GLOVES.* Tins is a delightful little book. Mr. Beck, whose

Drapers' Dictionary had already proved his capacity to extract sentiment and philosophy from a haberdasher's store, here writes of gloves, with the knowledge that can only come of love. He tells us of the etymology of gloves, and of the antiquity of gloves ; he unveils the mysteries of perfumed gloves, and chicken gloves, and hawking gloves, and gauntlets. He ransacks history for infor- mation about gloves in the Church, on the Throne, on the Bench ; and poetry and fiction for all the "divine nonsense." of gloves as gages, gloves as pledges, gloves as gifts, gloves as favours. He even comforts us as a nation with the declaration that, as regards gloves, our commercial position is strong. "In the thin kid, France still maintains unapproachable excellence ; but in the stouter skin gloves, England still stands pre-eminent." It is well. This proud pre-eminence in "the stouter skin" is passing well. Yet somehow Mr. Beck's book, in spite or in virtue of its excel- lences, rather induces unpleasant dreams than awakes pleasant memories. Coleridge lamented the plebification of knowledge ; what of the plebification of gloves ? Does the word recall now- a-days Shakespeare or Ben Jonson, or courts of Love, or gages of battle, or even maiden assizes ? Does it not rather bring to the mind, or at least to the tongue, the latest extravagance in Court or stage attire,—Madame Bernhardt and her six feet of gloves ? Nay, does it not suggest the somewhat vulgar romance of the last Bank-holiday ? M. Taine avers that we, as a nation, have still "the accent of the Renaissance as it left the heart of Spenser and Shakespeare," still " the divine sentiment of beauty !" True, our first poet has delighted to tell us how,—

" From the illumined halls Long lanes of splendour slanted o'er a press Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes, And rainbow robes, and gems, and gem-like eyes, And gold and golden heads ;" and even that,—

"Many a little hand Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks."

But then, the dismal questions force themselves on the mind,— Did Ida buy "small sixes," did she carry about a button-hook, and would she have relented after all, and accepted the Prince, when he recovered from his death-like swoon, if he had required more than "seven-and-three-quarters "? True, also, we have an etiquette of gloves lingering amongst us. "She is no lady ; did you notice, she kept her gloves in her hand P" is the verdict of the young milliner to her friend of the post-office, on the stout, florid, well-to-do lady, all satins and sealskin, who has just left the second-class carriage. It is still a serious question whether "a gentleman on entering a room should take off his glove before he shakes hands with a lady ;" and Mr. Beek maliciously quotes a modern Piercie Shafton, who informs ladies perplexed as to their duty in this matter, that "friendship is so sacred, that not even the substance of a glove should interpose between the hands of those who are united by its influence." But the excesses of Euphuism indicated the

• Gloves, their Annals and Associations : a Chapter of Trade and Social History By S. William Book, F.H.A.S. London : Hamilton, Adams, and Co. 1883.

decay of the chivalry they brought into ridicule; and the ro- mance of gloves must, we fear, be going, when we think of them as things to be measured and buttoned, and not as "the mystic, wonderful" symbols of love, defiance, and purity.

Mr. Beck, as the historian of gloves, has been preceded by a Mr. William Hull, who in 1834 published a book on the subject, which was intended, however, largely to demolish M'Culloch and the Free-Traders ; and something like the skeleton or plan of his volume may be found in Isaac D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature," and in what is there styled "a learned and curious dissertation compiled from the papers of an ingenious anti- quary." Mr. Beck, however, frankly acknowledges all his obliga- tions; and he has so improved on everything that has previously been written on his subject, that we may safely conclude his work to be a final book on gloves,—until, as Burns said of Delolme on the British Constitution, we get a better. The points specially treated by Mr. Beck, and evenhis general method, may be gathered from what we have already said. He exhibits a healthy, though not unenlightened scepticism as to the supposed extraordinary antiquity of gloves. Thus, in reference to the supposition that for " shoe " we should read " glove " in the book of Ruth (chap. iv., v. 7-8), and also in the famous threat," Over Edom will I cast my shoe," in the 108th Psalm, he says, "The question is as little likely to be determined as that of the identity of the Man in the Iron Mask, or that other as to the authorship of the Letters of Junius ;'" although, by the way, this second comparison is. not a very fortunate one. Mr. Beck stands on the terra Smut of the tangible and the verifiable when he treats of gloves in the Church, on the Throne, on the Bench, and in the hunting-field. The gloves wOrn by Queen Elizabeth and preserved in the Bodleian Library would not please the advocates of what is tight-fitting for the hand. "The middle finger of the glove is four and three-quarter inches in length, and the thumb five inches ; the palm is three and a half inches in width The glove is close on half a yard long, the gold fringe at the bottom only taking two inches from the total length." There is also preserved in the Ashmolea,n Museum a pair of gloves believed to have belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, and "of such liberal dimensions as to tell either against the skill of the glover or the beauty of the wearer." Under the head of "Gloves in Common Wear," we have an interesting ac- count of what are known as Shakespeare's gloves, rendered still more interesting by a drawing which is admirable, as, indeed, are all the illustrations in this volume. These gloves, which were pre- sented to Garrick by the Mayor and Corporation of Stratford in 1769, and are now in the possession of Miss Frances Benson, Mr. Beck inclines to consider genuine relics. "These were real work-a- day gloves, and have plainly seen some wear. Made of substantial leather, they are not altogether destitute of ornament. The scroll stitching on the knuckles has been in red and gold, two colours maintained throughout all the accessories of the glove. The ribbon marking .the cuff is of yellow silk, and that on the lower edge of crimson, with a yellow fringe. The cuff is of double leather, with a pattern pinked in the upper skin."

Of the various chapters in which Mr. Beck deals with the symbolic or fanciful uses to which gloves have been put, that on " Glovei as Pledges." is, if not the sprightliest, the most valuable as a contribution to our social history. The following passage may be quoted, both for the speculations it contains and as a specimen of Mr. Beck's style :—

" There canbe little doubt that the symbolism of Security attaching to the glove in this, as in many other associations, arose from its being the covering of the most active and potent member of the body. The strong right hand won and maintained power ; it confirmed agreements, and on the top of the sceptre of a monarch, denoted an authority able to reward or punish. It was the hand of honour, and the right-hand glove would appear to have been usually employed in covenants of all kinds. One of. Da Cange's citations specially mentions the use of a left-hand glove investiture — indicating that such an instance was exceptional. Thus, the glove represented the hand it usually covered. They are hand and glove, Bays an old pro. verb, when an unusually close intimacy is to be denoted (Fuller, anomolegia). Tenures held by gloves are common enough, so much so that Blount says, in the preface to his Jocular Tenures, 'I have purposely omitted, or but rarely mentioned, those more common tenures, whereby the owner was obliged to deliver, yearly, into the Exchequer, a mew'd Spar-Hawk, a pair of Spurs, Gloves, or the like ; of which kind I met with many, and held them not for my purpose, which was to take in none but what were in some respect or other remarkable! This — so far as this present work is concerned — ominous announcement, is happily neutralised by the citation of three cases in which gloves were the outward and binding sign of a covenant arranged and agreed upon. These are those of William Drury, who died May 7th (31 Eliz.), 1589, and held the manor of Little Holland, in the County of Essex, of the Queen, as of het manor.

of Wicket% alias Parke-hall, late parcel of the Duohit of Lancaster, by the service of one Knight's fee, and the rent of one pair of gloves turned up with Hare's skin ; ' of John Besett, who (amongst other

things) gave to the King 8d. for his relief for 48 acres of Land in Elmesall, Co. York, which John his father held of the King, by the

service of paying, at the Castle of Pontefract, one pair of Gloves furred with Fox's skin, or eightpence yearly ;' and of 'Phillip Bassett, who held of the King, in Capite, the manor of Wooking, in the County of Sunny, by the service of half a Knight's fee, and the annual pay- ment of one pair of Gloves, furred with Grise, to be paid yearly at the King's Exchequer.' The manor of Elston, in Nottinghamshire,

was held by the rent of 1 lb. of oummin seed, a steel needle, and two pair of gloves. These, and other like examples, are considered to have been remains of the ancient practice of binding a bargain, or transfer of property, by the delivery of a glove ; but, as regards tenure, might perhaps have begun with the conditions of feudal aervioe, under which lands were held, when the glove would again be repre- sentative of the faith under which the feofee was bound to do true and laudable service whenever called upon to fight cm behalf of his lord. With many requirements attached to the holding of land, which were either demanded by the physical needs of the lord—snob as providing table luxuries at certain seasons, or doing stated domestic or household service— and more which were dictated by a spirit of buffoonery, often, with the coarse humour of our forefathers, becoming flagrantly indecent or immoral, there was a general symbolism in the ancient servage of tenants. This can be traced in the transferred horns and daggers and swords, which were snob common charters of transfers, or gifts of land. Doubtless, in many instances in which the holder of land did yearly service in a manner that neoessarily degraded him, there was still probably an undercurrent of purpose in causing him so to make submission. Grants and gifts were figuratively medal° religions houses ; the dower of land to a monastery was made by laying a sod of the given soil upon the altar. Knights fignratively offered their services to the Church ; it was part of the religious ceremony in making a knight for the candidate to offer his sword upon the altar, in token of his devotion to the interests of the Church. The glove was sometimes, and at very early times, also made the pledge of a promise. In offering a gift of lands or other tangible benefits to Mother Church, a glove was tendered and placed on the altar, as a sign of fixed purpose ; and we may be sure the good fathers furthered and upheld the binding character of the earnest of better things to come. In 1083, the Earl of Arundel and Shrewsbury vowed the construction of an Abbey to St. Peter at Shrewsbury, and in token of his intent, placed his glove on the altar of the monastery there (Dugdale : litfonasticon)."

This volame gives a very clear and succinct account of the vicissitudes of the glove trade in this country, its present position, and the materials used and processes employed in the making of gloves. "At the present time," says Mr. Beck,. "English gloves, of which the manufacture centres at Worcester, are without rivals, are exported to all parts of the world, and command higher prices than any other." People are apt, there- fore, to forget that the glovers were opposed to Free Trade, and that from one cause or another the distress, among them had in 1840 become so serious that a deputation of their number waited upon Dr. Carr, Bishop of Worcester, to ask him to pre- sent some gloves of Worcester manufacture to Queen Adelaide, and to raise a fund to relieve their immediate necessities. When Hull wrote, half a century ago, he thought machinery could never be brought into competition with operative glovers. Bat Mr. Beck believes that a German machine which has recently been invented, and which produces gloves entirely by automatic power, saving only one minor and unimportant process known: as "felting the slit-welt "—that is, the turning over and hemming of the welt on the edge of the openings of the gloves—will ultimately supersede hand labour in this industry. Circum- stances give a special value to what Mr. Beek says as to the decadence of the glove trade in Ireland, and the vague talk in the present day about the possibility of resuscitating it :— "The decadence of the Irish glove trade has boon attributed to French competition, not in general only, but by direct effort. The Irish workmen, says one apologist, are alone to blame. While the trade was still flourishing, the French workmen became alive to the superiority of Irish kid skins and the Irish method of dressing them, and came to our country to learn. Having gained all the information they sought they returned, taking with them several Irish workers, and with all the skins they could buy up in the Irish market. Snob a proceeding; though in nowise reprehensible on their part, produced a comparative scarcity in the home market, and the skill of the Irish workmen, aided by the use of machinery (there was not any machinery in Ireland), enabled French manufa.cturersto produce excellent gloves in large quantities. The home makers raised their prices, which the trade refused to accept, and abandoned the Irish for the French manufacturers.' Hull, in his History of the Glove Trade, assigns a high place to the glove industry in Ireland ; it gave, he says, 'extensive employment to many thousands of people in Ireland ; ' an& he further states that the glove trade in Ireland not only occupied many thousands directly in the trade, but it gave occupation to an immense number of persons who went all over Ireland collecting the skins for the gloves, and on an average one million skins were collected and consumed.' These statements require to be taken with more than one grain of salt. The latter is obviously exaggerated ; and we may conclude that all the figures are over.estimated, and give the glare trade of Ireland an entirely fictitious importance, unless the

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beat writers on Irish industries are culpably silent on the subject. It is rare—and in this particular the writer can claim an extensive acquaintance with works of the kind—that gloves are mentioned at all in any account of Ireland's manufactures. It is absolutely untrue that any such prosperity attended the glove trade in Ireland within this century, and, indeed, Hull admits that it had in his time (1834) utterly decayed. To go farther back, Wakefield (Account of Ireland, 1812) says, 'Gloves are manufactured in Ireland, but not to any great extent.' Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland, 1780, does not mention gloves at all, and Lord Sheffield's Observations on, the Manufactures of Ireland, 1785—treating of the products of the country seriatim— does not include gloves. It is fair, in considering the matter, to note that Lord Sheffield shows from the Custom House books a declared export, in 1783, of 22,510 dozen of calves' skins, sent almost entirely to Scotland and Ireland, These, we are free to admit, were possibly used for the greater part in the manufacture of gloves. It is farther asserted that 'great frauds are committed in the entry of hides, and particularly of calves' skins outwards.; there is a duty on the export, and it is certain that the quantity exported exceeds greatly the quantities entered in the Custom House books.' Still, allowing this illicit traffic to be equal to the legitimate trade, presuming that some of these skins were used for producing light leather articles and were wholly used up in glove-making, adding another like quantity to be made up into Irish gloves, and there yet remains a large balance to make up an average annual produce of a million skins, and equal difficulty in imagining the services of an 'immense' number of persons to be required in collecting them. In this year (1783) there were no gloves exported from- Ireland to Scotland or England, the principal channels of trade, and by reason of the Navigation Act the only considerable channels of export. To Newfoundland, Ireland sent 48 pairs of gloves, and to Nova Scotia 1,014 pairs. From England were brought in 743 pairs, at an estimated value of 3s. per pair. A large trade, too, was done in French gloves, although the figures for 1783 are not shown. But in 1765, 5,747 pairs of French gloves were imported into Ireland, 5,030 pairs in 1766, 12,726 pairs 101775, and 4,176 pairs in 1776, showing a large and generally stable trade. It would not be possible to cite higher authorities on Irish trade than those quoted, but it is remarkable that of the large number of tracts on Irish trade all are silent as to this great glove traffic, and it is most probable that even if the flood-mark of Irish prosperity in glove manufacture were again reached the country would hardly be sensible of it. The idea of making the industry a profitable or extensive one in these days must be pronounced altogether hopeless. It. is very easy to advocate that a factory shall be established in every town of importance, and Irishwomen induced to make each successful by patronising only home manufactures ; but Ireland has, unfortunately, no possibility of becoming self- supporting, and, in this respect, no hope of being able to encounter the competition of France or England. The only remaining connec- tion of Ireland with glove manufacture is the existence of a solitary factory at Cork, and an inconsiderable trade in kid skins, which are annually collected, chiefly by French agents."