The Book of the Feet: A History of Boots and Shoes

by Joseph Sparkes Hall

The length and the width are now every-day affairs, but the judgment of fitting is another thing, and here is the true skill.

A last fitted up to the length and width may do or it may not; it may do by chance, or fail of necessity; but if fitting be anything, it is a skilful adaptation of the last to the true form and requirements of the foot generally.

The outlines, 1, 2, 3, will show the direction and bearing of three different feet, neither of which would be comfortably fitted, if the length and width were the only points attended to. For No. 1 we require a straight-formed last, with an equal proportion of wood on each side the centre line. No. 2 requires considerable fulness of the inside joint, to allow for a bunion; the great toe requires a bed for the ball to rest in; the waist must be very hollow, else the quarter will bag; while No. 3 requires a wide flat tread and great thickness of wood, for the toes which are covered with corns.

Many persons have an idea that right and left shoes are a comparatively modern invention, but the illusions and illustrations to the contrary, in pages 39-44 disprove this; straight lasts are decidedly a modern invention, and notwithstanding what many persons say to the contrary, are decidedly inferior to a well-formed right and left pair.

The great evil has been that all right and left lasts, of late have been crooked. It was thought in abandoning the straight last with its faults, that a perfect fit could be secured in rights and lefts; and from one extreme, as is generally the case in fashion, the opposite was adopted, and a twisted right and left made the matter still worse.

It was thought nothing could be right and left but that which took a decided turn, and the consequence has been that for years lasts have been made with an ugly twist inward, where no wood was required, and on the outside, where the toes with all their tenderness and liability to injury have required thickness and breadth, nothing has been left.

I have pointed out this fault to last-makers a thousand times—have stood by them at their work, and have seen the part—where, of all things, I wished the room to be left—cruelly sliced off, or rasped away: the consequence to the unfortunate wearer of a shoe or boot made on that last must have been, months of torture.

Some workmen, however, have at last seen the error they have all along been committing, and adopted the improved form, wondering how it was never thought of before.