Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1904-01-01
BEADS AND THEIR USES.
A. Ornament. and for Useful Pur-
poses They Have Been Crow
ing tn Favor.

The bead craze is on the increase. Not
only bags, purses and even large hand
satchels are now made entirely, handles
and all, Of the tiny glass disks. but also
an increasing variety Of neck chains,
hair and hat ornaments and dress TRIM
mings. A year or two hence may rea-
sonably see more bead trapping about
up-to-date feminine gowns than ever
worn by wild Indian or Fiji islander,
says the New York Tribune. But per-
haps not one woman in hundred who
g1ories in her bead garniture and Access
series knows single item in the inter-
esting biography of these bits of glass
that are transported from Italy to Ger
many by the train load, and come into
this country at the rate of nearly 81 ,000,-
900 worth yearly. Italy is the mother
country for bead manufacture. and one
New York importer has a score or more
of quaint Venetian sample books. hum
dred or more years old, odd hinged af-
fairs, like very shallow boxes, with rows
and rows of colored beads Of all sizes
and shapes, long and short and round
and Jagged, threaded closely on their in
ner surface.
Originally, of course, they were made
wholly by hand. A hole was punched
through fast cooling bit Of molten
glass, and then small boys employed to
run in opposite directions holding OPP
posite ends Of the still maIleable mate
rial with metal nippers. Naturally the
faster they ran the more attenuated the
strand of glass would become before
hardened by cooling, but no matter how
fast or how far the small glass
stretched, the hole in the middle would
never close up. After this cooling and
elongating process, which left the hol-
low strand Of unequal thickness.
throughout its length, it was chopped
into minute lengths as nearly equal as
possible, and then the different sizes
sorted out for sale. To smooth the rough
and irregular surfaces bushels Of these
beads were put into huge cylindrical
drum with quantity of ashes and turned
at rapid rate for some length Of time
There are still quantities of partially
finished beads shipped from Italy to
Germany, as there the immense water
power avaiie HE makes the mechanism
necessary for their completion compare
lively cheap, while in Italy it would have
TO be done by electricity at great ex-
pense.
Besides the many methods of personal
Useful ways in daily life. They are used
now for the bearing on patent fishing
tacke1, spoon hooks, etc.
Kindergarten supplies create another
market for the ubiquitous bead. And
curiously enough, some Of the long.
thick, opaque bits of glass, usually
murky or creamy in tint, which form an
attractive part of the string which the
toddling disciple of Froebel carries home
In triumph, are as often as not a part OF
the old-time purchase money of African
slaves When this trade was at its
height, ships from Boston and New York
used to set out for the slave coast, laden
with so or more large cases Of these
trinkets, for admiration of which Afri-
can chiefs used to part comp1acently
with as many Of their neighbors as the
bead bringers desired. Stanley late,
found these beads far in the interior Of
Africa, where they passed as currency
under the name Of soft, and In many por-
lions they still circulate largely. When
slave traders were finally put out Of
business, several firms in New York and
Boston found themselves with quantities
Of this bead currency on hand, and they
were slowed away for a generation or
more as hopelessly unmarketable, until
of late, when, to quote one dealer, ''any-
thing goes in kindergarten usage, they
are finding their way into schools as edu-
Gators and rainy day pastime for small
American fingers.
A.onx, MAJ, Var