The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1882-10-06
Gloves, Old and New.

Gloves, Old and New.
Gloves were articles of oriental dress
for according to Xenophon they were
worn by Cyrus the Persian; and Athe
n@us speaks of a celebrated gourmand
who came to banquet with glOved
hands, that he might eat more rapidly
than his fellow guests, who had to wait
until the viands were cool.
In ancient times a glove was EN-.
ployed as token or pledge of faith in
the making of contracts sort of sub.
stitute for the hand itself-being cast
down by one contracting party, to be
taken up, as sealing agreement, by the
other.
Before the union of England and
Scotland, the borderers having once
pledged their faith to an enemy, re.
garded its violation as a grave crime;
and, when such breach of honor &C
CURED, the injured person rode through
the field at the next border meeting,
holding up glove on the point of his
spear-as pledge of falkland pro.
claimed the perfdy of him who had
broken it. To wipe out such stain the
criminal was often slain by his own
clan.
Passing over all mention of the gloves
worn by knights with their mail armor,
or having overlapping plates of
steel, 1 will name few of those of
which some note has been made in his
tory.
A fur-lined glove, worn by Henry w.,
is still preserved in the old mansion that
gave him shelter after the disastrous
battle of Hexham Q464. The son-in
law of Tunstall, and Esquire of his
body" Sir Ralph Pudsey, kept him in
concealment at Bolton Hall, Yorkshire;
and there, when he left his faithful host,
he also left boot, spoon and glove. The
latter is of tanned leather, lined with
hairy deer skin, turned over at the wrist
as deep cuff.
The embroidered gloves of Ceur de
Lion lost him his liberty at one time,
and might have cost him his life. He
was lying in concealment in an enemy's
country, and his page carried them very
indiscreetly in his pocket-though, per-
haps, for their better safety-when sent
by his royal master to obtain food in the
neighborhood of Vienna. How it hap
pened does not appear; but they were
seen, and recognized as being only suita-
BILE for crowned head to possess. The
same night the King was captured by
the Duke of Austria, and sold by him to
Emperor Henry w., for 10000 pounds
of silver.
Anne Boleyn seems to have been very
particular about her gloves, and it is re-
corded that her royal predecessor used to
delight in making her play cards with
out them, that some little blemish in the
shape of one of her nails mig ht offend the
eye of the King.
Queen Mary and her sister Elizabeth
took pride in this article of dress. 1t is
said that the latter was extraVagant in
the extreme about them, and that
marvellous pair was at one time presented
to her that was enclosed in a walnut
shell. She even retained her gloves
when playing the virginia.. One "payr
of gloves embrawret with gold" is re-
corded as having been sent to her sister
Mary asa New Years gift before her &C.
cession, and '3tenpayr Of Spanyshe gloves
from a Clutches in Spayne" came to her
a year afterward, while at about that
time "a pair of swete gloves" were also
presented to her from Mrs. Whellers.
The degradation of any exalted per
sonage in the middle ages was expressed
by the deprivation of his gloves-just as
a glove was presented to him in the
ceremony of bestowing on him lands or
honors.
The enormous quantity of so-called
kid gloves is greatly in excess of the
amount of leather afforded by the skins
of all the young goats annually killed to
supply the demand. There has long
been quite trade carried on in Paris by
the gamins in rat skins, who have much
profitable sport in catching them at the
mouths of the great drains of the city.
Our real kid skins come from Switzer-
land and Tuscany, dispatched from Leg
horn.-Ihe Queen.