Part 29 (1/2)

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.