A Short Treatise on Boots and Shoes, Ancient and Modern

Punctuation has been made consistent.
The positioning of the 11 illustrations has been changed slightly to accommodate each one between paragraphs, on every second page.

Walter H. Goater.
Presented by
J. & J. Slater,
1185 Broadway,
N. W. Cor. of 28th Street. New York.

As far back as we can trace the early history of man, under civilized conditions of life, we find that shoes of some kind have been worn.
It has been discovered, by means of paintings on the walls of Thebes, that shoemaking formed a distinct and quite lucrative trade away back in the reign of Thothmes III ., some fifteen hundred years before Christ, so that followers of the awl and last can truthfully boast of the great antiquity of their profession.
The material chiefly employed in the manufacture of shoes, from the earliest times to the present, has been leather, though stuffs of various kinds and colors have entered into their composition at different periods.