“Gold! she saw at her golden foot,
The peer whose tree had an olden root,
The proud, the great, the learned to boot,
The handsome, the gay, and the witty—
The man of science, of arms, of art,
The man who deals but at pleasure’s mart,
And the man who deals in the city.”
(1.) Many are the hints thrown out by some of our old herbalists, in their quaint language, as to the power of some of our indigenous herbs. One which has certainly some slight influence on corns, and is a great favorite among the popular writers on corns, is the common house-leek, the sedum murale. This herb which is found growing on the tops of old garden-walls and upon the roofs of houses, has a leaf of considerable thickness, owing to the large quantity of cellular tissue between its upper and lower lamina, in whose interstices is found considerable juice, which abounds with hydrochloric acid in a free and uncombined state. Owing, doubtless, to the presence of the acid, the juice acts upon the indurated mass, softening and destroying the surface, but leaving the lower parts as great a source of mischief as ever, and sometimes converting the corn into a more hardened mass than it was before.—The Diseases of the Feet.
(2.) “There is another way of disposing of a corn,” says Mr. Erasmus Wilson, “which I have been in the habit of recommending to my friends; it is effectual, and obviates the necessity for the use of the knife. Have some common sticking-plaster spread on buff leather; cut a piece sufficiently large to cover the com and skin around, and have a hole punched in the middle of exactly the size of the summit of the corn. Now take some common soda of the oil-shops, and make it into a paste, with about half its bulk of soap; fill the hole in the plaster with this paste, and cover it with a piece of sticking-plaster. Let this be done at bed-time, and in the morning remove the plaster, and wash the corn with warm water. If this operation be repeated every second, third, or fourth day, for a short time, the corn will be removed. The only precaution required to be used is to avoid causing pain; and so long as any tenderness occasioned by the remedy lasts, it must not be repeated. When the corn is reduced within reasonable bounds by either of the above modes, or when it is only threatening, and has not yet risen to the height of being a sore annoyance, the best of all remedies is a piece of soft buff leather, spread with soap-plaster, and pierced in the centre with a hole exactly the size of the summit of the corn.”
(3.) It is usually the custom to soak the corns previously to cutting them. As this is not always convenient, the following method of rendering the corn soft well serve instead. Take a strip of wash-leather, of size sufficient to cover the corn, and a strip of oiled silk rather larger; wet the leather and apply it to the corn, then cover it with the oiled silk, which will prevent the leather from becoming dry. Keep this on for a few days, wetting the leather two or three times a day. This will render the corn so soft that the razor may be applied without causing pain.
CHAPTER VII.
HISTORY OF BOOTS AND SHOES IN THE UNITED STATES.
THE first settlers of New England, Virginia, and other British colonies in America, brought with them to this country, the fashions of dress which were prevalent in England at the time of their emigration, being the same as described in the preceding pages, with regard to boots and shoes in use in the seventeenth century, in the reigns of the Stuarts, or under the dominion of the commonwealth, when Cromwell was at the head of affairs. New England being settled by the puritans, the dresses of the first English inhabitants of that section were of a plainer character than those of Virginia and other colonies, where the first settlers were cavaliers, or adherents of the house of Stuart.
The dress, particularly the boots and shoes, worn by the earlier settlers of New England, are thus described by Miss Caulkins, in her “History of Norwich, Connecticut.” “The shoes worn in 1689, were coarse, clumped, square-toed, and adorned with enormous buckles. If any boots made their appearance, prodigious was the thumping as they passed up the aisles of the church; for a pair of boots was then expected to last a man’s life. The tops were short, but very wide at the top; formed, one might suppose, with a special adaptation to rainy weather; collecting the water as it fell, and holding an ample bath for the feet and ankles!
“It is uncertain whether the small clothes had then begun to grow, so as to reach below the knee, and to be fastened with knee-buckles or not. The earlier mode was to have them terminate above the knee, and to be tied with ribands. The common kind were made of leather. Red woollen stockings were much admired. Swords were customarily worn when in full dress, by all the earlier settlers of New England, both in a civil and a military capacity. Hats were at that time made of wool; perhaps two or three at the church door reverently took off a black ‘beaverett,’ though that was a costly article in those days. The coat was made with a long straight body, falling below the knee, and with no collar. The waistcoat was long.”
As necessity is the mother of invention, many of the earlier settlers of New England, where mechanics were scarce, were accustomed to manufacture their own clothing, including boots and shoes. The more wealthy inhabitants imported their clothing from England, but the farmers generally made in their own families most of the articles required for clothes. Individuals who were expert in shoemaking, many of them self-taught, were sometimes employed by farmers and others to make up a stock of shoes for the family, once or twice a year. These persons journeyed about from house to house, in the winter season, taking their tools on their backs. Leather was occasionally imported from England, but as population in the colonies increased, tanneries were established, particularly in the large towns.