BOOTMAKING INDUSTRY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 3, Issue 893, 7 October 1881, Page 2

BOOTMAKING INDUSTRY.

IOCAI ENTERPRISE. The above industry is making very mtf]J\ strides in Masterton, onr tradesmen pit \ that line being evidently determines keep up to the times and not he run out ,L of the field by larger factories in other places. We had the satisfaction recently of recording the fact that Messrs Parkes AND Peterson had increased their business facilities so largely that they were employing nine hands at their establishment. We yesterday had the pleasure of inspecting a bootiaaking plant just imported by Mr W. P. Fellinoham, ex Wairoa, from London, the first introduced . into this district. There are among it machines for cutting out uppers, sewing them, and inserting elastics; a treadle punch for making eylet holes and treadle eylet machine, which perform their work quickly, easily, and efficiently. A large machine performs the operation of cutting out soles and heels with the greatest precision and speed, a very extensive assortment of moulds of the various sizes and shapes being used with it. The leather, instead of undergoing the slow and laborious process of being hammered out on the old-fashioned lap-stone, is now passed through a pair of powerful rollers, to which is attached a heavy weight to regulate the pressure, and the leather is reduced in thickness and rendered as hrmas required by one operation. The soles are then passed through another simple and easily-worked machine, which duea away with the use of tho awl for making holes for the pegs, this instrument making them in a very rapid and easy fashion { and at perfectly regular distances. The workmen are accommodated now with iron lasts, fixed on revolving stands, for pegging or rivetting, and are thus enabled to stand instead of sitting at '.heir work making the trade a much more healthy one than when they were compelled to sloop over their tasks during the whole procoßS of bootmaking. A machine called a " split lift" cutter is also another labor and material eesnomiaer. Mr Fellingham has now a plant which will enable him to tun out boots of better quality and as cheap, if not cheaper, than those imported to the district from England or other places. _ We congratulate Mr Fellingham upon hi'B foresight, ai d trust that his outlay will prove as profitable to him as his enterprise in importing the first hootmaking machinery in the district deserves.