razor, you should never put it on such a strop. In our opinion a good leather or horse hide strop is the best, and meets every requirement; but if a combination strop is used, the linen or hose side should be of the finest quality.
The strop should be not less than twenty inches long and two inches wide. Its surface should be very soft and smooth—not glazed—and you can tell whether it is so, by rubbing the hand over it. Do not fold the strop when putting it away, for if you do you are likely to crack or roughen the surface, and this will injure the edge of the blade when it is drawn across it.
After the strop has been put to a great deal of use, it will sometimes be found that it will not "take hold" on the razor—that is it will allow the blade to slip over it with little or no resistance and thus fail to impart a keen, smooth-cutting edge. The reason is that the
