WOODEN SOALED SHOES.
Mr. Custis of Arlington, near Alexandria in a letter to the editor dated 1st Feb. last, observes—"Wooden soaled shoes are the very best for labourers that I ever met with. They keep the feet warm and dry in ditching, and in all kinds of labour, to be performed out of doors in winter, and are a saving in expense of fully 80 per cent. My people are all shod in this way, and themselves declare that they never were so comfortable in their feet before, while my leather bill from $100, has been reduced to scarce $20.
You form the soal, after the appearance of the leather soal and heel, the wood about half or three fourths of an inch in thickness, around the upper edge, is cut a rabbit, into which is nailed (with ordinary sized tacks) the upper leather.—Not a particle of thread is needed, except to close the two parts of upper leather.—Every man may be his own shoemaker, and a man would put together a dozen pair a day. In slippery weather, small plates of iron are nailed around the toes and heels, and frost nails driven in them, which also protects tects the soal from wear. Gum, ash, or dogwood, are best for the soals, and about two sets will last the winter.—The feet are never cold, or wet, and hence will be remedied those chronic pains and evils, to which labourers are subject, from exposure to cold and wet. For any purpose but a foot race, these are the very best shoes, and I doubt whether even Sir Humphrey Davy has made a more useful discovery in the last twenty years."
[Am. Farmer.
Republican Manners.—A gentleman, who lately visited the Atheneum at Boston, told us, that he saw a book there, on the title page of which was written these words, by the hand of Mr. Jefferson—
"From Thomas Jefferson to his friend
John Adams."
Now, to my way of thinking, all the flowers of rhetoric might be culled, and yet be wanting of the "sublime and beautiful" that irresistibly attaches itself to this little sentence—"Thomas Jefferson to his friend John Adams." It affords a practical result of our glorious system of government, more "precious than rubies." It is a diamond of the finest water, which the republican should hug to his bosom as a rich legacy to his children and his children's children "to the thousandth generation"—an evidence in favour of the simplicity of the truth never to be parted with, while the mighty Mississippi rolls her floods to the ocean! It is worthy of the best days of Greek or Roman history; and there is, doubtless, a sincerity in it that Greece or Rome hardly knew to exist between men so illustrious. The time has passed away in which either of those venerable men can be regarded as at the head of a party in the state, however much they were once opposed. They are preparing "for another and a better world;" but, like the patriarchs of old, with joyous hearts, survey the rich fruits of independence, planted by their toil and nurtured by their care. Passion has long ceased to influence either; oblivion has passed over their political differences of opinion; ancient friendships are renewed, and a spirit of harmony and reciprocal esteem prevails in each bosom.
What a magnificent sentence—"from Thomas Jefferson to his friend John Adams!" Let us consider how great a space those men have filled in the world. Each has been the rallying point of simultaneously contending parties—each filled the highest office in the gift of the only free people existing, to relieve the sombre despotism of the civilized world.—Each has lived to see his early vows to the republic fulfilled; and their present good understanding affords us a delightful proof of the inestimable aphorism, that "a difference of opinion is not a difference of principle."