have been laughed at—the necessity is not generally recognized even yet, as too many corns can testify.