The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-11-21
FANTASTIC TIMEPIECEs.
OId-Fashioned watches Were Fash
toned in Curious shapes.
From an Exchange.


Since timepeces have come within the
reach of everybody aid watches are made
large enough for bicycle bars and small
enough for a lady's ring, it is curiously an
teresting to recall some of the old-fash-
Toned ones that served our ancestors so
well generations ago. Even to-day some
of US have caught glimpse of the portly
old gentleman whom Dickens loved to pic
ture. with his ornate seals, wide guard
and enormous watch that filled to burst
ing the capacious fob that was its resting
place, but like many other cumbersome
fashions these respectable tmepieces are
interesting now only as curious.
Long before our time or that of our
srandfathers, watches were made in such
fantastic fashion that II is a marvel that
their owners managed to carry them about
No one seems to know the exact date of
the first timepieces, but the middle OF the
fifteenth century seems to have been the
period when portable clocks" began to
appear In the different collections of an
tiquaries there are few specimens of the
"Nuremburg Eggs or watches made in
oral shapes and coming from the town
after which they were named.
In the possession of Lady Fitzgerald of
England there was one watch which was
shaped like an eagle. which had a small
boy on it's back. This odd ornament was
meant to hint at the story of Jupiter and
Canymede The breast of the bird OPEN
ed to show the dial beneath It, and the
works were most deliberately ornamented.
When the fair owner of this treasure die
not wish to wear it on her girdle she could
stand 1t on her table.
Gold and slversmlths seem to have let
their fancy run riot during the sixteenth
century and watches made in the form OF
ducks acrons, of cookie shells and Of all
possible things made their appearance.
Most of them struck the hour. and one no
table invention fired a dimnutive pistol
at certain intervals.
When Henry II of France fell in love
with Diana of Poictiers (about 154O she
was a widow and wore mourning. Of
course that offered an opportunity to the
extravagant courtiers of the day, and the
result was that all the ornaments at court
were fashioned after such gruesome ideas
that the ridiculous was close, upon the
sublime, to say the least. Rings were
formed like skeletons, tiny collins of gold
We're worn as ornaments and they contain
ed enameed figures of death; but the most
striking products of the hour were the
Watches which dangled from fair ladies'
belts and which Represented grinnng
skulls, the tops of which lifted to disclose
the dial plate. OF course the eyes were
brilliant jewels and small fortunes were
spent in the elaborate ornamentation of
these unreal trinkets. But the watches,
the trinkets and the people who wore them
have all passed away, and since 1920, or
therea bouts, the fiat oval or round time
piece has been the general favorite
Time does not go so Enthusiastically with
us as 1t did with those untutored geniuses
of earlier times, and perhaps our plain,
substantial watches tell as much of our
character as did those bizarre inventions
of earlier days about the men and women
who wore them.