The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-09-21
M EN, w o M FEN
 A ND T HIN G s

Boots are said to have been invent ed by the Carians. Caria. it will be
 remembered, Is a district of Asia Minor, in its southwestern corner. The coast was chiefly inhabited by Greek colonists but the inhabitants of the rest of the country were carians. a people nearly allied to the Lyj1ans and Mysians.
 The Greeks considered the people mean and stupid, even for slaves. The country was governed by race of native princes, who fixed their abode at Halicarnassus, and were sutEect allies of Lydia and Persia, and some of them rose to great distinction in war and peace. Under the Romans, Caria formed part of the province of Asia. The Carians were often used as mercenaries.
 If the Carians did invent them, they lifted to a certain degree the shame cast on them by the Greeks for being stupid. Whoever invented them, boots were at first made of leather, after wards of brass or iron, and were proof against both cuts an dthrusts. It was from this that Homer called the Greeks brazen=booted. The boot only covered half the leg; some say the right boot, which was more ad- vanced than the left, 1t being ad- vanced in an attack with the sword; ; but In reality 1t appears to have been used on either leg. aRd sometimes on both. Those who fought with darts or other missile weapons advanced the left leg foremost; so that in such cases this only was booted.
 Boots were much used by the an- cients, either for riding on horse back, or walking. The Chinese had a kind of boot made, of silk, or fine stuff lined with cotton, full inch thick. which they always wore at home. These people are always boot Su' anu "HSH q NlSIl IS Hldue to them, if they happen to be without their, boots, their guest must walt till they put them on. Different kinds of half boots were worn by the Anglo -Saxons and Anglo-Normans and in the reign of Edward ", if not earlier, the boot proper, with tops and spurs, was es- tablished as an article of knightly dress.
 In the reign of Charles I, a species of boot exceedingly wide at the top, made of Spanish leather, came into use, and with Charles II the highly decorated French boot was introduced as an article of gay court attire. Meanwhile, the jack boot had become indispensable in the costume of cav airy soldiers and horsemen gener- ally, and by William III and his fol- lowers 1t was regularly naturalized in Engand. This huge species of boot remained in use in the British cavalry regiments until comparatively recent 'AilaS'J anu III eS cOulO " ldl pOliSntQ ana improved form. l have seen them worn by the famous Horse Guards. The jack boot is almost entitled to be called the parent of the top and other varieties. Boots with tops of a yellow color were commonly worn by gentlemen of the eighteenth cen tury.
 Boots seemed to have appeared in Europe about the middle of the fif- teenth century. They were not much worn at first, because persons of the wealthier classes, when abroad, were generally clad in armor; but at the time of the gradual disappearance of armor very high boots of thick leath- CT came into favor as covering for the legs, and by the sixteenth cen tury they were already in common use. Late in the eighteenth century boots became q usual part of elegan: costume, and were made lighter and close fitting.
 As the heavy armor gave way to stout leather boots. which themselves were made lighter. so in England n the middle of the nineteenth centurv boots ceased to be worn by the fash ionably dressed courtiers, and some- what later were almost abandoned even in the United States, and vet | remember when southern gentlemen of the old school prided themselves greatly on the elegance of their boots.