A Frenchman
manufactured suspenders by cutting a native bottle into fine
threads and running them through a narrow cloth web. And
Macintosh, a chemist of Glasgow, inserted rubber treated with
naphtha between thin pieces of cloth and evolved the garment that
still bears his name.
At first the new business in rubber yielded profits. The cost of
the raw material was infinitesimal; and there was a demand for
the finished articles. In Roxbury, Massachusetts, a firm
manufacturing patent leather treated raw rubber with turpentine
and lampblack and spread it on cloth, in an effort to produce a
waterproof leather. The process appeared to be a complete
success, and a large capital was employed to make handsome shoes
and clothing out of the new product and in opening shops in the
large cities for their sale. Merchants throughout the country
placed orders for these goods, which, as it happened, were made
and shipped in winter.
But, when summer came, the huge profits of the manufacturers
literally melted away, for the beautiful garments decomposed in
the heat; and loads of them, melting and running together, were
being returned to the factory. And they filled Roxbury with such
noisome odors that they had to be taken out at dead of night and
buried deep in the earth.
And not only did these rubber garments melt in the heat.
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