Miscellaneous.

Westport Times, Volume XV, Issue 19342, 14 October 1881, Page 2 (Supplement)

Miscellaneous.

THE LITERATURE OF GLOVES. (From the Detroit Free Press,) Single, a3 a stray glove, mions its mate. The glove is an emblem of civilisation and refinement, and of effeminacy as well, since it restricts the power of the hand, the most important member of the human body. " Pues in gloves catches no mice-" is indicative of this fact. The hand that grasps the lever of the world must be ungloved; the hand of the artist, the mechanic, the gold-digger, the engineer, will not permit even the gossamer texture of kid to come between its grasp, and its duty to the world of fashoin, where the glove belongs, a mere badge of etiquette. The rules which govern the use of gloves are arbitrary. A clergyman is expected to wear them on his rounds of duty, but he may not expound the word of God in them. A gentleman may not offer a gloved hand to a lady on the promenade, but he insults her if, in the dance, he offers his hanrt with the glove off. A lady lien gantee, bien chausee c'est bien habillee. It has always been a desideratum with ladies to have a tight-fitting giove, but the new ftnd, most fashionabe gloves, the Mosquetaire and Sara Bernhardt, are worn wrinkled like an old stocking. They reach to the elbow, and are either totally devoid of buttons or have them at the wrist. It gives employment to the pretty haad, to be always pulling these gloves up like a stocking down at heel, and it gives the requisite look of emaciation to the fair arm which is typical of the great actress; but aft;-r all there is a certain slovenly look about them which will soon relegate them to the limbo of unfashionable things. There is not so much to admire in a glove; it is the shape of the graceful filling that warms the heart. A glove but lately doffed, for took It keeps the happy shape it took, Warm from her touch ; what ga»e the glow, And Where's the mould that shaped it so? Thereis aliterature-of gloves which reads as follows: " Yes"—Let one glove fall. " No"—Left hand partly ungloved. " Follow me"—Strike your left shoulder with the glove. " I love you not" —Strike the glove eeveral times against the ohin. "I hate you"—Turn the glove inside out. " Can 'I sit beside yon ?"—Smooth the glove gently. " Am I loved?" —Left hand gloved, with thumb slipped out. "I love you"—Let both gloves fall together. '* We are watched" —Turn the gloves round the fingers. "I am displeased"—Strike the back of your hand against the 'gloves. " Very angry"—Put them both in your pocket. Another branch of the glove language is thus furnished by a lover who fervently adjureß: Tour fin gera from your little thumb, Were I but yoa in days to come, I'd clasp and kiss and keep her ; go And tell her that I told yon so 1 A great many pairs of gloves change hands upon elections. Many ladies pay their bets in gloves that are neither thin nor long-wristed, but some are allowed to "hedge/' \\ The pair of gloves I won My darling pays in kisses— Long may the sweet debt run i ■ The pair of gloves I won.

What old-fashioned things the onebutton gloves were compared to those that meander up the blue-reined arm, sinking into the dimples and clasping lovingly the graceful contour, as it clings to the swelling elbow. The clerk who sells gloves also fits them on; he places a square of black or purple quilted velvet on tne counter, and, taking the bended arm, places the elbow on the cushion; then be turns some perfumed powder into the glove and gently works the fingers in, one by one; then the pretty pink palm ii absorbed, and next the long wrist is drawn on, and each button firmly but gently fastened. The almondshaped finger-nails are distinctly outlined if it is a "fit." The arm tapers and tapers plump and round, but never fat; there is no unseemly gushing of too, too solid flesh at any point; no squeezing, leaving recollections of condensed nuaibera,

A little pair of gloves that yet Het&i a the smell of clover, And just a tinge of mignonette, I tarn them vaguely over; And marvel how the girl I kiuad, That night she promised to be true. Could jam a number seven flat Into a paltry number two. There is an individuality about gloves that is sometimes productive of touching results. Many years ago, when the ill-fated English steamer Atlantic was wrecked off the coast of the Bay of Fundy, a young minister who had assisted in the endeavours of the people to resoae the passengers, found a small kid glove, in the third finger of which was a h«avy~wedding ring; he took the glove home, and his imagination, overwrought by the events of the night, became.morbid,onthe subject. He saw a hand in the glove at last, heard sweet strains of music, wore the ring on his own hand; his health finally became unsettled, and he died a monomaniac to a shadow hand.. The glove she used fco wear—the impresß of her little fingers; alas I that the beautiful hand should perish, and, the "kid-skin deftly sewn" remain unaltered. How many a staid paterfamilias has had at one time of his life a creased and scented glove laid away with love knots and tender letters. A little love, A little glove, A little rosebud for a token; A little aigh W t'or days gone by, A little girl's heart broken.

PoWEBOF THE EXE.—A Btory iB t Old O; Van Amburgh, the great lion tamer, now! dead: On one occasion, white in a barroom, ha was asked how he got his wonder-1 ful power over animals. He said : "Itis by showing them that I'm not the least afraid of them. I'll give you an example of thej power of my eye." Pointing to a loutish] fellow who was sitting near by, he said:i " You see that fellow? He's a regularolown. I'll make him oome across the room to me and I wont say a word to him." Sitting down, he fixed his keen steady eye ,pn the man. Presently the fellow straightened himself gradually, got up, and came slowly aoross to the lion tamer. When he got close enough he drew back and struck Van Amburgh .a tremendous blow under the chin, knocking him clear over the chair, with the remark: " You'll stare at me like that again, won't you ?" Thex Looked Sad.—ln one of the bazaars, says a letter from India, we saw some fakirs and devotees. One of these remarkable fellows had vowed to lie upon a bed of upright nails for twenty-Bix years, and of these be had accomplished sixteen when we saw him. Hie body was attenuated and full of sores resembling leprous spots. '- We asked bim for one of the nails which pierced his miserable body. He took one from the foot of the bed, refusing in every instance to part with any of '.hose which gave him the most exquisite pain. Another miserable devotee was holding a flower-pot at arm's length. Judpe of my surprise when he told ma he had held it there for five years. Another stood with arm uplifted, and no power to lower it or move a musole, the member being dried, stiff and dead, while the long finger-nails, like bird's claws, penetrated the flesh on his wrist. All of these fellows looked moldy and Bad.

Gormandising Oratort.—ln the antuma of 1822, at " the great Glasgow dinner," one of ine guests wsb John Lawless, editor of a paper in Bslfaat. We were informed by a friend who gat near Mr. Lawless that never in his life had he seen a knilo and fork played as by the Irishman. No sooner had Prof. My lne. said graoe than Mr. Lawless begin munching bread till the tablecloth before Juim was all over crumbs. After demolishing hia own roll, nothing would satiety him bnt to clatoh his neighbour's, in which act of aggression he was resisted by the patriotic and empty-stomached constitutionalist, to whom, by the law of nature and nations, the staff of life did, beyond all controversy, belong. At this critical juncture a waiter clapped down before Mr. Lawless a profound platter of warm toup, and the vermicelli in a moment disappeared from the face of the earth. Another waiter covered the emptied trencher with one of hotchpotch j and our informant expresses his conviction that Mr. L„ while gobbling the mess, retained not the most distant recollection of his prior p erf orxnance A' cut of salmon followed, and was instantly pursued, without stop or stay, by a supply ot turfcey. Then cold tongue, with a different twang from his own, went down the throat, of the distinguished guest. A dumpling followed instanter ; an apple-tart, about eight inches square, barely turned the corner before a custard, and our fat friend was speedily overtaken by six sprit htly syllabubs. The last course was cheese, washed down by beer. In this proud estate of repletion the oratorj with brow bedewed, arose to present the clahn3 of a starving population." — Nodes Ambrosiana. Have a Purpose.—Carlyle onoe asked an Edinburgh student—who tells in the Milwaukee Senthiel —what he was studying for. The youth replied that he nad not quite made up his mind. There was a sudden flash of the old Scotchman's eye, a sudden pulling down of the shaggy eyebrows, and the stern face grew sterner a3 he said: '* The man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder; a waif, a nothing, a no man. Have a purpose in life, if it is only to kill, and divide, and sell oxen well, but have a purpose; end having it, throw such strength of mind and muscle into your work as God has given you."