The Forrest City times., 1891-06-26
GLOVES FOR THE FAIR.
THEIR STORY FROM ANCIENT
 TIMES TILL NOW.
They Say the Cave Dwcliers Wore Gloves The Greeks, Romans and Jews Wore Them-What are
 They Made or?

CHVc-uWtLltrS NuTt SloNtS. lHc NpiN itself is so old that its roots go back to primitive language. "Handshoe" the Germans call it. Among the Greeks, Romans and Jews only dignitaries wore gloves. In feudal times land was held by glove tenure and Iaith pledged by the glove. The Saxons set up as glove makers as early as the seventh century.
 It does not appear, though, says the Chicago News, that women then wore them. In one of the earliest Norman monumental brasses a great lady is shown lying in state with sort Of hand muller. Earlier than that the great sleeves of state robes came down and covered the hand. There was a rounded slit on the inner side for the fingers to come through when needed. The knights glaive-glove of mail covered with iron scales-was his gage of battle. He flung it down in token of defiance. Whoever lifted it an- swered for it at point of sword or spear.
 Much more than half the kid, so called. is lamb or rat skin. Doe, buck and dog skins were in life sheep or calf Genuine kid comes from Spain, Mexico, South America and Italy The very best though, is French, for there the thrifty peasant takes no chances on scar or spot or blemish He puts master kid in coop as soon as he is born, keeps him clean, feeds him fat, and when his short life ends gets about twice as much for the skin as it would otherwise fetch. In tan ming the hair is taken off with lime, then the skin pelted-that is, soaked in clear running water until it is a sheet of soft white membrane thin and fine as silk. Next it goes into a mixture of salt and alum. which in some way combines with it and effectu- ally tans it. Then it is dried, curried rubbed over blunt knife-edge and finally softened by beating in bath ot eggs and fine four. After that the skins are tackled on board and col ored by brushing die over the upper surface. Great care Is taken not to put on enough at one time to soak through and stain the inside.
 The best skins are made up in white and light colors. Blemshes can be concealed or at least palliated by sev- eral coats of dye. Next comes the cutting out; which is where the French mostly do excel A Frenchman will get out of a hundred skins at least a dozen more pairs of gloves than any one else, and that too without skimp- ing or in any way curtailing the fair proportions of single par. First the skins are faintly dampened. then rubbed all over with a blunt-edged knife and cut in half. From each side is cut a strip just wide enough for a glove. They are laid face out, shaped accurately one to another and stiff glove pattern so firmly pressed upon them that it leaves m outline for the scissors to follow. Cutting out the thumb hole is nice joh. On its accuracy and shape mainly depends the comfort of the glove. Thumb pieces and gussets are cut from frag- ments-often of different skin.
 The perfect glove is finer than silk. It is as soft as baby's check. elastic as a political platform. Anclently master glovers had for sign n walnut shell and showed in their windows gloves of full size folded into the com- pass of that small round. It would go hard to put pair of twenty button length in such space. Ladies of the revolution and thirty years after wore gloves that would quite put to shame the longest opera kids of our time They wrinkled all over the arm from shoulder to wrist and were cut loose enough not to need any opening what ever. They came in white, buff, pink, vivid blue, grass green and deep royal purple as well as black and crimson. Altogether they were gorgeous spec- tacle---far and away handsomer than the stumpy one-button affairs that up to twenty years ago were the correct wear for full dress.
 Ste Anne mother to the virgin, is pictured knitting gloves. Her day is the glove festival. At Ruth, whose gloves and glovers Scott has given to fame at the glovers' feast the dancers come out with 250 bells sewn in dozens to rounds of leather. jangling in tune all about them. Border gentlemen in their cups recorded insults by biting the glove. Scott tells of man who called out another solely because after a drinking bout he found that in the course of it he had bitten his glove In fact the romance of the glove like its uses and it's history. is we'll nigh inexhaustible. Turn where you will, gloves are literally on every hand There are the boxing glove, the catch ers glove. the freman's glove of mail, gloves of rubber, of hair, of silk. of lace-spider-web even has been wrought into them.
 Tho oldest of all gloves. though. is that made of bysus known otherwise as the ''silkworm of the sea-