Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/716

692 parts was 81,450 dollars, of domestic exports 36,172 dollars, and of foreign exports 384 dollars. Steamers ply daily between the city and Boston. There are a number of manufactories connected chieﬂy with the ﬁsheries, and in the neighbourhood there are extensive granite quarries. Gloucester possesses a ﬁne city hall, a high school, seven grainmar schools, and a free library. On account of its attractive situation, and the ﬁne scenery of the neighbourhood, it is a favourite summer residence. About 2 miles from it is Norman’s Woe, the scene of the wreck of the “ Hes- perus,” celebrated in Longfellow’s poem.

1em  GLOUCESTER,. See.  GLOVE (Saxon glof), a covering for the hand, with a - separate sheath for each ﬁnger. Among our ancestors, to throw down the glove or gauntlet was equivalent to a challenge to single combat, and the person thus deﬁed signiﬁed his acceptance of the challenge by taking up the glove, and casting down his own,—which ceremony was regarded as a mutual compact to meet at the time and place speciﬁed. This custom, according to Favyn (Thédlre (l’IIonneur et de C'lcezalerie), was derived from the Oriental mode of contracting sales of land and the like by giving the purchaser a glove, by way of delivery or investiture; and to this effect he quotes Ruth iv. 7 and Psa. cviii. 9, passages where the word commonly translated “ shoe ” is by some rendered “glove.” Du Cange quotes from a charter of the an instance of re-investiture or restitution symbolized by the person depositing his glove on the earth. The use of gloves is of high antiquity. There is reason to believe the ancient Persians wore them, since it is mentioned in the Cyropcedia of Xenophon that on one occasion Cyrus went without his gloves ; and we know that some kind of protecting coverings for the hands were used by the Greeks and Romans in certain kinds of manual labour, although their precise form is unknown. The word gantus, used for a glove in mediaeval Latin, is obviously of Teutonic derivation. In the life of St Colum- banus, written by Jonas, abbot of Bobbio, in the, gloves for protecting the hands in manual labour are spoken of as “ tegumenta manuum quae Galli wantos vocant.” A pair of gloves are mentioned in the will of Bishop Ricnl- fus, who died Gloves did not become articles of ecclesiastical vestment till the. They do not appear in the Bayeux tapestry, and they did not come into general use in England till the. Matthew Paris, noticing the burial of Henry II. , mentions that he was buried in his coronation robes, with a golden crown on his head and gloves on his hands. Gloves were also found on the hands of King John when his tomb was opened iu 1797, and on the hands of Edward I. when his tomb was opened in 1774. In the they were in common use among the better classes. In the they were frequently embroidered with great elaboration, and in the reign of Charles II. the short sleeves of the ladies’ dresses brought in long gloves reaching almost to the elbow. It is an old custom in England that a pair of gloves are given by the sheriff to the judge who presides at a maiden assize ; and in Scotland white gloves are given to the judges on a maiden circuit,—that is, when there are no cases for trial. The manufacture of gloves was early introduced into the British Islands, and such was the dignity of the craft that, as early as the reign of King Robert III., the incorporation of glovers of Perth was chartered—a wealthy guild still existing, although the calling has long ceased to characterize that town. The glovers’ company of London received its armorial bearings as early as, but the body was not chartered till 1638 3 and in Worcester, which has long been the principal British centre of the trade, a company was incorporated in 1661. The glove industry of the present day is both extensive and diversiﬁed, seeing that gloves are now almost universally worn, and made of various classes of material and in several different ways. Of yarn, thread, silk, and cloth gloves it is unnecessary to speak, as these varieties are, in comparison with leather gloves, of comparatively little importance. The leather employed by glovers is prepared from the skins of deer, sheep and lambs, goats and kids— the last being by far the most important. The skins are prepared either by the ordinary processes of shamoying for wash-leather and doe or buck leather gloves, or by a special method of tawing in the case of ordinary dress gloves. The kid-skins are principally collected by hawkers in the South European countries, and sold in the Leipsic and Naples fairs. The tawing industry is conducted on a great scale at Annonay, Paris, and Milhau in F rancc. The tawing process differs from ordinary tanning in the greater (ale and cleanliness of all the operations, in the submission of the dressed skins to a brief fermentation by piling them under the inﬂuence of heat, which increases the softness and ﬂexibility of the leather, and in tawing with a mixture of ﬂour, the yellow of eggs, and alum. On the completion of this operation, they are stretched by hand and dried as rapidly as possible. Thereafter they are damped, placed in dozens between linen cloths, and worked about to render them soft and pliable, after which they are planed on the ﬂesh side, dried, and again planed. They are then polished by rubbing with a heavy glass disc or other smooth substance, and dyed by brushing liquid dyes over one side. Finally they are stretched on a marble table, and smoothed with a blunt knife. From a kid skin so prepared the materials of three gloves are obtained. The skins are moistened and stretched, and the various parts are cut out by a machine having steel punches the shape and size desired. The thumb piece, the quirks and the fourchettcs inserted between the ﬁngers, and the wrist welt—the latter frequently white—are cut out separately. Machine sewing, in which a kind of button stitch is made, is to a small ex- tent utilized in the manufacture of gloves ; but the greater part of the sewing is done by hand. The pieces to be sewn together are placed in a machine between a pair of jaws, the holding edge of which is composed of ﬁne saw teeth, between each of which the sewer passes back and forward her needle, and in this way a neat uniform stitch is secured. There are three kinds of hand-sewing in the glove trade— round sewing or ordinary glove stitch, piqué stitch, and prick seam. After sewing, the backs are stitched or tam- boured, the button—11010 is formed, the wrist attached, and the button sewed on, thus ﬁnishing the glove. After damping and stretching to its utmost length, the glove is ready to be stamped and put up for use. Paris is, beyond question, the most important centre of glove-making, and for delicacy of material and beauty of workmanship the productions of some Parisian manufacturers are without any rivals ; but it is at Grenoble that French gloves are most extensively manufactured. English gloves, of unfailing excellence of material and workmanship, are principally made at Worcester; and in one specialty—— “(10gskin” gloves made from Cape sheep-skin, having a warm tan colour-English makers have no competitors. A very large quantity of cheap but useful gloves are made at Brussels and Copenhagen. During the year 1876, 1,084,400 dozen pairs, of a value of £1,380,884, were imported into