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for the American market, sending them to all parts, and furnishing the toy-stores in Chicago and other western cities, as well as New York, Philadelphia and Boston. This manufactory is at Bordentown, New Jersey, and has been in existence about twelve years, and the value of stock now sent out is about seven thousand dollars a year; so much money for the wee feet that run on no errands, and save no steps for anybody! The wholesale jobbers of course advance the price, and in the retail stores they are higher yet; so that each tradesman through whose hands they pass has his trifle of profit in helping to shoe the feet of the doll-people. They retail from a dollar and a dollar and a quarter a dozen, to three dollars and seventy-five cents, according to the style. [Illustration: DOLLY'S SHOES] They "run," as the dealers express it, in twelve sizes; the "common doll's shoes" (which means shoes for common dolls) vary, however, from the class made for wax dolls, which have grades peculiar to themselves, being not only extra full and wider in the soles, but numbering fewer sizes, from one to six only. Of the common kind, the slippers and ties run from one to twelve, the others from three, four or five to that number. They come packed in regular sizes, a "full line," as those for children do, or in assorted sizes and styles; in small, square boxes, such as shoe dealers know by the name of "cartoon," which is another word for the French _carton_, meaning simply that they are made of paste-board. The tiniest is not much more than an inch long, but is a perfectly formed and finished shoe on that miniature scale; and the largest is almost big enough for Mrs. Tom Thumb, measuring about four inches, and it could certainly be worn by many a baby you have seen. As for the names, they come in this order:--slippers, ties, ankle ties, Balmorals, buttoned boots, Polish buttoned, Polish eyeletted, and Antoinette, which is a heeled, croquet slipper, in which her doll-ship, when engaged in that out-of-door game, can show off her delicate, clocked stockings to advantage. But what shall I say of the variety in color and trimmings? They are in white and crimson, in buff and blue, in scarlet and purple, in rose color and violet, in bronze and silver and gold, everything but black, for dolls don't like black except in the tips of their gay Balmoral or Polish boots. And the stuff they are made of is such soft material as can only be found
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