Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 114

4092. Where do you live?-At Satter, in Sandwick parish.

4093. Are you in the habit of knitting?-Yes.

4094. For whom?-For Mr. Robert Linklater. I knitted for him first.

4095. Does he supply you with wool?-He gives us worsted to knit.

4096. You don't knit with your own worsted?-No.

4097. What do you knit?-Mostly veils.

4098. How often you come to Lerwick with them?-Generally at the end of every month.

4099. Do you keep an account with Mr. Linklater?-We get no lines, and I have not a pa.s.s-book.

4100. Why have you not a pa.s.s-book?-Because he thought there was no use giving us a pa.s.s-book when he marked all the things down in his own book, and he would not give it.

4101. When you go to him with your veils, how are you paid?- Very poorly. We just get 8d. for a veil.

4102. How is that paid to you-in money or goods?-In goods. I have asked for a payment in money, but he would not give any.

He gives us tea for 9d. and 10d. a quarter.

4103. Would you give your veils for less if you could get money for them?-Yes, for a little less.

4104. For how much less?-Not much.

4105. Are you not as well off getting the goods as you got money?-No; I would be better off with the money.

4106. Why? Do you not want to buy the articles [Page 103] which Mr. Linklater sells to you?-No. Sometimes we need a little meal.

4107. Have you no other means of getting meal than from your knitting?-No.

4108. Do you not work out of doors?-We work in the field and in the turnips.

4109. But it is yourself I am speaking of. Do you live with your father and mother?-Yes.

4110. Have they got a bit of ground?-Very little; a peerie (small) bit.

4111. But you think you would be better with money, and you want to buy meal with it?-Yes, I want to buy some meal. I dropped knitting to Mr. Linklater and went to Mr. Sinclair. I asked a little money from him, and I got 2s. or 3s. So far as I saw, there was more justice in him than in Mr. Linklater.

4112. If you were only paid for your knitting in dresses and goods of that sort, what did you do when you wanted to buy meal?-We had to take the goods home, and give the cotton and tea for the meal we wanted.

4113. To whom did you give the cotton and tea?-Just to any person who would give us meal for them.

4114. Is there a shop in your neighbourhood?-Yes.

4115. Have you given goods there in exchange for meal?-Yes, sometimes.

4116. Does the shopkeeper there take your goods from you in that way, in exchange for any articles you want?-Yes, sometimes, when we require anything.

4117. What is his name?-Mr. Gavin Henderson, at Ness, Sandwick.

4118. Is it a common thing for Mr. Henderson to take goods from you?-No.

4119. He generally wants to be paid in money?-Yes.

4120. Is that the only thing you have done with the goods except using them yourself?-No. When I met any person that I could get a little meal from in exchange for them, I have given them for that.

4121. Have you ever given away your goods to any other person than Mr. Henderson for money or meal?-Not very often.

4122. Have you ever done it?-Yes.

4123. To whom have you given them?-Just to any person thereabout.

4124. You have given them to any neighbour who wanted the goods, and happened to have meal?-Yes.

4125. When was that?-It was about two or three years back.

4126. You have not done it for the last two or three years?-No.

4127. How was that? Have you been better off?-Yes, a little; but not much.

4128. You have been getting some money from Mr. Sinclair during the last two or three years?-Yes; a shilling now and then.

4129. And that would help you?-Yes, it helped a little.

4130. How much do you get in a month for your knitting?-I will get a shilling and a sixpence at a time.

4131. But what is the value of your knitting? What are your earnings in a month?-I will make about eight or nine veils in a month; and when they are made of the finest worsted I get 16d. for them.

4132. Then you will be earning 12s. or 13s. in a month?-Yes.

4133. And you will get a shilling of that in cash now and then?- Yes.

4134. Do you spend the rest in dress?-Yes, and cotton.

4135. How much of that will you give away in the course of a year for meal and money?-I could not say.

4136. You will get about 6 or 7 worth of dress in the course of a year: do you require all that for your own use?-No, I don't require it all.

4137. You give some of it to the rest of your family?-Yes.

4138. Is that all you have got to say?-Yes.

Lerwick, January 8, 1872, JANE SANDISON; examined.

4139. You have come in from Sandwick parish to give some evidence about the way in which you are paid for your hosiery?- Yes.