3074. Is it settled by goods?-No. I wish to explain how we deal with her. She gets out a quantity of shawls and veils or neckties to dress. When they are finished, she brings them down to our hosiery shop where we keep our hosiery and she gets the amount marked on a bit of a line with which she goes to the other shop. I ask her what she wants and perhaps if the amount is 8s. 71/2d. she will ask for a quarter pound of tea for 10d. I then ask her what she wants next, and she says, 'I want 2s. or 3s. in cash.' There is then a balance left, which I mark in the book thus 'By 4s. 81/2d.,' which stands as a balance due to her. If she wants any cash in the interim between that time and the time when she brings down her dressing, she comes to the shop and gets cash, say 6d., or any goods she requires. She gets at the very least 5s. a week in cash all the year round. That does not appear in the book, but she gets whatever she asks.
3075. How do you balance the account when the time comes for doing that?-We add up the two sides of it.
3076. I see that each line in the account contains both debit and credit entries?-Yes, but there are two money columns at the end, and the entries are carried out to them according as they are debit or credit.
3077. How do you do with regard to sending goods south?-When we get orders for Shetland goods in the winter time, they go to our house in Edinburgh. We have already forwarded goods there, and they are kept in store; the orders received at that season are executed there, and a statement is sent down to us. This [producing document] is one of the statements which have been sent from Edinburgh for veils, and here [producing document] is another for shawls. I have brought a sample of each.
3078. The veils are numbered according to quality?-Yes. When we send them of different prices, there must be a different number, to let the people in the south know what the prices are.
3079. You fix the price here at which they are to be sold in Edinburgh?-Yes.
3080. That is the wholesale price?-Yes. Here is June 4: 4 dozen grey veils No. 1, 18s.-£3, 12s.; 4 dozen grey veils No. 6, 21s.- £4, 4s.; 3 dozen No. 7, 27s.-£4, 1s.
3081. Have these grey veils No. 1 been knitted for you by your own knitters?-The principal part of them; but we buy some.
3082. Show me one of the entries of the payment to a knitter for these veils?-I could scarcely show it for these identical veils.
3083. But for veils of the very same quality?-I should think this [showing] would be of the same quality: '10 veils, 9d.-Barbara Pottinger, Burra Isle.'