A sweep from the point of the angles, as at 80, will make a horizontal
line when the pants are on and inflated with the body. No squaring from
any one line will make it perfectly horizontal all around. The sweeps
from the points of the angles will always be together when the pants are
correctly sewed up and flat upon the table. Said sweeps will not fit
together in all positions, if made from any other points, which proves
their common center; and they will always be found reliable for the
connection of the leg seams when the front is cut small and the back
wide, and for squaring the bottom of pants.
Never change the angle of seven and a half degrees as a base.
Never try to find the perpendicular and horizontal lines on a pants,
except for a person who always stands perfectly still; and as no such
persons are found, said lines are therefore useless.
Allowance in the curve of the back of a pants cannot spread like the
front, but will hang there like a bag, and may even cut the seat.
Extra width should never be allowed in the back of the crotch; better
allow it over the hip. Allowing extra width in the crotch is just like
allowing extra cloth on the front of the armhole,—it makes the whole
smaller.
The trick in altering any garment is to first ascertain what will make it
worse, and then make the contrary alteration. Example: If a pants cuts in
the seat pinch the top of the sides together, which will make it worse,
then put a wedge in the top of the side seam, and reduce again in the
center of back.
If you find your pants too large or too small do not change the drafts,
but take the measure smaller or larger, as the case may be. Take the seat
measure close, like measuring a barrel, and have no slack.
Your customer’s pants waist must be as large as what he measures when
he is in a sitting position. A man’s waist in that attitude may expand
anywhere from one to five inches.
A waist-band made according to the old teachings, as three-fourths inches
more than half measures, will not stand the test, and is a delusion.
If a customer tells you to make his clothing very large, he means that it
should not be too small. If he instructs you to make it tight, he means
that he wants it not too large. Either will be returned if it does not
come up to his actual wants.
If a customer gives you a thousand and one directions, take them all
in, study what he wants, or what he really needs, make his garment
accordingly, and he will usually turn out as a customer not hard to
please. But if he tells _you_ that you are the tailor; that _you_ know
best what he wants; that _you_ shall make it according to your judgment,
do not think that he will take anything, for he will usually turn out to
be a very particular customer, who expects you to know your business.
Remember that old men require a larger seat—that is, a larger back
slope in their pants; because, in aged persons, the seat actually caves
downward, hence old persons grow shorter.
Give boys considerable straddle in their pants, not only for comfort, but
for the more important reason that boys should never have any pressure
on their sexual organ. Thousands of young men go to their early graves
because some silly tailor made their pants too tight, by which they
learned to abuse themselves.
Better talk half an hour with your customer after he has been measured,
in order to observe his build, rather than to spend half a day in
altering afterwards.
Do not consider yourself too expert a cutter not to try on the coat you
cut. No cutter is infallible. But trying on a coat without sleeves will
be found “no good.”
Your trade will depend upon how you please your customers, _not how
cheaply_ you work.
The best customer is he who trusts you, and the worst is he whom you
trust.
As long as your customer believes that no one else can fit him, you will
have his patronage.
A cash customer’s trade is lost as soon as you trust him.
Trust no man for his wedding suit, even if you ever do get your pay; you
will earn it over again by “dunning” him.
The best way to collect bad debts, is never to scatter any around you.
A large funeral is had only by those who collect their dues.
You may feel happier if you give a poor man a suit of clothing. Try it.
You will surely be angry if you trust a so-called “gentleman” and get
caught—better not try it; but put your trust in God.
Do not try to alter a faulty waist by changing the neck of a coat, or
_vice versa_. You will always fail.
Do not try to convince your customer that you have sold him a suit too
cheap. You will lose him, for he expects that you will endeavor to make
it up if he gives you another chance, and therefore will buy the next
suit elsewhere.
If an old customer begins to grumble, try to pacify him, but if you
cannot, better let him go for a time; he will be so much better when he
returns.
A new customer may be “cranky” when he starts in with you, but if you
treat him right he may turn out to be your best one.
To make a nice edge on worsted goods without binding, work the underside
with a button-hole stitch and fill the edge like broadcloth. It takes a
few hours extra work to make such an edge for a coat, but it saves the
binding, and it makes a neat job for anyone who does not want binding
on the edges of his garments. Reasonable stretching of the edges of a
button-hole, while making, is better than drawing the edges together.
Cords to work button-holes over should be made by twisting three or four
fine threads of silk together, and doubling it and letting that twist
together again. This will make a strong cord, which will not fade like
gimp or linen thread.
Corded pockets on ravelly material should be sewed double, not one seam
on top of the other, but one alongside of the other.
Next to natural gas, gasoline is the cheapest and the most convenient
fuel for heating irons in the hot season. Gasoline will loosen and
destroy all gum at the pants bottom, or wherever it is used. Gasoline is
the best article to clean straw goods, if used with a brush, and it is
the best and cheapest article to remove grease, or any spots from cloth.
To remove fresh paint spots from cloth, soak the paint with some kind of
oil, common coal oil will do, until the paint becomes loose and soft;
then wash out with soap and water. This will not injure the cloth, nor
will it require any scraping whereby the nape or surface of the cloth is
made threadbare.
Guarantee nothing but the fit and good sewing; all other guarantees
are worthless to either party. How can you guarantee the color of any
material when you know that rain and sun and time will change even the
color of a live animal? Guarantee the color only so far as to be as good
as any other of that kind, or as far as you know, and your customer will
always be satisfied with you if not with the color of his garment.
Pieces of silesia are just as good for stays as Holland linen is;
therefore cut your sleeve lining or your vest lining out of the whole
cloth.
As a general rule, garments should be made up with very little wadding.
I have made my vests without wadding for years and no customer has found
fault. Black wadding should never be used for vests, it soils the lining.
Some, especially young cutters, may not know the following, but to them
it will be worth the price of this book: If a coat is too small in the
breast and no outlet anywhere, cut the canvas, and all lining and all
padding through downward, and at the center of the breast, and insert
a wedge of say one inch, after which the outside can be stretched
that much, and the stretching will never go back. If the armholes are
too small and no outlets, and the breast will become too small if the
armholes are cut forward, cut the lining and padding through, under the
arm down to the waist, insert a wedge of say one inch and stretch an
artificial wedge in the outside until the armhole is large enough; this
works always. It may cost a good deal to alter such a coat, but if a coat
is worth altering at all it is worth altering right, and it is better to
spend a few dollars for alteration than to throw the coat away; but you
must be a cutter or a bushelman who knows how to do it.
To find an angle of 135 deg., go up and sidewise equal distances and
strike a line as in Dia. IV.
An angle of 135 deg. is one square, and one-half square divided from
corner to corner.
The angle of 120 deg. consists of two points of the circle, as shown in
Dias. XI and XII; each point is 60 deg.
The Equilateral Triangle consists of three equal lines, each line of
which is 60 deg., like in Dia. XII.
To find the angle of 15 deg., spread two lines one-fourth of their
length, or 20 in. long and 5 in. wide.
To find the angle of 7½ deg., spread two lines one-eighth of their
length, or 80 in. long and 10 in. wide.
If I had known something of geometry, it would have saved me years of
labor on this book, but somehow we all must dig for our living, and
sometimes our digging is very uncertain, and we may find things which
we never dug for. Such is the ways of an Allwise Providence, and it is
a blessing, maybe in disguise, that we must grope in the dark; but when
everything around us is dark and uncertain, we should put “_Our trust in
God_,” and we will be brought from “_Darkness to Light_,” in due time.
A short lecture to young cutters: “The glory of young men is their
strength, and the beauty of old men is their gray head.” Young cutters,
do not spend your strength on fast women, nor do you exchange your money
or your beauty for strong drink; you need all of it when you are old, and
all of it you should have while young. As a general rule old cutters are
useless. You may kick against such a fate to your heart’s content, but it
will do you no good. The old must decline. As it is not natural for young
women to court the attention of old men, so it is not natural for young
men to patronize old cutters or tailors. Merchant tailoring, without
young men’s patronage, will, and must always be a failure. Forget it not!
Forget it not!
How to treat an apprentice: I commenced in March, 1848, to learn
tailoring. I worked three years for nothing; my parents furnished me with
clothing and boarding. There were only two houses between my parents
and that of my master, and some of my folks always called me when
ready to eat, and I had to come back when eating was done; there was
no such a thing as an hour of rest at any meal. The first two years of
my apprenticeship were, I believe, worse than the lot of any slave. In
summer time I had to come to work at least at five in the morning, and
after about one and one-half hours work, I had to get breakfast, and thus
I kept on until dark, which was near nine in that latitude and in the
longest days. In fall and winter I had to be there at six in the morning
and keep up till nine in the evening, and three or four weeks before any
holiday I had to work till midnight and all day Sunday. For all this I
do not remember to have received more than “_zwei groshen_” as spending
money, during the first two years. But the master worked at the same
rate, and in the spring of 1850 he died of consumption. After that the
widow carried on the business, and a new foreman, Mr. Geo. Hase, treated
me more human. As a general thing, he would not let me work over twelve
hours a day, and every now and then he gave me a few “_groshen_” for
spending money, and the Lord has blessed him with a long life, and so far
as I know he is still living in Crawford Co., O., and well and hearty,
and as an ex-soldier, draws a good pension from “Uncle Sam.” But I must
return to my first two years serfdom. I had to sew all the seams; I was
nothing but a sewing machine, and after one year’s slavery I could sew
like lightning and that was all that I had learned during that time. I
was constantly driven to sew faster, in order that others might go ahead
with their work, and in my misery to escape from such a “hell-hole,”
I conceived this wish: If I could contrive something by which means I
could make stitches as fast as I could count, I should not care if I had
to give “_Old Harry_” a deed for myself, for all time to come. Boys may
have ideas, too, and this was one of them. At that time I had no idea
that that same thing was just then completed in America, and that, too,
without the help of the devil. Well, after I came to America in 1852 and
found that just then sewing machines were completed, and that they sewed
even faster than I could count, I was very glad that I was fortunate
enough not to be the inventor of one, though there were millions in it. I
would always consider that Old Harry would appear and prove a just claim
against me. I started this point to tell how to treat a boy, but I should
have said: “_How not to treat him_.” But I must start in again. During
the last fifteen years I have instructed seven boys, and I have found
that boys of sixteen to seventeen years of age are the best to instruct.
Such boys are able to work, while younger ones are too tender to be kept
constantly at work, and older ones soon think themselves too smart, or
too big to obey, but even if they are obedient, they are naturally harder
to instruct, especially when they commence running after the girls. There
are exceptions, however, and I would sooner instruct an intelligent boy
of twenty years, if I were satisfied that his mind was made up to learn.
Take only healthy, intelligent boys, who went to school, and are willing
to work. I have rejected several boys whose parents came to me saying:
“_He is not fit for much, but he is good enough for a tailor_,” or,
“_he is lying around on the street, and we want him to go to the tailor
shop, so he learns to do something_,” etc. Well, as long as a boy is
fit to be a tailor, well and good, he needs no other qualification, but
the qualifications to become a good tailor are just as various as that
of a lawyer, or a doctor, or a preacher. If a boy is not brought up to
work, but has been loafing most of the time, I would not risk him as an
apprentice. After all other things are considered, and the apprentice
is to be taken, make as good a bargain with him or his parents, as you
can. Get him as cheap as you can; tell him that tailoring is all work,
with not much fun in it, and make him work regular hours, and any boy
can stand ten hours work. Give him to understand that he is not to be
a slave, though he must work, and if he pays attention to the work and
learns fast, and does what can reasonably be expected, give him a word
of praise and a quarter or half a dollar weekly for his special use,
and when a show comes around, or something special goes on, give him a
ticket and a holiday and you will have the good will of the boy, and
that will repay you for any liberality you may bestow upon him. My way
of instructing boys was this: To learn to sew a back-stitch by hand, to
fell on patches, to get acquainted with the sewing machine, to clean, oil
and operate it, on straight seams first. Next teach him to baste up the
sleeves and to make the sleeves on common coats if any such are made.
Teach him to make inside coat pockets, hip pockets in pants if it can
be done, then gradually show him how to make a pocket for the outside
of a coat, teach him to baste and to pad the canvass and padding over
the breast. Show him how it is to be done, and why it is to be done so,
and not otherwise. If he makes anything wrong, explain it again, and
again. Never scold and call hard names, and if you say some harsh words
to him, speak that much more pleasant to him a few minutes later. Make
him understand that you can smile over one of his mistakes and that he
must not hide them, and that he will make mistakes as long as he works at
tailoring, and that all tailors are in the same condition and therefore
must watch themselves. A boy with a sensible instructor can learn the
above in six months, and then he is worth something, and within one year
from the start a boy can learn to make a fair sack coat, and in another
year he ought to be able to make a tolerable good coat, pants and vest.
Boys should be taught to make pants and vests besides making coats,
in order that they may be able to instruct others, _should occasion
require_. As soon as a boy is able to handle a needle, he should be set
to work, to spend any time he may have to spare, in making button holes,
which may be just as well done, in the beginning as in the end. Let boys
work button holes in patches, and in a few weeks they may be able to make
button holes in the flys of pants, and by the end of two years they are
able to make a good button hole.
It is also a good idea for boys to become acquainted with cutting
garments as soon as possible. They will learn faster, because they have
more interest in tailoring, and are stimulated by the hope of becoming
cutters in due time; and even if they never become cutters, they will
be so much better tailors if they know how to cut. It is true not all
good tailors will make good cutters, and vice versa, but “cutting” is
considered a higher degree of tailoring, and every tailor ought to know
something about the cutting and the fitting of the garments he makes.
_From the “BOSTON TRANSCRIPT”_:—