them at a farthing each. If this were true, that single hand must have turned out over 160,000 boxes in the year.
The artistic skill which John Taylor's wares had developed and diffused among the mechanics of Birmingham, as it were, lit the candle of a new industry, which again, in its turn, fed and transmitted the light to other departments of trade. This inventive skill, originating in finely-trained perceptions of beauty, is not only the minister but the founder of fashion. Buckles for hat, knee, and shoe became the ruling and raging fashion in the later years of the last century, from the taste and genius bestowed on their manufacture. For a long time they were worn in all civilized countries, and in none more generally among well-to-do people than in republican America. Birmingham and a few towns adjacent monopolized the business and supplied the whole demand for Europe and America. But when the trade was apparently at its height of prosperity, and promised golden harvests for many years to come, it fell in a moment. Fickle Fashion took a new and sudden freak. Although it may well be said of her, reversing the proverb, Fit, non nascitur, "made, not born,' still the makers could not keep her to their notions and interest. Without a moment's notice, or a motive's impulse which could be understood, she took to the "effeminate shoe--
