Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-23

TN no other article of use have history and
! united to form such richness OF symbol
. ism as in gloves. They have played an important
part in the building of nations; they have stood as
pledges of security; they have conveyed defiance
from one knight to another. even as they were the
favorite gage between lovers, emlssar1es on mis-
sons of peace. On all great occasions gloves have
been mute messengers of coincidence or of congrat-
ulation No other symbol except 1t is the cross cross;
the transactions of life. In the history OF dress
gloves stand unique
So remote is the antiquity of gloves that no one
can say definitely when these articles first into
use Hebrew scholars that glove meant instead
of shoe in the story of Ruth where it is stated that
the shoe is taken for claim, and again IN Psalms:
lover Edom will cast out my shoe" Mural paint
ings in Thebes represented ambassadors bearing
presents of gloves, and it is thought that among the
Israelites gloves worn only by men of rank on
ceremonial occasions Men wore them for centuries
before adopted them, and at first they were
not for warmth by either SEX for the sleeves
long that 1t was an easy matter to cover the
hands with them.
Xenophon in the eighth book of the "Cyropedia"
complains of the luxury of the Persians, who pro-
tected themselves from the with umbrellas, and
cit is not enough to clothe their heads and their
bodies and their feet but they have coverings made
of hair for their hands and fingers" The Chaldeans
wore them, as is shown by their language, in which
there is word for hand coverings. That they were
known to the Romans and Greeks is certain from
their literature. They are mentioned in the Odys-
sey" and by Vergil.
The Romans are credited with introducing gloves
into Great Britain where, however, they did not
become common until long after they were in ordi-
nary in France.
Even Cave Dwelers Had Them
put the ancestry of gloves has remoteness far
- beyond all this, for Professor William Boyd
Dawkins, who has made the cave jewellers study,
says that these prehistoric men wore gloves, even
the elbow variety, made from roughly dressed skins
When the jewellers lived no man knows; but
biologists have said no later than eighty thousand
years ago, and surely gloves with such record may
well claim to be of the first famies
Coming back to the comparatively modern be-
ginning of the Christian era find that the church
took the manufacture of gloves into its care, it
did much else that was useful and necessary in
those days. About 100, Charemagne granted
limited right of hunting to the abbot and monks OF
Sithin for skins to be made into gloves; and more
than this, the church employed gloves in its cere-
monies to denote that the hands they covered
should be chaste, clean and free from STAIN There
are many legends of the church relating of gloves.
Beautiful Workmanship and embroidery of gold
thread, silk, and jewels were exhibited on many of
the gloves belonging to the church. New College,
Oxford still preserves pair once worn by William
of Wykeham. Many gloves by the bishops
wrought with pearls and other precious stones,
and were bequeathed as legacies So great became
church that sumptuary restrictions affecting the
clergy passed, which is the sole instance of
such legislation connected with gloves.
Not only were gloves associated with ecclesias-
teal power, but they also the sign of kngly
might. Monarchs invested with authority by
men of Paris 1904, that. The Earl of Flanders
by the delivery of glove into the hands of the
goode town of Flanders
Blessing the gloves and investing the King with
them was an important detail of the coronation of
mos nj France a. as