The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-09-25

pulsory as at any other season of the
rear.
But now one may go days together in
the croWded streets, or other places
where people congregate. and never
catch sight of a gloved hand one may
observe, too, that in the rare cases
where gloves are worn the wearer is
OF the conservative type rather than OF
the fashionable kind. To the former
gloves are i~nexorable-the sign of good
breeding and good dressing that cannot
be omitted.
At a little forsaken-looking hamlet
on the way to Denver, during the recent
meeting Of the General Federation of
Women's clubs, a woman boarded the
train and Joined the delegates. She
looked like the place-little and forsaken
but she was intelligent and refined
and had two bright babies with her.
Dreadfully poor, with shabby clothing,
a last winters hat. and the two babies
10 tax care of. she yet wore gloves
loose, old-fashioned black ones, but
gloves nevertheless. The were her
creed of good form, and she wore them
religiously. only taking them off when
she fed the children and Immediately
replacing them.
The woman was an Fastener, who,
years ago, married and went West"
They had not succeeded. She was to
siNNb bti SiSAti at ut IeutTdllOn, VINO Is
a prosperous Boston woman and whom
she had not seen for 20 years. 1t was a
pathetic little incident, emphasized by
the gloves.
AT all Of the federation meetings there
was scarcely a glove to be seen. Even
at the evening receptions they were dis
pensed with.
Originally the wearing OF gloves was
on the same sound principle
that inspires a miller TO wear a white
hat. but long age the custom departed
from the primitive ideal of usefulne SIS.
According to the encyclopedias and
other heavy literature Laertes was the
first to wear a glove. The farmer king
was not fashionable, but 1t is set forth
in the Odyssey" that in his capacity
of farmer he had to deal with certain
brambly bushes, and he must also keep
his hands in a kingly condition, hence
the introduction of gloves.
Since that time gloves have had many
and strange signiicances. from a seal
of the transfer of property to a chal-
lenge to single combat. Not only CEN
turtles later did they begin to TX on
class significance. 1t was when they
were adopted by royalty that tho wear
ing Of gloves was first regarded as a
mark of station. Some of the early In
glish kings were buried with gloves on.
and when the manufacture of gloves
was introduced in Great Britain ii was
considered as a craft of great dignity
and Importance. During the reign of
King Robert III. OF Scotland the incor-
poration Of the Glovers of Perth, a
wealthy guild which still exists, was
and received armorial bear
ings. Il
But although gloves were started on
their career through the centuries by
men, 1t mas fallen 10 the women 40
bring them into universal popularity.
After bringing about UGH a fashion It
is to be supposed that women have felt
must stand by it, for. whatever
the cause. men have never become adj
dicted to the glove habit after the man
ner of women. A man is bound to Oe
comfortable, and when gloves are a dis
comfort he casts them off. He never
loses sight of the utility idea, differing |
the rib sex, which was created
to it.
Win the Introduction of the shirt
waist, the short skirt, and the sailor and
Fedora hats, a woman's costume has be-
come comparatively simple and sensi-
BILE, and il is this new freedom and coml-
'ort in dressing that accounts for her
independence in the matter of gloves.
Merchants and dealers in gloves say
hat this new bare-handed fad has af-
the sale enormously. June, July
August are deadly duff in the glove
.rade, and this year not even silk gloves
ind the sale of former years.