Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/161

 strong, well-waxed sewing silk from the tip upward; when the ring is reached, the end of the silk should be slipped beneath it with a blunt bodkin, and then, as the string is unwound, the ring will be forced down. Sometimes even this does not succeed, and the ring has to be filed off, or what is far better, thoroughly cleansed with ether, and rubbed with quicksilver for some minutes, when it will readily fall to pieces, and can be thus removed without pain, delay, or exertion.

We have known at least one instance where the hand had become puffy and ill-shaped by wearing gloves fastened too tightly across the wrist. And we remember seeing President Lincoln's right hand on one occasion when it was actually swollen by a series of violent hand-*shaking. Why is it that this absurd custom of "paddling palms" has been allowed to become so universal among us? It is a severe infliction on public men. General George Washington, it is well known, had a strong aversion to it, and at his levees always stood with his hands behind him, simply bowing with dignified courtesy as one after another was presented. Our best society, we are glad to see, are discountenancing hand-shaking as a general custom, and reserve it for a mark of personal, kindly feeling.

It is needless to emphasize the importance of the use of gloves. The best are those of animal fibre, as kid, doeskin, or buckskin. The court ladies in old times probably could never boast of their pretty white