Avenue Haig has been turned into a "street of cobblers" during the past few days. Squatting at intervals along the shady pavements, with their legs crossed in the traditional style, they ply their rough tools in leisurely fashion, chatting with passers-by who pause for a moment to watch shoe-leather being turned into shoes. Their outfit is simple. It consists merely of a bamboo pole (an essential part of the equipment of all street craftsmen), a cabinet containing tools, and a box filled with dummies around which are constructed the articles of footwear, Perched on the knee of the street cobbler is a rough wooden block, on which he cuts the leather, pinned in strips to the side of his cabinet, into the proper shape. Then he picks out a'gleaming tack from an untidy drawer in his cabinet, filled with odd articles among which can be glimpsed a copper or two, and perhaps a ten cent piece, Deft fingers drive the tack home, and gradually before the eyes of the passer-by Shore is assembled a pair of Chine shoes.
From the raw material stage to the finished article, this pair of shoes has been constructed with the materials contained in an outfit whose whole value cannot exceed $10.
Then there is the repairs department to be investigated. This' consists simply of one or two pairs of shoes in differing stages of decay (among which may be seen a pair or two of foreign style shoes), which are patched up with a rough piece of leather, and more gleaming tacks from the cobbler's cabinet. The street cobbler, sitting in the sun beneath the shade of a "boater", laughs as he sees sweating rickshaw coolies panting past towards St. George's. The only muscular effort he must use to earn his dollar or two a day is a light tap with a hammer. But then, unlike the Shanghai rickshaw coolie, he exercises his mental powers, transforming pieces of leather into shoes into which any wearer of the Chinese gown would be glad to place his feet.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.