Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 29

213. Are you working at it?-I have not begun to it just yet.

214. Have you anything else to sell just now?-Yes.

215. Is it something you have knitted with your own wool?-Yes; but I have sent it south.

216. Is that because you expect to get money there?-Yes; I have sent it to an old neighbour woman of mine who is now in Thurso.

217. Is she a person who makes a practice of dealing in such things?-No; she is just an acquaintance of mine.

218. Is there anything else you wish to say?-No.

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Lerwick, January 1, 1872, ELIZABETH ROBERTSON, examined.

219. Are you a knitter in Lerwick?-Yes.

220. Do you live alone?-I live with my aged stepmother.

221. Who do you work for?-For the last six years I have knitted for myself, but before that I used to knit for the merchants in general. I knitted for the late Mr. Laurenson, and Mr. G. Harrison, and Mr. Tulloch, and Mr. Linklater,-in short, for almost all the merchants.

222. But that was six years ago?-Yes.

223. When you knitted for the merchants, was the wool supplied to you by them?-Yes.

224. Did you pay for it when you got it out, or when you were paid for your work upon it?-I was just paid for my work.

225. How much would you be able to make in a week at that sort of work?-I could not exactly say how much. I was in delicate health; but in some weeks I might have earned 1s. 6d. a day, and in some weeks perhaps less.

226. Was that the only thing you were working at?-Yes. The only sort of knitting I had was veils and shawls.

227. But was knitting the only thing you were employed at that time?-That was the only thing I was ever employed at in my life.

228. Then, on an average, you earned from 5s. to 6s. a week?- Yes; or from 4s. to 5s.

229. How often were you paid?-Just when I asked for any sort of goods that were in the shop.

230. Would you go once a week or once a fortnight to the shop for payment?-Yes; perhaps I would. I just went as I was done with the work which they required.

231. Did you get a book?-No. I never kept a book.

232. How did you know how much was due to you?-I just depended on the truth of the gentlemen's statements when they added up my accounts.

233. They kept an account in a book?-Yes.

234. Was that the same with all the dealers?-Yes; all that I dealt with before the last six years.

235. Did these merchants supply you with all kinds of goods?- Only with soft goods, and tea and sugar.

236. What did you do for your provisions, such as meal and bread?-I had often to buy such things as I could get, and sell them again at half the price to anybody in the row who would take them from me.

237. Were these the goods you got from the merchants?-Yes.

238. Could you not get anything from them you wanted, except what you have mentioned?-Sometimes I would get a sixpence and sometimes a s.h.i.+lling, but just occasionally.

239. Was that given you as a favour?-Yes, and because they knew I really needed it. It was a mere favour.

240. Were you supporting your stepmother at that time?-No; not at that time. I had only myself to support.

241. But you had no other means of support than your knitting?- No other means at all.

242. Did you ask for money at that time?-Yes; I always asked for money, because I required it so much.

243. Was it generally on a Sat.u.r.day that you were with?-I did not make any particular settlement; it was just any time that I went.

244. When you got a settlement and took home some of these soft goods, did you go to your neighbours, or to the baker's or provision dealer's shop, and ask for what you wanted in the way of food?-No; but any neighbours that knew me would take from me some of the goods I had, and perhaps give them to a country friend of theirs, and get the money for them.

245. During the last six years you have got into the way of knitting with your own wool?-Yes.

246. Where do you buy your wool, or how do you get it?-There is a lady in the town-a dressmaker and milliner-who deals very largely in hosiery.

247. What is her name?-Miss Robertson. She takes goods from me on lines which I get for my shawls and she gives me wool and cash to favour me, because she knows I have no other way of getting money.

248. What do you mean by taking goods on lines-When I sell a shawl to any hosiery merchant in the town, I get any sort of goods that are in the shop, except wool to knit with; but if I don't want the goods at the time, then the gentleman will give me a line to the amount I have to get.

249. Is that an I O U?-That used to be on them. I think there are other two letters now; but they mean all the same thing.

250. Have you any of these lines?-I have one home. I shall bring it. If I go back to the shop with the line, or send anybody back with it, the merchant's servants will serve the party who brings it with the amount.

251. They will give you full value for it?-Yes, to the full value of the lines.

252. Then Miss Robertson takes these I O U's from you, and gives you worsted for them?-Yes.

253. That worsted you knit into shawls, and these shawls you sell to the merchants, getting from them I O U's?-Yes.

254. Are you any better off under this system than you were before?-Yes. She brings home the wools, and shows me the invoice for them, and I get the wools at what she pays for them.

That is much cheaper than I can purchase them for in Lerwick.

255. But you did not buy the wool under the old way of working: you got the wool supplied to you, and were paid for your work?- Yes.

256. Do you think you make more money under the present system?-Yes.

257. When you get these I O U's, you spend only part of them in purchasing worsted?-I get no worsted on them except what I get from Miss Robertson.

258. But you spend only part of them in paying Miss Robertson for worsted?-Yes; and I get part money from her for them, because they serve her just the same as money would do, in getting articles from the merchants. She favours me in that way, and enables me to support my stepmother and myself, and pay rent and taxation.

259. Do you hand all your I O U's to Miss Robertson?-No; only what I can spare.

260. You sometimes take one of them yourself to the merchant from whom you got it, and you get goods from him for it?-Yes.