Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-08-05
Gloves. nhoes nnd slooLinr..


rich and noble; although, made only of coarse
leather and laden with heavy accessories, it is
not easy to see how they can have been orna-
mental. Better gloves came into fashion in the
sixteenth century. Queen Elizabeth's earl of
Oxford is reported to have been the first Eng
lishman who brought perfumed gloves from
Italy, and in 1878 pair which cost sixty shil-
lings, perfumed and garnshed with embroidery
and goldsmith's work, was presented to the
queen by the university of Cambridge. "Her
majesty, beholding the beauty of the said
gloves" says the old chronicer, "as in great
admiration. and in token of her thankful accep-
tatlon of the same, held up one of her hands,
and, smelling into them, put them half way
upon her hands" Italian gloves soon became
fashionable in England, until special skill in
their manufacture passed from Italy to France.
Fifty thousand or more persons are now en-
ployed in glove making in England and in ad.
dltlon TO all their produce, some nine or ten
million pairs, worth nearly 100000, are an
nually brought over from France.
Coverings for the feet are more necessary than
coverings for the hands, and we find that shoes
and stockings were of more ancient use than
gloves; but here also fashion has wrought great
changes. The early BritOns wore coarse bags of
hide, made all of one piece, and tied round the
ankle, but the Romans introduced daintier foot
gear, and from them the Augo-SaXons learned
to make both boots and shoes of leather, both
being generally of one piece, laced from the toes
all the way up with strings, and sometimes pro-
tected at the sole with a wooden clog. A pair of
shoes worn by Bernard, king of Italy, and grand
son of Charlemagne, were recently foHnd in his
tomb. "The soles were of wood and the upper
parts of red leather" says an Italian writer.
They were so easily fitted to the feet, that the
order of the toes, terminating in a point at the
great toe, might easily be discovered" Finer
neater and greater Ornamentation came to be
employed in later times. Some one with de-
formed foot is said first to have had shoes
pinched at the toe, and the innovation was so
much admired that,in spite Of the denunciatons
OF the monks and the priests, it was widely fol-
lowed by courtiers and gallants of the middle
ages There were scorpion tail shoes and ram s.
horn shoes; the long, curly points being stuffed
with tow as well as toe. Shoe toes be-
came more natural, but high heels, then
called chopines, were introduced in Elizabeth's
reign. This fashion also came from Italy, and
Coryate reports that in his time the chopine was
so common that no one could go without it, at
is thing made of wood, he says, "and cover
ed with leather of sundry colors, some white,
some red, some yellow. Many of them are
curlousy painted, some of them also have
seen fairly gilt. There are many of these cho.
pines of a great height, even half yard high:
and by how much the nobler woman is by so
much the higher are her chopines. All their
gentlewomen, and most of their wives and
widows that are of any wealth, are assisted and
supported either by men or women when they
walk abroad, to the end they may not fall"
Chopines as absurd as that were not common
IN England, but pantoties or high heeled slippers
were worn to protect the daiDtily embroidered
shoes OF courtly folk, found favor, and these
pantOhes even came to be eXtravagantly orna-
mented with silver and gold buckles, costly
roSettes, and the like. The heels were not more
than two or three inches high. The changes of
fashion in shoes and boots during the last two
or three centuries may be traced in familiar
paintings, such as HoGarth's
Stockings have necessarily varied less in
shape and style, though the alterations in ma.
terial and mode of production have had greater
influence upon trade. They were made of
coarse cloth, and in fact, were little other than
ughthtting trouser legs or CATERS with feet,
till early in the sixteenth century, when the art
OF spinning them out Of worsted silk and other
materials was discovered In Scotland, improved
upon in France and Spain, and soon adopted in
England. Stubbes, in his ANATOMY of Abuses"
in 1895, complains loudly OF the innovation,
They have netherstocks," he says, of the
spendthrifts of his day, mot of cloth, though
never so fine, for that is thought too base. but
Of worsted, silk, thread, and such like, or else,
at the least, of the finest yarn that can be got,
and so curiously knit with open seam down the
leg, with quirks and clocks about the ankles,
and sometimes happily interlaced about the
ankles with gold or silver threads, as is wonder
full to behold. And to such impudent inso-
lency and shameful outrage is it now grown
that every one almost, though otherwise very
poor, having scarcely forty shillings wages by
the year, will not stick to have two or three
pair of these silk netherstocks or else of the
finest yarn that may be got, though the price
OF them be twenty shilliugs or more as com.
monty it is. The time hath been when one
might have clothed all his body well, from top
to toe, for less than pair of these netherstock
will cost"
The "netherstocks" were at first produced bv
the same process of handwork which is fol-
lowed by good housewives and country people
at the present day; but, to meet the demands of
the fashion for knitted stockings sometime
else was needed. 1t was supplied by William
Lee, native of Woodborough, in Nottingham
shire, who, after graduating at St. Johns col
lege, Cambridge, settled down as curate of Cal
Verton, very near to his birthplace about the
year 1855. Two pretty stories are told concern
ing him. The one represents that, while still a
student, he courted pretty country lass, whose
trade was stocking-knitting, and that, finding
she was always, when he went to visit her too
busy about her work TO pay to his love.mak-
ing all the attention he desired, he set his
wits to work at finding some expedent by
which her stockings might be made more
quickly, and she might have more time 10
talk and walk with him. The other story
is to the effect that after leaving college he
forfeited his fellowship, that he might marry
the maiden, and only found when the deed was
done that his curacy did not provide money
enough 10 MAINTAIN himself, his wife and the
children who began to come; that, consequently,
the Young wife had to bring out her knitting
needles again and do her share of the bread
winning; and that il was Lees distress at seeing
her toiling over her work from early morning
till late at night that led to the invention of his
stocking frame. Both stories are doubtful, but
both may be true. Perhaps the invention may
have been begun while he was a dreamy lover,
but have been left unfinished until he had TO
fulfil the duties of practical husband II is
only certain, however, that in 1889 Lee produced
his stocking frame, in which row of knitting
needless kept going by a treade, did the work
very much more quickly and easily than it had
before been done by hand; and out Of his ma
chine, the principle being the same, but the
details very much more complicated, have
grown all the devices now in force fer the man
uiacture Of stocks, and Of every other sort Of
knitted hosiery as well.-BourRe.
German employed as coachman by Luke
A. Lockwood, Esq, Of Riverside, committed
suicide on Friday afternoon last. The sound of
a pistol shot proceeding from the cOachman's
sleeping apartment, alarmed parties in the
vicinity, who, running to ascertain the cause,
found the man lying upon his bed with pistol