Fig. 67.—A hide shoe of pre-Roman type from Ireland (after Fairholt).
The most primitive kind of shoe would doubtless be a piece of hide placed under the foot and brought up over the toes and round the heel. It would make a rather unprepossessing bundle, and there would be awkward puckers where the hide was gathered up. If the superfluous material at the toe were cut away, we should have a slit in every case where there had previously been a fold. This state of affairs is exactly what is to be seen in the Irish shoe, where the strips of leather that are left are held in place by a thong. In an ingenious way, apparently with the help of the same lace, the difficulty of securing a fit at the heel has also been got over. The result is a very neat shoe indeed, though in reality it is only the original flat piece of hide.
Fig. 68.—The original top boot with the upper part temporarily turned down.
One of the most perfect instances of vestiges, as Sir George Darwin points out, is afforded by top boots. In their original form, still to be seen in our streets on sewer men, the boots were made to come above the knee, but fashion decreed that the top should be turned back (see Figure [68]), and so it came about that the inside became visible, as did also the tags, with the help of which the boots were pulled on. When the outside of the boots was blacked it would form a distinct contrast to the inside, which remained brown, and in modern top boots the difference in colour has been in many cases greatly accentuated. Indeed, the upper parts are made of different leather, and as ordinary coat cuffs are now incapable of being turned down, the tops of the boots are immovable and cannot be turned up. It is curious, however, that the tags at the sides are still represented and sewn to the boot so as to be quite useless, while new tags placed inside the boot now do their duty. (See Figure [69].)
Fig. 69.—A modern top boot in which the upper part can no longer be turned up.