Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 98

3437. Do you take any lodgers?-I don't take any now. I am in the Widows' Asylum; but before I went there, I took one or two.

3438. Did these lodgers help you in your living?-Yes, a little.

3439. Then you would get money in that way with which to purchase provisions?-Yes; but I could not get so much knitting made when I had lodgers.

3440. But the money you got from them would help you to buy meal and bread, and what you wanted to live upon?-No; I did not have above 6d. a week from my lodgers, and sometimes it was 1s.; but I got through with it, and now it is come to a conclusion.

3441. How old are you?-I think I am about seventy-two.

3442. You are still knitting a little?-Yes; my fingers are as clever as can be yet.

3448. You don't get money for your knitting now?-I get money from Mr. Linklater when I ask it.

3444. How often do you ask it?-I don't like to trouble him too much, but I know that he would give me what I sought; and many a time I have got it. He often supplied me when I required it, and when I had nothing in his hands to get.

Lerwick, January 6, 1872, JOHN JAMES BRUCE, recalled.

3445. I understand you wish to make some correction on your former evidence?-Yes; I find I made a mistake. On going back to the shop after giving my evidence, I found the same girl there whom I mentioned before, and I spoke to her about what I had said here. She said it was not a line that she had exchanged. She has an account in the book, and she had got a bonnet, and had given it to the other party. Of course it was to the same effect as if she had given a line. She had got goods from us, and had given them to another person for cash.

3446. Was all the rest of your statement correct?-Yes.

3447. Have you anything to say with regard to the proportion of goods which are re-dyed about which Mr. Sinclair made some explanation?-What I meant to say was, that all the goods not ticketed are re-valued, and that some of them are dyed,-these, of course, not being re-valued until they come back from the dyer.

Only the finer qualities of goods are ticketed at the time they are taken from the customer.

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3448. So that the larger proportion of goods are, in point of fact, re-valued?-Yes. By being re-valued, I mean that they are judged of again in the same way that they were judged of, on being taken from the customer. I don't mean to say that a different price is put upon the article; it may be the same price.

Lerwick, January 6, 1872, ROBERT SINCLAIR, recalled.

3449. Is there anything you wish to add?-I may make one remark about that last point,-the valuation of the goods. Many years ago I had a partner, from which the firm took its name of Sinclair & Co. At that time we ticketed all the shawls that we bought, with the exception of the lower-priced ones. We found it a little inconvenient to be always doing that, and my partner and I, in order to test our own judgment with regard to these articles, entered the goods in a book at the ticketed value when we bought them. When we put them out to the dressing, of course the tickets were taken off; but when they came back, we re-valued them according to our own judgment, without any reference to the entries we had made in the book; and I can declare on my oath that we never varied one per cent. on the things-we knew their value so well. When I came to see that I could judge of the values so well, I did not ticket the lower qualities of goods-only those of the value of which there could be any doubt.

Lerwick, January 6, 1872, MARGARET CLUNAS, examined.

3450. You are a native of Unst, and you have lived there until lately?-Yes.

3451. Are you in the habit of knitting?-Yes.

3452. For whom did you knit in Unst?-For Mr. Thomas Jamieson.

3453. Is he a merchant and purchaser of hosiery?-Yes.

3454. Did you knit with wool supplied by him?-Yes; generally.

3455. You sometimes knitted with worsted of your own?-Yes.

3456. How were you paid for what you knitted with his worsted?-The veils were 1s. when made with Scotch worsted, and 10d. when made with Shetland worsted, and for shawls of twenty-four scores we were paid 9s. for knitting.

3457. What do you mean by twenty-four scores?-That was the size of the shawl.

3458. Did he pay you in money when you knitted for him in that way?-No.

3459. Did you ever get any money from him?-No, I never got it, because it was a thing he never gave, and we never asked for it.

3460. Were you content to take the value in goods?-Sometimes, and sometimes not.

3461. When were you not content to do that?-When I could not fall in with the things I was wanting.

3462. Was that often?-Not very often; but sometimes he was out of things I wanted.

3463. When you wanted anything which you could not fall in with in his shop, what did you do?-Sometimes he sent for it to us, and sometimes not; and we had then to take just what things were there.

3464. Did you live with your father?-Yes.

3465. He kept you in food, so that you did not require to buy any food for yourself?-Only sometimes in the summer time chiefly.

3466. Did you work out in the summer time?-Yes, for day's wages.

3467. Then you did not require to knit for your living, but only for your clothing?-Only for our clothing; but of course we could not have got food for our knitting from that man, even if we had required it. He would not have given it.

3468. How much would you make in the week in Unst by knitting?-Perhaps 3s. or 4s., according to what we did.

3469. That was his value in goods?-Yes.

3470. Were you paid in the same way when you knitted with your own worsted?-Yes, we were generally paid in the same way.

3471. What kind of goods did you get from Mr Jamieson?- Cotton and winceys.

3472. Did you get tea?-He would sometimes refuse to give above a quarter pound of tea on a 9s. shawl he did not like to give much tea.

3473. Why?-He called it a money article, and he would not give it.

3474. How long is it since you left Unst?-It is about two or three months since I left it first, but I have been home again for some time.

3475. Did you come to Lerwick to knit?-No, I came to be a servant.

3476. Are you not knitting here now?-Yes, I am knitting at present.

3477. Are you out of a place?-Yes.

3478. Do you deal in the same way here as you did in Unst, or is there any difference?-There is a woman in Lerwick that I knit to, and she gets money for our goods, and is thus able to pay us in money.

3479. Who is that?-Miss Hutchison, Burn's Lane.

3480. Does she always pay you in money?-Yes; or if she has any little thing, which she has got, we can get it.