DOLLS OF OTHER DAYS.

Colonist, Volume LV, Issue 13655, 21 February 1913, Page 3

DOLLS OF OTHER DAYS.

The first doll must have been made soon after the first girl baby. Every part of the world has its page of doll history. In ancient Egypt children used to play with rag dolls, ivory dolls were common in ancient Greece, and among the Romans dolls were made of wood and wax, and even of gold and silver. Many museums contain collections of historical dolls made of wax and dressed in exact imitation o!" the people.

. In an American museum there is a fine collection of Esquimaux dolls carved out of walrus ivory and dressed in fur garments. Among them there is a whole family—father and mother and two children.

Little Japanese girls preserve their dolls with loving care. Every little girl longs to own a doll's court, containing the emperor and the empress, with their family, each one in his proper place in a tiny palace which is just like the Mikado's home in Kyoto.

It is. said' that when Cortez arrived in Mexico he found the children

of Montezuma's Court playing with precious dolls carved from pearl and ivory and having real sapphire eyes. Their dresses were of gold brocade, jewelled heavily. To-day, however, the favourite Mexican doll is a rag baby or puppet made of clay or cane*