I note with some melancholy, in the account of an
inquest on a shoeblack, that the dead man was spoken of as one of the last survivors in a disappearing industry. There is matter here for an interesting investigation into social customs. Will shoeblacks be missed if they do disappear completely ? Does anyone have his boots cleaned at the street-corners nowadays ? Mudless, or relatively mudless, asphalte and wood-paved streets must have cut the bootblack's ground from under him, though no doubt he still plies his trade outside one or two of the great termini. Why America, where boots are never cleaned in hotels or private houses, and the shoe-shine parlour or the shoe-shine man on the side- walk is an indispensable institution, should have decided to treat its shoes so differently I have never understood. Probably there is some explanation if it could be un- earthed. * * * *
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