| Stockings exported. | 1848. | 1850. | 1852. | 1853. |
| Cotton | 77,095 | 104,434 | 243,994 | 461,494 |
| Silk | 24,324 | 20,256 | 25,140 | 23,579 |
| Worsted | 40,413 | 74,482 | 117,349 | 261,140 |
| Silk mixed with other material | 393,327 | 4,705 | 10,464 | |
| 141,871 | 202,499 | 391,188 | 756,677 |
The hosiery of Saxony was superseding, a few years ago, from its extreme cheapness, the shipment to the United States of goods made at Nottingham. The cheapness in Saxony was produced, not by the employment of large capital and the application of the most expensive machinery, but by the miserably low wages of labour. It is stated by Mr. Porter that, in 1837, a man of Saxony, with his wife and three children, working incessantly at the stocking-loom, could only earn 5s. 4d. weekly. In the principal manufacturing districts of that country, the food of the artisans is of the coarsest kind, and of the most limited supply. The comparative ease and comfort of the workers in our hosiery districts is one of the most satisfactory proofs that invention is as great a benefit to the labourer as to the capitalist.
As the nether-stocks of our ancestors were for the great and wealthy, so were their Hats. Old Stubbes writes, "Sometimes they use them sharp on the crown, pearking up like the spear or shaft of a steeple, standing a quarter of a yard above the crown of their heads, some more, some less, as please the phantasies of their inconstant minds. Other some be flat and broad on the crown, like the battlements of a house. Another sort have round crowns, sometimes with one kind of band, sometimes with another, now black, now white, now russet, now red, now green, now yellow, now this, now that, never content with one colour or fashion two days to an end. And thus in vanity they spend the Lord his treasure, consuming their golden years and silver days in wickedness and sin. And as the fashions be rare and strange, so is the stuff whereof their hats be made divers also; for some are of silk, some of velvet, some of taffeta, some of sarsenet, some of wool, and, which is more curious, some of a certain kind of fine hair; these they call beaver hats, of 20, 30, or 40 shillings price, fetched from beyond the seas, from whence a great sort of other vanities do come besides." Here, then, we see that the beaver hat was in those days an article of great price. The commonalty had their "plain statute caps" of wool. In our time the beaver hat was the common wear of the middle classes until the last few years, when the cheaper silk hat became almost universal. We import from France some plush for making hats; but much of this silk material is also prepared in our own factories. Hats have therefore become intimately associated with the material produced by the loom.
The manufacture of Gloves is connected, in a very large department, with the hosiery manufactory. The use of thread gloves and cotton gloves has had the effect, in some degree, of lessening the consumption of leather gloves. The importation of leather gloves and mitts was prohibited until 1825. We now import three million pairs annually; and the home manufacture, instead of being ruined as was predicted, was never more prosperous. The French gloves, once so superior to our own, have improved the English, by the natural force of competition; and the manufacturers not only purchase better leather than formerly, but the cottage-workwomen that labour in the glove districts have become neater and more careful sewers. The consumption of gloves has ceased to be exclusively for the rich. The perfumed and embroidered glove of the 16th century is no longer required. The use of gloves has become universal amongst both sexes of the middle classes. The female domestic would think it unbecoming to go to church without her gloves; and the well-dressed artisan holds it nothing effeminate to use a covering for his hands, which his forefathers thought a distinguishing appurtenance of the high-born and luxurious.
Gloves for the great.
Our home-manufacture of Boots and Shoes has received an immense impulse from foreign competition. The number of men's and women's boots and shoes which we import is not much above two hundred thousand. But we also import six hundred thousand boot-fronts from France, which our own people work up. Although the boot and shoe manufacture can scarcely be considered a factory process, it has now adapted itself to certain localities, such as Northampton. The articles made in the provinces were originally distinguished for their cheapness merely. They now unite the characters of goodness and cheapness. This chiefly arises from the trade being carried on, at Northampton especially, upon a large scale—upon a principle the very reverse of the old familiar spectacle of the cobbler in his stall.
