11,468. Do you employ any people to knit with your wool?-Yes.
11,469. Are they paid in the same way?-Yes.
11,470. Are they employed entirely in knitting, or do they sometimes work at other things?-Some of them depend entirely, or almost entirely, on knitting; but when they require money for their rent or for any particular article which they cannot get for knitting, then, I suppose they have to work at something else.
11,471. Or perhaps they sell their knitting to a shop where they can get what they want although you do not deal in it?-Yes.
11,472. They may go to Lerwick and sell it for soft goods?-They may; but I keep a small assortment of soft goods.
11,473. Therefore they can get most of the articles they want in your shop?-Yes.
11,474. If they cannot get the articles they want are you aware whether they have sometimes been obliged to sell the goods they have got for hosiery, in order to procure what they want?-A case or two of that kind has come before me. I remember one occasion, when I gave a woman some provisions for some soap or something, when she was in a difficulty for the provisions; but that is the only case of the kind that I remember clearly about. Perhaps there may have been more.
11,475. What was the nature of that case?-I suppose she had bartered her knitting for the soap in some place. She was requiring provisions, and could not get them, and she exchanged the soap to me for provisions.
11,476. Was that long ago?-It is some time ago but I don't remember the exact time.
11,477. Did that case strike you as being in any way peculiar or extraordinary?-No. Very few of the hosiery dealers keep provisions, so that at the time the woman had no other way of getting them.