1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2036
2037
2038
2039
2040
2041
2042
2043
2044
2045
2046
2047
2048
2049
2050
2051
2052
2053
2054
2055
2056
2057
2058
2059
2060
2061
2062
2063
2064
2065
2066
2067
2068
2069
2070
2071
2072
2073
2074
2075
2076
2077
2078
2079
2080
2081
2082
2083
2084
2085
2086
2087
2088
2089
2090
2091
2092
2093
2094
2095
2096
2097
2098
2099
2100
2101
2102
2103
2104
2105
2106
2107
2108
2109
2110
2111
2112
2113
2114
2115
2116
2117
2118
2119
2120
2121
2122
2123
2124
2125
2126
2127
2128
2129
2130
2131
2132
2133
2134
2135
2136
2137
2138
2139
2140
2141
2142
2143
2144
2145
2146
2147
2148
2149
2150
2151
2152
2153
2154
2155
2156
2157
2158
2159
2160
2161
2162
2163
2164
2165
2166
2167
2168
2169
2170
2171
2172
2173
2174
2175
2176
2177
2178
2179
2180
2181
2182
2183
2184
2185
2186
2187
2188
2189
2190
2191
2192
2193
2194
2195
2196
2197
2198
2199
2200
2201
2202
2203
2204
2205
2206
2207
2208
2209
2210
2211
2212
2213
2214
2215
2216
2217
2218
2219
2220
2221
2222
2223
2224
2225
2226
2227
2228
2229
2230
2231
2232
2233
2234
2235
2236
2237
2238
2239
2240
2241
2242
2243
2244
2245
2246
2247
2248
2249
2250
2251
2252
2253
2254
2255
2256
2257
2258
2259
2260
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266
2267
2268
2269
2270
2271
2272
2273
2274
2275
2276
2277
2278
2279
2280
2281
2282
2283
2284
2285
2286
2287
2288
2289
2290
2291
2292
2293
2294
2295
2296
2297
2298
2299
2300
2301
2302
2303
2304
2305
2306
2307
2308
2309
2310
2311
2312
2313
2314
2315
2316
2317
2318
2319
2320
2321
2322
2323
2324
2325
2326
2327
2328
2329
2330
2331
2332
2333
2334
2335
2336
2337
2338
2339
2340
2341
2342
2343
2344
2345
2346
2347
2348
2349
2350
2351
2352
2353
2354
2355
2356
2357
2358
2359
2360
2361
2362
2363
2364
2365
2366
2367
2368
2369
2370
2371
2372
2373
2374
2375
2376
2377
2378
2379
2380
2381
2382
2383
2384
2385
2386
2387
2388
2389
2390
2391
2392
2393
2394
2395
2396
2397
2398
2399
2400
2401
2402
2403
2404
2405
2406
2407
2408
2409
2410
2411
2412
2413
2414
2415
2416
2417
2418
2419
2420
2421
2422
2423
2424
2425
2426
2427
2428
2429
2430
2431
2432
2433
2434
2435
2436
2437
2438
2439
2440
2441
2442
2443
2444
2445
2446
2447
2448
2449
2450
2451
2452
2453
2454
2455
2456
2457
2458
2459
2460
2461
2462
2463
2464
2465
2466
2467
2468
2469
2470
2471
2472
2473
2474
2475
2476
2477
2478
2479
2480
2481
2482
2483
2484
2485
2486
2487
2488
2489
2490
2491
2492
2493
2494
2495
2496
2497
2498
2499
2500
2501
2502
2503
2504
2505
2506
2507
2508
2509
2510
2511
2512
2513
2514
2515
2516
2517
2518
2519
2520
2521
2522
2523
2524
2525
2526
2527
2528
2529
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537
2538
2539
2540
2541
2542
2543
2544
2545
2546
2547
2548
2549
2550
2551
2552
2553
2554
2555
2556
2557
2558
2559
2560
2561
2562
2563
2564
2565
2566
2567
2568
2569
2570
2571
2572
2573
2574
2575
2576
2577
2578
2579
2580
2581
2582
2583
2584
2585
2586
2587
2588
2589
2590
2591
2592
2593
2594
2595
2596
2597
2598
2599
2600
2601
2602
2603
2604
2605
2606
2607
2608
2609
2610
2611
2612
2613
2614
2615
2616
2617
2618
2619
2620
2621
2622
2623
2624
2625
2626
2627
2628
2629
2630
2631
2632
2633
2634
2635
2636
2637
2638
2639
2640
2641
2642
2643
2644
2645
2646
2647
2648
2649
2650
2651
2652
2653
2654
2655
2656
2657
2658
2659
2660
2661
2662
2663
2664
2665
2666
2667
2668
2669
2670
2671
2672
2673
2674
2675
2676
2677
2678
2679
2680
2681
2682
2683
2684
2685
2686
2687
2688
2689
2690
2691
2692
2693
2694
2695
2696
2697
2698
2699
2700
2701
2702
2703
2704
2705
2706
2707
2708
2709
2710
2711
2712
2713
2714
2715
2716
2717
2718
2719
2720
2721
2722
2723
2724
2725
2726
2727
2728
2729
2730
2731
2732
2733
2734
2735
2736
2737
2738
2739
2740
2741
2742
2743
2744
2745
2746
2747
2748
2749
2750
2751
2752
2753
2754
2755
2756
2757
2758
2759
2760
2761
2762
2763
2764
2765
2766
2767
2768
2769
2770
2771
2772
2773
2774
2775
2776
2777
2778
2779
2780
2781
2782
2783
2784
2785
2786
2787
2788
2789
2790
2791
2792
2793
2794
2795
2796
2797
2798
2799
2800
2801
2802
2803
2804
2805
2806
2807
2808
2809
2810
2811
2812
2813
2814
2815
2816
2817
2818
2819
2820
2821
2822
2823
2824
2825
2826
2827
2828
2829
2830
2831
2832
2833
2834
2835
2836
2837
2838
2839
2840
2841
2842
2843
2844
2845
2846
2847
2848
2849
2850
2851
2852
2853
2854
2855
2856
2857
2858
2859
2860
2861
2862
2863
2864
2865
2866
2867
2868
2869
2870
2871
2872
2873
2874
2875
2876
2877
2878
2879
2880
2881
2882
2883
2884
2885
2886
2887
2888
2889
2890
2891
2892
2893
2894
2895
2896
2897
2898
2899
2900
2901
2902
2903
2904
2905
2906
2907
2908
2909
2910
2911
2912
2913
2914
2915
2916
2917
2918
2919
2920
2921
2922
2923
2924
2925
2926
2927
2928
2929
2930
2931
2932
2933
2934
2935
2936
2937
2938
2939
2940
2941
2942
2943
2944
2945
2946
2947
2948
2949
2950
2951
2952
2953
2954
2955
2956
2957
2958
2959
2960
2961
2962
2963
2964
2965
2966
2967
2968
2969
2970
2971
2972
2973
2974
2975
2976
2977
2978
2979
2980
2981
2982
2983
2984
2985
2986
2987
2988
2989
2990
2991
2992
2993
2994
2995
2996
2997
2998
2999
3000
3001
3002
3003
3004
3005
3006
3007
3008
3009
3010
3011
3012
3013
3014
3015
3016
3017
3018
3019
3020
3021
3022
3023
3024
3025
3026
3027
3028
3029
3030
3031
3032
3033
3034
3035
3036
3037
3038
3039
3040
3041
3042
3043
3044
3045
3046
3047
3048
3049
3050
3051
3052
3053
3054
3055
3056
3057
3058
3059
3060
3061
3062
3063
3064
3065
3066
3067
3068
3069
3070
3071
3072
3073
3074
3075
3076
3077
3078
3079
3080
3081
3082
3083
3084
3085
3086
3087
3088
3089
3090
3091
3092
3093
3094
3095
3096
3097
3098
3099
3100
3101
3102
3103
3104
3105
3106
3107
3108
3109
3110
3111
3112
3113
3114
3115
3116
3117
3118
3119
3120
3121
3122
3123
3124
3125
3126
3127
3128
3129
3130
3131
3132
3133
3134
3135
3136
3137
3138
3139
3140
3141
3142
3143
3144
3145
3146
3147
3148
3149
3150
3151
3152
3153
3154
3155
3156
3157
3158
3159
3160
3161
3162
3163
3164
3165
3166
3167
3168
3169
3170
3171
3172
3173
3174
3175
3176
3177
3178
3179
3180
3181
3182
3183
3184
3185
3186
3187
3188
3189
3190
3191
3192
3193
3194
3195
3196
3197
3198
3199
3200
3201
3202
3203
3204
3205
3206
3207
3208
3209
3210
3211
3212
3213
3214
3215
3216
3217
3218
3219
3220
3221
3222
3223
3224
3225
3226
3227
3228
3229
3230
3231
3232
3233
3234
3235
3236
3237
3238
3239
3240
3241
3242
3243
3244
3245
3246
3247
3248
3249
3250
3251
3252
3253
3254
3255
3256
3257
3258
3259
3260
3261
3262
3263
3264
3265
3266
3267
3268
3269
3270
3271
3272
3273
3274
3275
3276
3277
3278
3279
3280
3281
3282
3283
3284
3285
3286
3287
3288
3289
3290
3291
3292
3293
3294
3295
3296
3297
3298
3299
3300
3301
3302
3303
3304
3305
3306
3307
3308
3309
3310
3311
3312
3313
3314
3315
3316
3317
3318
3319
3320
3321
3322
3323
3324
3325
3326
3327
3328
3329
3330
3331
3332
3333
3334
3335
3336
3337
3338
3339
3340
3341
3342
3343
3344
3345
3346
3347
3348
3349
3350
3351
3352
3353
3354
3355
3356
3357
3358
3359
3360
3361
3362
3363
3364
3365
3366
3367
3368
3369
3370
3371
3372
3373
3374
3375
3376
3377
3378
3379
3380
3381
3382
3383
3384
3385
3386
3387
3388
3389
3390
3391
3392
3393
3394
3395
3396
3397
3398
3399
3400
3401
3402
3403
3404
3405
3406
3407
3408
3409
3410
3411
3412
3413
3414
3415
3416
3417
3418
3419
3420
3421
3422
3423
3424
3425
3426
3427
3428
3429
3430
3431
3432
3433
3434
3435
3436
3437
3438
3439
3440
3441
3442
3443
3444
3445
3446
3447
3448
3449
3450
3451
3452
3453
3454
3455
3456
3457
3458
3459
3460
3461
3462
3463
3464
3465
3466
3467
3468
3469
3470
3471
3472
3473
3474
3475
3476
3477
3478
3479
3480
3481
3482
3483
3484
3485
3486
3487
3488
3489
3490
3491
3492
3493
3494
3495
3496
3497
3498
3499
3500
3501
3502
3503
3504
3505
3506
3507
3508
3509
3510
3511
3512
3513
3514
3515
3516
3517
3518
3519
3520
3521
3522
3523
3524
3525
3526
3527
3528
3529
3530
3531
3532
3533
3534
3535
3536
3537
3538
3539
3540
3541
3542
3543
3544
3545
3546
3547
3548
3549
3550
3551
3552
3553
3554
3555
3556
3557
3558
3559
3560
3561
3562
3563
3564
3565
3566
3567
3568
3569
3570
3571
3572
3573
3574
3575
3576
3577
3578
3579
3580
3581
3582
3583
3584
3585
3586
3587
3588
3589
3590
3591
3592
3593
3594
3595
3596
3597
3598
3599
3600
3601
3602
3603
3604
3605
3606
3607
3608
3609
3610
3611
3612
3613
3614
3615
3616
3617
3618
3619
3620
3621
3622
3623
3624
3625
3626
3627
3628
3629
3630
3631
3632
3633
3634
3635
3636
3637
3638
3639
3640
3641
3642
3643
3644
3645
3646
3647
3648
3649
3650
3651
3652
3653
3654
3655
3656
3657
3658
3659
3660
3661
3662
3663
3664
3665
3666
3667
3668
3669
3670
3671
3672
3673
3674
3675
3676
3677
3678
3679
3680
3681
3682
3683
3684
3685
3686
3687
3688
3689
3690
3691
3692
3693
3694
3695
3696
3697
3698
3699
3700
3701
3702
3703
3704
3705
3706
3707
3708
3709
3710
3711
3712
3713
3714
3715
3716
3717
3718
3719
3720
3721
3722
3723
3724
3725
3726
3727
3728
3729
3730
3731
3732
3733
3734
3735
3736
3737
3738
3739
3740
3741
3742
3743
3744
3745
3746
3747
3748
3749
3750
3751
3752
3753
3754
3755
3756
3757
3758
3759
3760
3761
3762
3763
3764
3765
3766
3767
3768
3769
3770
3771
3772
3773
3774
3775
3776
3777
3778
3779
3780
3781
3782
3783
3784
3785
3786
3787
3788
3789
3790
3791
3792
3793
3794
3795
3796
3797
3798
3799
3800
3801
3802
3803
3804
3805
3806
3807
3808
3809
3810
3811
3812
3813
3814
3815
3816
3817
3818
3819
3820
3821
3822
3823
3824
3825
3826
3827
3828
3829
3830
3831
3832
3833
3834
3835
3836
3837
3838
3839
3840
3841
3842
3843
3844
3845
3846
3847
3848
3849
3850
3851
3852
3853
3854
3855
3856
3857
3858
3859
3860
3861
3862
3863
3864
3865
3866
3867
3868
3869
3870
3871
3872
3873
3874
3875
3876
3877
3878
3879
3880
3881
3882
3883
3884
3885
3886
3887
3888
3889
3890
3891
3892
3893
3894
3895
3896
3897
3898
3899
3900
3901
3902
3903
3904
3905
3906
3907
3908
3909
3910
3911
3912
3913
3914
3915
3916
3917
3918
3919
3920
3921
3922
3923
3924
3925
3926
3927
3928
3929
3930
3931
3932
3933
3934
3935
3936
3937
3938
3939
3940
3941
3942
3943
3944
3945
3946
3947
3948
3949
3950
3951
3952
3953
3954
3955
3956
3957
3958
3959
3960
3961
3962
3963
3964
3965
3966
3967
3968
3969
3970
3971
3972
3973
3974
3975
3976
3977
3978
3979
3980
3981
3982
3983
3984
3985
3986
3987
3988
3989
3990
3991
3992
3993
3994
3995
3996
3997
3998
3999
4000
4001
4002
4003
4004
4005
4006
4007
4008
4009
4010
4011
4012
4013
4014
4015
4016
4017
4018
4019
4020
4021
4022
4023
4024
4025
4026
4027
4028
4029
4030
4031
4032
4033
4034
4035
4036
4037
4038
4039
4040
4041
4042
4043
4044
4045
4046
4047
4048
4049
4050
4051
4052
4053
4054
4055
4056
4057
4058
4059
4060
4061
4062
4063
4064
4065
4066
4067
4068
4069
4070
4071
4072
4073
4074
4075
4076
4077
4078
4079
4080
4081
4082
4083
4084
4085
4086
4087
4088
4089
4090
4091
4092
4093
4094
4095
4096
4097
4098
4099
4100
4101
4102
4103
4104
4105
4106
4107
4108
4109
4110
4111
4112
4113
4114
4115
4116
4117
4118
4119
4120
4121
4122
4123
4124
4125
4126
4127
4128
4129
4130
4131
4132
4133
4134
4135
4136
4137
4138
4139
4140
4141
4142
4143
4144
4145
4146
4147
4148
4149
4150
4151
4152
4153
4154
4155
4156
4157
4158
4159
4160
4161
4162
4163
4164
4165
4166
4167
4168
4169
4170
4171
4172
4173
4174
4175
4176
4177
4178
4179
4180
4181
4182
4183
4184
4185
4186
4187
4188
4189
4190
4191
4192
4193
4194
4195
4196
4197
4198
4199
4200
4201
4202
4203
4204
4205
4206
4207
4208
4209
4210
4211
4212
4213
4214
4215
4216
4217
4218
4219
4220
4221
4222
4223
4224
4225
4226
4227
4228
4229
4230
4231
4232
4233
4234
4235
4236
4237
4238
4239
4240
4241
4242
4243
4244
4245
4246
4247
4248
4249
4250
4251
4252
4253
4254
4255
4256
4257
4258
4259
4260
4261
4262
4263
4264
4265
4266
4267
4268
4269
4270
4271
4272
4273
4274
4275
4276
4277
4278
4279
4280
4281
4282
4283
4284
4285
4286
4287
4288
4289
4290
4291
4292
4293
4294
4295
4296
4297
4298
4299
4300
4301
4302
4303
4304
4305
4306
4307
4308
4309
4310
4311
4312
4313
4314
4315
4316
4317
4318
4319
4320
4321
4322
4323
4324
4325
4326
4327
4328
4329
4330
4331
4332
4333
4334
4335
4336
4337
4338
4339
4340
4341
4342
4343
4344
4345
4346
4347
4348
4349
4350
4351
4352
4353
4354
4355
4356
4357
4358
4359
4360
4361
4362
4363
4364
4365
4366
4367
4368
4369
4370
4371
4372
4373
4374
4375
4376
4377
4378
4379
4380
4381
4382
4383
4384
4385
4386
4387
4388
4389
4390
4391
4392
4393
4394
4395
4396
4397
4398
4399
4400
4401
4402
4403
4404
4405
4406
4407
4408
4409
4410
4411
4412
4413
4414
4415
4416
4417
4418
4419
4420
4421
4422
4423
4424
4425
4426
4427
4428
4429
4430
4431
4432
4433
4434
4435
4436
4437
4438
4439
4440
4441
4442
4443
4444
4445
4446
4447
4448
4449
4450
4451
4452
4453
4454
4455
4456
4457
4458
4459
4460
4461
4462
4463
4464
4465
4466
4467
4468
4469
4470
4471
4472
4473
4474
4475
4476
4477
4478
4479
4480
4481
4482
4483
4484
4485
4486
4487
4488
4489
4490
4491
4492
4493
4494
4495
4496
4497
4498
4499
4500
4501
4502
4503
4504
4505
4506
4507
4508
4509
4510
4511
4512
4513
4514
4515
4516
4517
4518
4519
4520
4521
4522
4523
4524
4525
4526
4527
4528
4529
4530
4531
4532
4533
4534
4535
4536
4537
4538
4539
4540
4541
4542
4543
4544
4545
4546
4547
4548
4549
4550
4551
4552
4553
4554
4555
4556
4557
4558
4559
4560
4561
4562
4563
4564
4565
4566
4567
4568
4569
4570
4571
4572
4573
4574
4575
4576
4577
4578
4579
4580
4581
4582
4583
4584
4585
4586
4587
4588
4589
4590
4591
4592
4593
4594
4595
4596
4597
4598
4599
4600
4601
4602
4603
4604
4605
4606
4607
4608
4609
4610
4611
4612
4613
4614
4615
4616
4617
4618
4619
4620
4621
4622
4623
4624
4625
4626
4627
4628
4629
4630
4631
4632
4633
4634
4635
4636
4637
4638
4639
4640
4641
4642
4643
4644
4645
4646
4647
4648
4649
4650
4651
4652
4653
4654
4655
4656
4657
4658
4659
4660
4661
4662
4663
4664
4665
4666
4667
4668
4669
4670
4671
4672
4673
4674
4675
4676
4677
4678
4679
4680
4681
4682
4683
4684
4685
4686
4687
4688
4689
4690
4691
4692
4693
4694
4695
4696
4697
4698
4699
4700
4701
4702
4703
4704
4705
4706
4707
4708
4709
4710
4711
4712
4713
4714
4715
4716
4717
4718
4719
4720
4721
4722
4723
4724
4725
4726
4727
4728
4729
4730
4731
4732
4733
4734
4735
4736
4737
4738
4739
4740
4741
4742
4743
4744
4745
4746
4747
4748
4749
4750
4751
4752
4753
4754
4755
4756
4757
4758
4759
4760
4761
4762
4763
4764
4765
4766
4767
4768
4769
4770
4771
4772
4773
4774
4775
4776
4777
4778
4779
4780
4781
4782
4783
4784
4785
4786
4787
4788
4789
4790
4791
4792
4793
4794
4795
4796
4797
4798
4799
4800
4801
4802
4803
4804
4805
4806
4807
4808
4809
4810
4811
4812
4813
4814
4815
4816
4817
4818
4819
4820
4821
4822
4823
4824
4825
4826
4827
4828
4829
4830
4831
4832
4833
4834
4835
4836
4837
4838
4839
4840
4841
4842
4843
4844
4845
4846
4847
4848
4849
4850
4851
4852
4853
4854
4855
4856
4857
4858
4859
4860
4861
4862
4863
4864
4865
4866
4867
4868
4869
4870
4871
4872
4873
4874
4875
4876
4877
4878
4879
4880
4881
4882
4883
4884
4885
4886
4887
4888
4889
4890
4891
4892
4893
4894
4895
4896
4897
4898
4899
4900
4901
4902
4903
4904
4905
4906
4907
4908
4909
4910
4911
4912
4913
4914
4915
4916
4917
4918
4919
4920
4921
4922
4923
4924
4925
4926
4927
4928
4929
4930
4931
4932
4933
4934
4935
4936
4937
4938
4939
4940
4941
4942
4943
4944
4945
4946
4947
4948
4949
4950
4951
4952
4953
4954
4955
4956
4957
4958
4959
4960
4961
4962
4963
4964
4965
4966
4967
4968
4969
4970
4971
4972
4973
4974
4975
4976
4977
4978
4979
4980
4981
4982
4983
4984
4985
4986
4987
4988
4989
4990
4991
4992
4993
4994
4995
4996
4997
4998
4999
5000
5001
5002
5003
5004
5005
5006
5007
5008
5009
5010
5011
5012
5013
5014
5015
5016
5017
5018
5019
5020
5021
5022
5023
5024
5025
5026
5027
5028
5029
5030
5031
5032
5033
5034
5035
5036
5037
5038
5039
5040
5041
5042
5043
5044
5045
5046
5047
5048
5049
5050
5051
5052
5053
5054
5055
5056
5057
5058
5059
5060
5061
5062
5063
5064
5065
5066
5067
5068
5069
5070
5071
5072
5073
5074
5075
5076
5077
5078
5079
5080
5081
5082
5083
5084
5085
5086
5087
5088
5089
5090
5091
5092
5093
5094
5095
5096
5097
5098
5099
5100
5101
5102
5103
5104
5105
5106
5107
5108
5109
5110
5111
5112
5113
5114
5115
5116
5117
5118
5119
5120
5121
5122
5123
5124
5125
5126
5127
5128
5129
5130
5131
5132
5133
5134
5135
5136
5137
5138
5139
5140
5141
5142
5143
5144
5145
5146
5147
5148
5149
5150
5151
5152
5153
5154
5155
5156
5157
5158
5159
5160
5161
5162
5163
5164
5165
5166
5167
5168
5169
5170
5171
5172
5173
5174
5175
5176
5177
5178
5179
5180
5181
5182
5183
5184
5185
5186
5187
5188
5189
5190
5191
5192
5193
5194
5195
5196
5197
5198
5199
5200
5201
5202
5203
5204
5205
5206
5207
5208
5209
5210
5211
5212
5213
5214
5215
5216
5217
5218
5219
5220
5221
5222
5223
5224
5225
5226
5227
5228
5229
5230
5231
5232
5233
5234
5235
5236
5237
5238
5239
5240
5241
5242
5243
5244
5245
5246
5247
5248
5249
5250
5251
5252
5253
5254
5255
5256
5257
5258
5259
5260
5261
5262
5263
5264
5265
5266
5267
5268
5269
5270
5271
5272
5273
5274
5275
5276
5277
5278
5279
5280
5281
5282
5283
5284
5285
5286
5287
5288
5289
5290
5291
5292
5293
5294
5295
5296
5297
5298
5299
5300
5301
5302
5303
5304
5305
5306
5307
5308
5309
5310
5311
5312
5313
5314
5315
5316
5317
5318
5319
5320
5321
5322
5323
5324
5325
5326
5327
5328
5329
5330
5331
5332
5333
5334
5335
5336
5337
5338
5339
5340
5341
5342
5343
5344
5345
5346
5347
5348
5349
5350
5351
5352
5353
5354
5355
5356
5357
5358
5359
5360
5361
5362
5363
5364
5365
5366
5367
5368
5369
5370
5371
5372
5373
5374
5375
5376
5377
5378
5379
5380
5381
5382
5383
5384
5385
5386
5387
5388
5389
5390
5391
5392
5393
5394
5395
5396
5397
5398
5399
5400
5401
5402
5403
5404
5405
5406
5407
5408
5409
5410
5411
5412
5413
5414
5415
5416
5417
5418
5419
5420
5421
5422
5423
5424
5425
5426
5427
5428
5429
5430
5431
5432
5433
5434
5435
5436
5437
5438
5439
5440
5441
5442
5443
5444
5445
5446
5447
5448
5449
5450
5451
5452
5453
5454
5455
5456
5457
5458
5459
5460
5461
5462
5463
5464
5465
5466
5467
5468
5469
5470
5471
5472
5473
5474
5475
5476
5477
5478
5479
5480
5481
5482
5483
5484
5485
5486
5487
5488
5489
5490
5491
5492
5493
5494
5495
5496
5497
5498
5499
5500
5501
5502
5503
5504
5505
5506
5507
5508
5509
5510
5511
5512
5513
5514
5515
5516
5517
5518
5519
5520
5521
5522
5523
5524
5525
5526
5527
5528
5529
5530
5531
5532
5533
5534
5535
5536
5537
5538
5539
5540
5541
5542
5543
5544
5545
5546
5547
5548
5549
5550
5551
5552
5553
5554
5555
5556
5557
5558
5559
5560
5561
5562
5563
5564
5565
5566
5567
5568
5569
5570
5571
5572
5573
5574
5575
5576
5577
5578
5579
5580
5581
5582
5583
5584
5585
5586
5587
5588
5589
5590
5591
5592
5593
5594
5595
5596
5597
5598
5599
5600
5601
5602
5603
5604
5605
5606
5607
5608
5609
5610
5611
5612
5613
5614
5615
5616
5617
5618
5619
5620
5621
5622
5623
5624
5625
5626
5627
5628
5629
5630
5631
5632
5633
5634
5635
5636
5637
5638
5639
5640
5641
5642
5643
5644
5645
5646
5647
5648
5649
5650
5651
5652
5653
5654
5655
5656
5657
5658
5659
5660
5661
5662
5663
5664
5665
5666
5667
5668
5669
5670
5671
5672
5673
5674
5675
5676
5677
5678
5679
5680
5681
5682
5683
5684
5685
5686
5687
5688
5689
5690
5691
5692
5693
5694
5695
5696
5697
5698
5699
5700
5701
5702
5703
5704
5705
5706
5707
5708
5709
5710
5711
5712
5713
5714
5715
5716
5717
5718
5719
5720
5721
5722
5723
5724
5725
5726
5727
5728
5729
5730
5731
5732
5733
5734
5735
5736
5737
5738
5739
5740
5741
5742
5743
5744
5745
5746
5747
5748
5749
5750
5751
5752
5753
5754
5755
5756
5757
5758
5759
5760
5761
5762
5763
5764
5765
5766
5767
5768
5769
5770
5771
5772
5773
5774
5775
5776
5777
5778
5779
5780
5781
5782
5783
5784
5785
5786
5787
5788
5789
5790
5791
5792
5793
5794
5795
5796
5797
5798
5799
5800
5801
5802
5803
5804
5805
5806
5807
5808
5809
5810
5811
5812
5813
5814
5815
5816
5817
5818
5819
5820
5821
5822
5823
5824
5825
5826
5827
5828
5829
5830
5831
5832
5833
5834
5835
5836
5837
5838
5839
5840
5841
5842
5843
5844
5845
5846
5847
5848
5849
5850
5851
5852
5853
5854
5855
5856
5857
5858
5859
5860
5861
5862
5863
5864
5865
5866
5867
5868
5869
5870
5871
5872
5873
5874
5875
5876
5877
5878
5879
5880
5881
5882
5883
5884
5885
5886
5887
5888
5889
5890
5891
5892
5893
5894
5895
5896
5897
5898
5899
5900
5901
5902
5903
5904
5905
5906
5907
5908
5909
5910
5911
5912
5913
5914
5915
5916
5917
5918
5919
5920
5921
5922
5923
5924
5925
5926
5927
5928
5929
5930
5931
5932
5933
5934
5935
5936
5937
5938
5939
5940
5941
5942
5943
5944
5945
5946
5947
5948
5949
5950
5951
5952
5953
5954
5955
5956
5957
5958
5959
5960
5961
5962
5963
5964
5965
5966
5967
5968
5969
5970
5971
5972
5973
5974
5975
5976
5977
5978
5979
5980
5981
5982
5983
5984
5985
5986
5987
5988
5989
5990
5991
5992
5993
5994
5995
5996
5997
5998
5999
6000
6001
6002
6003
6004
6005
6006
6007
6008
6009
6010
6011
6012
6013
6014
6015
6016
6017
6018
6019
6020
6021
6022
6023
6024
6025
6026
6027
6028
6029
6030
6031
6032
6033
6034
6035
6036
6037
6038
6039
6040
6041
6042
6043
6044
6045
6046
6047
6048
6049
6050
6051
6052
6053
6054
6055
6056
6057
6058
6059
6060
6061
6062
6063
6064
6065
6066
6067
6068
6069
6070
6071
6072
6073
6074
6075
6076
6077
6078
6079
6080
6081
6082
6083
6084
6085
6086
6087
6088
6089
6090
6091
6092
6093
6094
6095
6096
6097
6098
6099
6100
6101
6102
6103
6104
6105
6106
6107
6108
6109
6110
6111
6112
6113
6114
6115
6116
6117
6118
6119
6120
6121
6122
6123
6124
6125
6126
6127
6128
6129
6130
6131
6132
6133
6134
6135
6136
6137
6138
6139
6140
6141
6142
6143
6144
6145
6146
6147
6148
6149
6150
6151
6152
6153
6154
6155
6156
6157
6158
6159
6160
6161
6162
6163
6164
6165
6166
6167
6168
6169
6170
6171
6172
6173
6174
6175
6176
6177
6178
6179
6180
6181
6182
6183
6184
6185
6186
6187
6188
6189
6190
6191
6192
6193
6194
6195
6196
6197
6198
6199
6200
6201
6202
6203
6204
6205
6206
6207
6208
6209
6210
6211
6212
6213
6214
6215
6216
6217
6218
6219
6220
6221
6222
6223
6224
6225
6226
6227
6228
6229
6230
6231
6232
6233
6234
6235
6236
6237
6238
6239
6240
6241
6242
6243
6244
6245
6246
6247
6248
6249
6250
6251
6252
6253
6254
6255
6256
6257
6258
6259
6260
6261
6262
6263
6264
6265
6266
6267
6268
6269
6270
6271
6272
6273
6274
6275
6276
6277
6278
6279
6280
6281
6282
6283
6284
6285
6286
6287
6288
6289
6290
6291
6292
6293
6294
6295
6296
6297
6298
6299
6300
6301
6302
6303
6304
6305
6306
6307
6308
6309
6310
6311
6312
6313
6314
6315
6316
6317
6318
6319
6320
6321
6322
6323
6324
6325
6326
6327
6328
6329
6330
6331
6332
6333
6334
6335
6336
6337
6338
6339
6340
6341
6342
6343
6344
6345
6346
6347
6348
6349
6350
6351
6352
6353
6354
6355
6356
6357
6358
6359
6360
6361
6362
6363
6364
6365
6366
6367
6368
6369
6370
6371
6372
6373
6374
6375
6376
6377
6378
6379
6380
6381
6382
6383
6384
6385
6386
6387
6388
6389
6390
6391
6392
6393
6394
6395
6396
6397
6398
6399
6400
6401
6402
6403
6404
6405
6406
6407
6408
6409
6410
6411
6412
6413
6414
6415
6416
6417
6418
6419
6420
6421
6422
6423
6424
6425
6426
6427
6428
6429
6430
6431
6432
6433
6434
6435
6436
6437
6438
6439
6440
6441
6442
6443
6444
6445
6446
6447
6448
6449
6450
6451
6452
6453
6454
6455
6456
6457
6458
6459
6460
6461
6462
6463
6464
6465
6466
6467
6468
6469
6470
6471
6472
6473
6474
6475
6476
6477
6478
6479
6480
6481
6482
6483
6484
6485
6486
6487
6488
6489
6490
6491
6492
6493
6494
6495
6496
6497
6498
6499
6500
6501
6502
6503
6504
6505
6506
6507
6508
6509
6510
6511
6512
6513
6514
6515
6516
6517
6518
6519
6520
6521
6522
6523
6524
6525
6526
6527
6528
6529
6530
6531
6532
6533
6534
6535
6536
6537
6538
6539
6540
6541
6542
6543
6544
6545
6546
6547
6548
6549
6550
6551
6552
6553
6554
6555
6556
6557
6558
6559
6560
6561
6562
6563
6564
6565
6566
6567
6568
6569
6570
6571
6572
6573
6574
6575
6576
6577
6578
6579
6580
6581
6582
6583
6584
6585
6586
6587
6588
6589
6590
6591
6592
6593
6594
6595
6596
6597
6598
6599
6600
6601
6602
6603
6604
6605
6606
6607
6608
6609
6610
6611
6612
6613
6614
6615
6616
6617
6618
6619
6620
6621
6622
6623
6624
6625
6626
6627
6628
6629
6630
6631
6632
6633
6634
6635
6636
6637
6638
6639
6640
6641
6642
6643
6644
6645
6646
6647
6648
6649
6650
6651
6652
6653
6654
6655
6656
6657
6658
6659
6660
6661
6662
6663
6664
6665
6666
6667
6668
6669
6670
6671
6672
6673
6674
6675
6676
6677
6678
6679
6680
6681
6682
6683
6684
6685
6686
6687
6688
6689
6690
6691
6692
6693
6694
6695
6696
6697
6698
6699
6700
6701
6702
6703
6704
6705
6706
6707
6708
6709
6710
6711
6712
6713
6714
6715
6716
6717
6718
6719
6720
6721
6722
6723
6724
6725
6726
6727
6728
6729
6730
6731
6732
6733
6734
6735
6736
6737
6738
6739
6740
6741
6742
6743
6744
6745
6746
6747
6748
6749
6750
6751
6752
6753
6754
6755
6756
6757
6758
6759
6760
6761
6762
6763
6764
6765
6766
6767
6768
6769
6770
6771
6772
6773
6774
6775
6776
6777
6778
6779
6780
6781
6782
6783
6784
6785
6786
6787
6788
6789
6790
6791
6792
6793
6794
6795
6796
6797
6798
6799
6800
6801
6802
6803
6804
6805
6806
6807
6808
6809
6810
6811
6812
6813
6814
6815
6816
6817
6818
6819
6820
6821
6822
6823
6824
6825
6826
6827
6828
6829
6830
6831
6832
6833
6834
6835
6836
6837
6838
6839
6840
6841
6842
6843
6844
6845
6846
6847
6848
6849
6850
6851
6852
6853
6854
6855
6856
6857
6858
6859
6860
6861
6862
6863
6864
6865
6866
6867
6868
6869
6870
6871
6872
6873
6874
6875
6876
6877
6878
6879
6880
6881
6882
6883
6884
6885
6886
6887
6888
6889
6890
6891
6892
6893
6894
6895
6896
6897
6898
6899
6900
6901
6902
6903
6904
6905
6906
6907
6908
6909
6910
6911
6912
6913
6914
6915
6916
6917
6918
6919
6920
6921
6922
6923
6924
6925
6926
6927
6928
6929
6930
6931
6932
6933
6934
6935
6936
6937
6938
6939
6940
6941
6942
6943
6944
6945
6946
6947
6948
6949
6950
6951
6952
6953
6954
6955
6956
6957
6958
6959
6960
6961
6962
6963
6964
6965
6966
6967
6968
6969
6970
6971
6972
6973
6974
6975
6976
6977
6978
6979
6980
6981
6982
6983
6984
6985
6986
6987
6988
6989
6990
6991
6992
6993
6994
6995
6996
6997
6998
6999
7000
7001
7002
7003
7004
7005
7006
7007
7008
7009
7010
7011
7012
7013
7014
7015
7016
7017
7018
7019
7020
7021
7022
7023
7024
7025
7026
7027
7028
7029
7030
7031
7032
7033
7034
7035
7036
7037
7038
7039
7040
7041
7042
7043
7044
7045
7046
7047
7048
7049
7050
7051
7052
7053
7054
7055
7056
7057
7058
7059
7060
7061
7062
7063
7064
7065
7066
7067
7068
7069
7070
7071
7072
7073
7074
7075
7076
7077
7078
7079
7080
7081
7082
7083
7084
7085
7086
7087
7088
7089
7090
7091
7092
7093
7094
7095
7096
7097
7098
7099
7100
7101
7102
7103
7104
7105
7106
7107
7108
7109
7110
7111
7112
7113
7114
7115
7116
7117
7118
7119
7120
7121
7122
7123
7124
7125
7126
7127
7128
7129
7130
7131
7132
7133
7134
7135
7136
7137
7138
7139
7140
7141
7142
7143
7144
7145
7146
7147
7148
7149
7150
7151
7152
7153
7154
7155
7156
7157
7158
7159
7160
7161
7162
7163
7164
7165
7166
7167
7168
7169
7170
7171
7172
7173
7174
7175
7176
7177
7178
7179
7180
7181
7182
7183
7184
7185
7186
7187
7188
7189
7190
7191
7192
7193
7194
7195
7196
7197
7198
7199
7200
7201
7202
7203
7204
7205
7206
7207
7208
7209
7210
7211
7212
7213
7214
7215
7216
7217
7218
7219
7220
7221
7222
7223
7224
7225
7226
7227
7228
7229
7230
7231
7232
7233
7234
7235
7236
7237
7238
7239
7240
7241
7242
7243
7244
7245
7246
7247
7248
7249
7250
7251
7252
7253
7254
7255
7256
7257
7258
7259
7260
7261
7262
7263
7264
7265
7266
7267
7268
7269
7270
7271
7272
7273
7274
7275
7276
7277
7278
7279
7280
7281
7282
7283
7284
7285
7286
7287
7288
7289
7290
7291
7292
7293
7294
7295
7296
7297
7298
7299
7300
7301
7302
7303
7304
7305
7306
7307
7308
7309
7310
7311
7312
7313
7314
7315
7316
7317
7318
7319
7320
7321
7322
7323
7324
7325
7326
7327
7328
7329
7330
7331
7332
7333
7334
7335
7336
7337
7338
7339
7340
7341
7342
7343
7344
7345
7346
7347
7348
7349
7350
7351
7352
7353
7354
7355
7356
7357
7358
7359
7360
7361
7362
7363
7364
7365
7366
7367
7368
7369
7370
7371
7372
7373
7374
7375
7376
7377
7378
7379
7380
7381
7382
7383
7384
7385
7386
7387
7388
7389
7390
7391
7392
7393
7394
7395
7396
7397
7398
7399
7400
7401
7402
7403
7404
7405
7406
7407
7408
7409
7410
7411
7412
7413
7414
7415
7416
7417
7418
7419
7420
7421
7422
7423
7424
7425
7426
7427
7428
7429
7430
7431
7432
7433
7434
7435
7436
7437
7438
7439
7440
7441
7442
7443
7444
7445
7446
7447
7448
7449
7450
7451
7452
7453
7454
7455
7456
7457
7458
7459
7460
7461
7462
7463
7464
7465
7466
7467
7468
7469
7470
7471
7472
7473
7474
7475
7476
7477
7478
7479
7480
7481
7482
7483
7484
7485
7486
7487
7488
7489
7490
7491
7492
7493
7494
7495
7496
7497
7498
7499
7500
7501
7502
7503
7504
7505
7506
7507
7508
7509
7510
7511
7512
7513
7514
7515
7516
7517
7518
7519
7520
7521
7522
7523
7524
7525
7526
7527
7528
7529
7530
7531
7532
7533
7534
7535
7536
7537
7538
7539
7540
7541
7542
7543
7544
7545
7546
7547
7548
7549
7550
7551
7552
7553
7554
7555
7556
7557
7558
7559
7560
7561
7562
7563
7564
7565
7566
7567
7568
7569
7570
7571
7572
7573
7574
7575
7576
7577
7578
7579
7580
7581
7582
7583
7584
7585
7586
7587
7588
7589
7590
7591
7592
7593
7594
7595
7596
7597
7598
7599
7600
7601
7602
7603
7604
7605
7606
7607
7608
7609
7610
7611
7612
7613
7614
7615
7616
7617
7618
7619
7620
7621
7622
7623
7624
7625
7626
7627
7628
7629
7630
7631
7632
7633
7634
7635
7636
7637
7638
7639
7640
7641
7642
7643
7644
7645
7646
7647
7648
7649
7650
7651
7652
7653
7654
7655
7656
7657
7658
7659
7660
7661
7662
7663
7664
7665
7666
7667
7668
7669
7670
7671
7672
7673
7674
7675
7676
7677
7678
7679
7680
7681
7682
7683
7684
7685
7686
7687
7688
7689
7690
7691
7692
7693
7694
7695
7696
7697
7698
7699
7700
7701
7702
7703
7704
7705
7706
7707
7708
7709
7710
7711
7712
7713
7714
7715
7716
7717
7718
7719
7720
7721
7722
7723
7724
7725
7726
7727
7728
7729
7730
7731
7732
7733
7734
7735
7736
7737
7738
7739
7740
7741
7742
7743
7744
7745
7746
7747
7748
7749
7750
7751
7752
7753
7754
7755
7756
7757
7758
7759
7760
7761
7762
7763
7764
7765
7766
7767
7768
7769
7770
7771
7772
7773
7774
7775
7776
7777
7778
7779
7780
7781
7782
7783
7784
7785
7786
7787
7788
7789
7790
7791
7792
7793
7794
7795
7796
7797
7798
7799
7800
7801
7802
7803
7804
7805
7806
7807
7808
7809
7810
7811
7812
7813
7814
7815
7816
7817
7818
7819
7820
7821
7822
7823
7824
7825
7826
7827
7828
7829
7830
7831
7832
7833
7834
7835
7836
7837
7838
7839
7840
7841
7842
7843
7844
7845
7846
7847
7848
7849
7850
7851
7852
7853
7854
7855
7856
7857
7858
7859
7860
7861
7862
7863
7864
7865
7866
7867
7868
7869
7870
7871
7872
7873
7874
7875
7876
7877
7878
7879
7880
7881
7882
7883
7884
7885
7886
7887
7888
7889
7890
7891
7892
7893
7894
7895
7896
7897
7898
7899
7900
7901
7902
7903
7904
7905
7906
7907
7908
7909
7910
7911
7912
7913
7914
7915
7916
7917
7918
7919
7920
7921
7922
7923
7924
7925
7926
7927
7928
7929
7930
7931
7932
7933
7934
7935
7936
7937
7938
7939
7940
7941
7942
7943
7944
7945
7946
7947
7948
7949
7950
7951
7952
7953
7954
7955
7956
7957
7958
7959
7960
7961
7962
7963
7964
7965
7966
7967
7968
7969
7970
7971
7972
7973
7974
7975
7976
7977
7978
7979
7980
7981
7982
7983
7984
7985
7986
7987
7988
7989
7990
7991
7992
7993
7994
7995
7996
7997
7998
7999
8000
8001
8002
8003
8004
8005
8006
8007
8008
8009
8010
8011
8012
8013
8014
8015
8016
8017
8018
8019
8020
8021
8022
8023
8024
8025
8026
8027
8028
8029
8030
8031
8032
8033
8034
8035
8036
8037
8038
8039
8040
8041
8042
8043
8044
8045
8046
8047
8048
8049
8050
8051
8052
8053
8054
8055
8056
8057
8058
8059
8060
8061
8062
8063
8064
8065
8066
8067
8068
8069
8070
8071
8072
8073
8074
8075
8076
8077
8078
8079
8080
8081
8082
8083
8084
8085
8086
8087
8088
8089
8090
8091
8092
8093
8094
8095
8096
8097
8098
8099
8100
8101
8102
8103
8104
8105
8106
8107
8108
8109
8110
8111
8112
8113
8114
8115
8116
8117
8118
8119
8120
8121
8122
8123
8124
8125
8126
8127
8128
8129
8130
8131
8132
8133
8134
8135
8136
8137
8138
8139
8140
8141
8142
8143
8144
8145
8146
8147
8148
8149
8150
8151
8152
8153
8154
8155
8156
8157
8158
8159
8160
8161
8162
8163
8164
8165
8166
8167
8168
8169
8170
8171
8172
8173
8174
8175
8176
8177
8178
8179
8180
8181
8182
8183
8184
8185
8186
8187
8188
8189
8190
8191
8192
8193
8194
8195
8196
8197
8198
8199
8200
8201
8202
8203
8204
8205
8206
8207
8208
8209
8210
8211
8212
8213
8214
8215
8216
8217
8218
8219
8220
8221
8222
8223
8224
8225
8226
8227
8228
8229
8230
8231
8232
8233
8234
8235
8236
8237
8238
8239
8240
8241
8242
8243
8244
8245
8246
8247
8248
8249
8250
8251
8252
8253
8254
8255
8256
8257
8258
8259
8260
8261
8262
8263
8264
8265
8266
8267
8268
8269
8270
8271
8272
8273
8274
8275
8276
8277
8278
8279
8280
8281
8282
8283
8284
8285
8286
8287
8288
8289
8290
8291
8292
8293
8294
8295
8296
8297
8298
8299
8300
8301
8302
8303
8304
8305
8306
8307
8308
8309
8310
8311
8312
8313
8314
8315
8316
8317
8318
8319
8320
8321
8322
8323
8324
8325
8326
8327
8328
8329
8330
8331
8332
8333
8334
8335
8336
8337
8338
8339
8340
8341
8342
8343
8344
8345
8346
8347
8348
8349
8350
8351
8352
8353
8354
8355
8356
8357
8358
8359
8360
8361
8362
8363
8364
8365
8366
8367
8368
8369
8370
8371
8372
8373
8374
8375
8376
8377
8378
8379
8380
8381
8382
8383
8384
8385
8386
8387
8388
8389
8390
8391
8392
8393
8394
8395
8396
8397
8398
8399
8400
8401
8402
8403
8404
8405
8406
8407
8408
8409
8410
8411
8412
8413
8414
8415
8416
8417
8418
8419
8420
8421
8422
8423
8424
8425
8426
8427
8428
8429
8430
8431
8432
8433
8434
8435
8436
8437
8438
8439
8440
8441
8442
8443
8444
8445
8446
8447
8448
8449
8450
8451
8452
8453
8454
8455
8456
8457
8458
8459
8460
8461
8462
8463
8464
8465
8466
8467
8468
8469
8470
8471
8472
8473
8474
8475
8476
8477
8478
8479
8480
8481
8482
8483
8484
8485
8486
8487
8488
8489
8490
8491
8492
8493
8494
8495
8496
8497
8498
8499
8500
8501
8502
8503
8504
8505
8506
8507
8508
8509
8510
8511
8512
8513
8514
8515
8516
8517
8518
8519
8520
8521
8522
8523
8524
8525
8526
8527
8528
8529
8530
8531
8532
8533
8534
8535
8536
8537
8538
8539
8540
8541
8542
8543
8544
8545
8546
8547
8548
8549
8550
8551
8552
8553
8554
8555
8556
8557
8558
8559
8560
8561
8562
8563
8564
8565
8566
8567
8568
8569
8570
8571
8572
8573
8574
8575
8576
8577
8578
8579
8580
8581
8582
8583
8584
8585
8586
8587
8588
8589
8590
8591
8592
8593
8594
8595
8596
8597
8598
8599
8600
8601
8602
8603
8604
8605
8606
8607
8608
8609
8610
8611
8612
8613
8614
8615
8616
8617
8618
8619
8620
8621
8622
8623
8624
8625
8626
8627
8628
8629
8630
8631
8632
8633
8634
8635
8636
8637
8638
8639
8640
8641
8642
8643
8644
8645
8646
8647
8648
8649
8650
8651
8652
8653
8654
8655
8656
8657
8658
8659
8660
8661
8662
8663
8664
8665
8666
8667
8668
8669
8670
8671
8672
8673
8674
8675
8676
8677
8678
8679
8680
8681
8682
8683
8684
8685
8686
8687
8688
8689
8690
8691
8692
8693
8694
|
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
<title>
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Chats On Household Curios, by Fred W. Burgess.
</title>
<style type="text/css">
/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */
<!--
p { margin-top: .75em;
text-align: justify;
margin-bottom: .75em;
}
h1,h2,h4,h5,h6 {
text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
clear: both;
}
h3 {
text-align: left;
clear: both;
}
hr { width: 33%;
margin-top: 2em;
margin-bottom: 2em;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
clear: both;
}
table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}
body{margin-left: 10%;
margin-right: 10%;
}
.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
/* visibility: hidden; */
position: absolute;
left: 92%;
font-size: smaller;
text-align: right;
} /* page numbers */
.blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;}
.center {text-align: center;}
.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;}
.lowercase{text-transform: lowercase;}
ul.IX {
list-style-type: none;
font-size:inherit; /* i.e. from the div class="index" container */
}
.IX li { /* list items in an index: compressed vertically */
margin-top: 0;
}
.caption {font-weight: bold;}
.figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;}
.figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top:
1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;}
.figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;
margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;}
.poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;}
.poem br {display: none;}
.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
.poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
.poem span.i16 {display: block; margin-left: 16em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
// -->
/* XML end ]]>*/
</style>
</head>
<body>
<pre>
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chats on Household Curios, by Fred W. Burgess
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Chats on Household Curios
Author: Fred W. Burgess
Release Date: May 2, 2008 [EBook #25294]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHATS ON HOUSEHOLD CURIOS ***
Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
</pre>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a></span></p>
<h1 style="text-align: left;">CHATS ON<br />
HOUSEHOLD<br />
CURIOS
<img src="images/001.png" width="48" height="20" alt="" title="" />
</h1>
<hr style="width: 95%;" />
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a></span></p>
<h2>BOOKS FOR COLLECTORS</h2>
<p class='center'>
<i>With Frontispieces and many Illustrations<br />
Large Crown 8vo, cloth.</i></p>
<p>
<b>CHATS ON ENGLISH CHINA.</b><br />
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">Arthur Hayden</span>.</span><br />
<br />
<b>CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE.</b><br />
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">Arthur Hayden</span>.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON OLD PRINTS.</b><br />
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">Arthur Hayden</span>.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON COSTUME.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">G. Woolliscroft Rhead</span>.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON OLD LACE AND NEEDLEWORK.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">E. L. Lowes</span>.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON ORIENTAL CHINA.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">J. F. Blacker</span>.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON OLD MINIATURES.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By J. J. Foster, F.S.A.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON ENGLISH EARTHENWARE.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">Arthur Hayden</span>.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON AUTOGRAPHS.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">A. M. Broadley</span>.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON PEWTER.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">H. J. L. J. Massé, M.A.</span><br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON POSTAGE STAMPS.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">Fred. J. Melville</span>.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON OLD JEWELLERY AND TRINKETS.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">MacIver Percival</span>.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON COTTAGE AND FARMHOUSE FURNITURE.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">Arthur Hayden</span>.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON OLD COINS.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">Fred. W. Burgess</span>.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON OLD COPPER AND BRASS.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">Fred. W. Burgess</span>.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON HOUSEHOLD CURIOS.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">Fred. W. Burgess</span>.<br /></span>
</p>
<p class='center'>
<i>In Preparation.</i></p>
<p>
<b>CHATS ON BARGAINS.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">Charles E. Jerningham</span>.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON JAPANESE PRINTS.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">Arthur Davison Ficke</span>.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON OLD CLOCKS AND WATCHES.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">Arthur Hayden</span>.<br /></span>
<br />
<b>CHATS ON OLD SILVER.<br /></b>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By <span class="smcap">Arthur Hayden</span>.<br /></span>
</p>
<p class='center'>
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.<br />
NEW YORK: F. A. STOKES COMPANY.<br />
<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 411px;"><a name="Frontispiece" id="Frontispiece"></a><a name="FIG_1" id="FIG_1"></a>
<img src="images/fig_1.jpg" width="411" height="600" alt="FIG. 1.—OLD FIREPLACE, SHOWING SUSSEX BACK, ANDIRONS, AND TRIVET.
Frontispiece." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 1.—OLD FIREPLACE, SHOWING SUSSEX BACK, ANDIRONS, AND TRIVET.
<br /><br />
Frontispiece.</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h1 style="color: red;">
<span class="smcap">Chats on<br />
Household Curios</span><br />
</h1>
<p class='center'>BY<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large; color: red;">FRED. W. BURGESS<br /></span>
<br />
AUTHOR OF "CHATS ON OLD COINS," "CHATS ON OLD<br />
COPPER AND BRASS," ETC.<br />
<br />
WITH 94 ILLUSTRATIONS<br />
<br />
LONDON
<br />
<span style="color: red;">T. FISHER UNWIN<br /></span>
ADELPHI TERRACE<br />
<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p class='center'><i>First published in 1914</i></p>
<p class='center'>(<i>All rights reserved</i>)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">{7}</a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>
<p>There is a peculiar charm about the relics found
in an old home—a home from which many generations
of fledglings have flown. As each milestone
in family history is passed some once common
object of use or ornament is dropped by the way.
Such interesting mementoes of past generations
accumulate, and in course of time the older ones
become curios.</p>
<p>It is to create greater interest in these old-world
odds and ends—some of trifling value to an outsider,
others of great intrinsic worth—that this book
has been written. The love of possession is to
some possessors the chief delight; to others knowledge
of the original purposes and uses of the
objects acquired affords still greater pleasure. My
intention has been rather to assist the latter class
of collectors than to facilitate the mere assemblage
of additional stores of curiosities. It is truly astonishing
how rapidly the common uses of even household
furnishings and culinary utensils are forgotten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">{8}</a></span>
when they are superseded by others of more
modern type.</p>
<p>The modern art of to-day and the revival of the
much older furniture of the past have driven out
the household gods of intermediate dates, and it
is in that period intervening between the two extremes
that most of the household curios reviewed
in this work are found. Although many of the
finest examples of household curios are now in
museums, private collectors often possess exceptional
specimens, and sometimes own the most
representative groups of those things upon which
they have specialized.</p>
<p>The examples in this book have been drawn from
various sources. As in "Chats on Old Copper and
Brass" (which may almost be regarded as a companion
work), the illustrations are taken from photographs
of typical museum curios and objects in
private collections, or have been specially sketched
by my daughter, who has had access to many interesting
collections, to the owners of which I am
indebted for the illustrations I am able to make
use of.</p>
<p>My thanks are due to the Directors of the
British Museum, who have allowed their printers,
the University Press, Oxford, to supply electros
of some exceptional objects now in the Museum;
also to the Director of the Victoria and Albert
Museum, at South Kensington; and the Director<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">{9}</a></span>
of the London Museum, now located at Stafford
House.</p>
<p>Dr. Hoyle, the Director of the National Museum
of Wales, at Cardiff, has most kindly had specially
prepared for this work quite a number of photographs
of very uncommon household curios. The
Curator of the Hull Museum has loaned blocks,
and photographs have been sent by Messrs. Egan
and Co., Ltd., of Cork; Mr. Wayte, of Edenbridge;
and Mr. Phillips, of the Manor House, Hitchin. To
Mr. Evans, of Nailsea Court, Somerset, I am indebted
for the loan of his unrivalled collection
of ancient nutcrackers, some of which have been
sketched for reproduction. I have also made use
of examples in the collections of private friends,
and illustrated some of my own household curios,
many of them family relics.</p>
<p>The story of domestic curios is made the more
useful by these illustrations, and also by references to
well-known collections. There is much to admire in
the once common objects of the home, now curios,
and it is in the hope that some may be led to
appreciate more the antiques with which they are
familiar that these pages have been penned. If that
is achieved my object will have been accomplished.</p>
<p style="text-align: right;">
FRED. W. BURGESS.</p>
<p><span class="smcap">London</span>, 1914.<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a></span>
<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">{11}</a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
<div class='center'>
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>PAGE</td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><a href="#PREFACE">PREFACE</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>THE LOVE OF THE ANTIQUE</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>No place like home—Curios in the making—The influence of
prevailing styles—A cultivated taste.</td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>THE INGLE SIDE</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>Fire-making appliances—Tinder boxes—The fireplace—Andirons and
fire-dogs—Sussex backs—Fireirons and fenders—Trivets and
stools—Bellows.</td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>THE LIGHTS OF FORMER DAYS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>Rushlights and holders—Candles, moulds, and boxes—Snuffers, trays,
and extinguishers—Oil lamps—Lanterns.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">{12}</a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>TABLE APPOINTMENTS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>Cutlery: Knives, forks, and spoons—Salt cellars—Cruet
stands—Punch and toddy—Porringers and cups—Trays and
waiters—The tea table—Cream jugs—Sugar tongs and
nippers—Caddies—Cupids—Nutcrackers—Turned woodware.</td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>THE KITCHEN</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>The kitchen grate—Boilers and kettles—Grills and
gridirons—Cooking utensils—Warming pans.</td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>HOME ORNAMENTS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>Mantelpiece ornaments—Vases—Derbyshire Spars—Jade or spleen
stone—Wood carvings—Old gilt.</td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>GLASS AND ENAMELS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_173">173</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>Waterford, Bristol, and Nailsea—Ornaments of glass—Enamels on
metal.</td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>LEATHER AND HORN</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>Spanish leather—Cuir boulli work—Tapestry and upholstery—Leather
bottles and drinking vessels—Leather curios—Shoes—Horn work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">{13}</a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>THE TOILET TABLE</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>The table and its secrets—Combs—Patch boxes—Enamelled
objects—Perfume boxes and holders—Dressing
cases—Scratchbacks—Toilet chatelaines—Locks of hair—Jewel
cabinets.</td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>THE OLD WORKBOX</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>Spinning wheels—Materials and work—Little
accessories—Cutlery—Quaint woodwork—The needlewoman—Old
samplers.</td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>THE LIBRARY</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>From cover to cover—Old scrap books—Almanacs—The writing table.</td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>THE SMOKER'S CABINET</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>Old pipes—Pipe racks—Tobacco boxes—Smokers' tongs and
stoppers—Snuff boxes and rasps.</td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>LOVE TOKENS AND LUCKY EMBLEMS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_281">281</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>Amulets—Horse trappings—Emblems of luck—Love spoons—Glass
curios.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">{14}</a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>THE MARKING OF TIME</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_295">295</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>Clocks—Watches—Watch keys—Watch stands.</td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_309">309</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>Early examples—Whistles and pipes—Violins and harps.</td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>PLAY AND SPORT</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>Dolls—Toys—Old games—Outdoor amusements—Relics of sport.</td></tr>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>MISCELLANEOUS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_337">337</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>Dower chests—Medicine chests—Old lacquer—The tool chest—Egyptian
curios—Ancient spectacles—Curious chinaware—Garden curios—The
mounting of curios—Obsolete household names.</td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><a href="#INDEX">INDEX</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_357">357</a></td></tr>
</table></div>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">{15}</a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
<div class='center'>
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
<tr><td align='left'>FIG.</td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>1. OLD FIREPLACE, SHOWING SUSSEX BACK, ANDIRONS, AND TRIVET</td><td align='left'><i><a href="#Frontispiece">Frontispiece</a></i></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>2. ANDIRONS WITH RATCHETS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>3. ORNAMENTED CRESSET DOGS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>4. TELESCOPIC RUSH AND CANDLE HOLDER</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>5. RATCHET RUSH AND CANDLE HOLDER</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>6. ANCIENT ROMAN FIRE-DOG</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>7. SUSSEX GRATE BACK, DATED 1588</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>8. THREE SINGLE DOGS OR ANDIRONS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>9. PAIR OF DATED SUSSEX ANDIRONS (1625)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>10. PAIR OF SUSSEX ANDIRONS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>11. SUSSEX BACK WITH ROYAL EMBLEMS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>12. SUSSEX BACK WITH ARMS AND ROYAL INITIALS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>13. FINE CARVED WALNUT WOOD BELLOWS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>14. THREE RUSHLIGHT HOLDERS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>15. THREE VARIETIES OF OLD OIL LAMPS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>16. TWO WALNUT WOOD FLOOR-CANDLESTICKS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>17. FINE PAIR OF ANCIENT SNUFFERS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_73">73</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">{16}</a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>18. HANDSOMELY DECORATED KNIFE CASE AND CONTENTS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>19. KNIFE, FORK, AND SPOON</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>20. PAIR OF DECORATED SPOONS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>21. TWO WOODEN CUPS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>22. WOODEN FLAGON, WITH COPPER BANDS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>23. A COCOANUT CUP (SILVER-MOUNTED)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>24. A COCOANUT CUP (SILVER-MOUNTED)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>25. COCOANUT FLAGON</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>26. EARLY ENGLISH BRONZE EWER</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>27. INSCRIBED SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY WOOD DRINKING CUP</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>28-30. EARLY CARVED WOOD NUTCRACKERS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>31-34. MEDIÆVAL WOOD NUTCRACKERS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>35-39. EARLY STEEL AND BRASS NUTCRACKERS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>40. TWO ANTIQUE WARMING PANS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>41. WELSH KITCHEN FIREPLACE</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>42. MECHANICAL ROASTING JACKS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>43-46. GRIDIRONS SHOWING FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN DESIGN</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>47 AND 48. TWO WOODEN FOOD BOXES</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>49. A COLLECTION OF IRON FAT BOATS AND GREASE PANS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>50. WOODEN COFFEE CRUSHERS AND PESTLES AND MORTAR</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>51. APPLE SCOOPS OF BONE</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_139">139</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">{17}</a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>52. WOODEN PIGGINS AND PORRIDGE BOWL</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>53. WOODEN PLATTER, BOWL, AND SPOONS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>54. BRASS CHIMNEY ORNAMENT (ONE OF A PAIR)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>55. BLACK AND GOLD DERBYSHIRE MARBLE VASE</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>56. TEMPLE GUARDIAN, CARVED FROM THE GNARLED ROOT OF A TREE</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>57. CARVED PLAQUE STAND</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>58 AND 59. MINIATURE COPPER AND SILVER KETTLES</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>60. MINIATURE IVORY COFFEE BOILER</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>61. TWO OLD-GILT JEWELLED ORNAMENTS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>62. THREE FINE OLD IVORIES</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>63. BATTERSEA ENAMELS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>64. ANTIQUE DRESSING OR TOILET GLASS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>65. THREE OLD SCRATCHBACKS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>66. SILVER CHATELAINE TOILET INSTRUMENTS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>67. ANOTHER CHATELAINE SET</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>68. FINE ORIENTAL LACQUERED BOX</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>69. SMALL LACQUER CABINET</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>70. A PAGODA-SHAPED CASKET</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>71. DECORATED JEWEL CASE</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>72. OLD SPINNING WHEEL</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>73. SPINNING WHEEL</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>74. OLD LACE BOBBINS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>75. OLD PIN POPPETS AND ANCIENT PINS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_237">237</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>76. THREE OLD WORKBOXES</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_243">243</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">{18}</a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>77. OLD WORKBOX FITTINGS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_247">247</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>78. ANCIENT CLOG ALMANAC</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>79. OLD COIN TESTER</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_265">265</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>80. MINIATURE SOUVENIR ALMANAC</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_265">265</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>81. ANCIENT WRITING SET</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_265">265</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>82. THREE CURIOUS PIPE-STOPPERS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>83. BRASS TOBACCO BOX</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>84. COLLECTION OF HARNESS AMULETS AND TEAM BELLS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_285">285</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>85. OLD WELSH LOVE SPOONS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_291">291</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>86. FINE GOTHIC FRENCH CLOCK</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_299">299</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>87. SPECIMENS OF OLD WATCH KEYS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_303">303</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>88. TWO ANTIQUE WATCH CASES</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_303">303</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>89. OLD SPINET</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_315">315</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>90. CURIOUS TYPES OF WHISTLES</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_323">323</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>91. QUAINT OLD TOY</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_323">323</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>92. A POWDER TESTER</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_335">335</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>93. A PRIMING FLASK</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_335">335</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>94. OLD POWDER FLASKS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_343">343</a></td></tr>
</table></div>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">{19}</a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">I<br />
<br />
THE LOVE<br />
OF THE<br />
ANTIQUE</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">{21}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I<br />
<br />
THE LOVE OF THE ANTIQUE</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>No place like home—Curios in the making—The influence of prevailing
styles—A cultivated taste.</p></div>
<p>There is an inborn love of the antique in most
men, although some are fond of asserting that their
interests are bound up in the modern, and that they
have no time to devote to the study of the antiquities
of past ages or the things that were fashionable
in times long past. Yet most people, when their
secret longings are analysed, are found to have
an admiration for the old; if not a superstitious
veneration, at any rate a desire to perpetuate the
memory of their ancestors and to keep in mind the
things with which they were familiar. The wealthy
man of to-day, who may have sprung from the
people, secretly, if not openly, endeavours to surround
himself with household gods which tell of a
longer past and a closer relationship with the well-to-do
than he can legitimately claim. In the pursuit
of such things many a man has found his hobby;
and there are few men who do not find recreation
and delight in a hobby of some kind. Such interests<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">{22}</a></span>
outside their regular occupations broaden their outlook
and widen their knowledge. Some hobbies
tend to lead to specialization, and the specialist is
apt to become warped and narrowed; not so, however,
the collector of household curios.</p>
<h3>No Place Like Home.</h3>
<p>It would be difficult to find greater delight than
that which centres in those things that concern the
home and home life. The love of the old homestead
and the goods and chattels it contains is ingrained
in the breast of every Britisher; and although families
become scattered and some of their members find
homes of their own beyond the seas, they find the
greatest delight in the objects with which they were
familiar in years gone by, and venerate the relics of
former generations—the household gods which have
been handed on from father to son.</p>
<p>It is not the intrinsic value of the household curio
that is its chief charm; it is rather the knowledge
that its long association with those who have claimed
its ownership from the time when it was "new" has
made it truly a family relic. These thoughts, being
so deeply rooted in the minds of most men and
women, foster the love of household curios and
intensify the interest shown in their possession.</p>
<p>To all it is not given to own family relics; neither
would they serve to satiate the ambition of the true
collector, although they might form the nucleus of
his collection. He seeks other treasures in the town
and in the country and wherever such things are
offered for sale.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">{23}</a></span></p>
<h3>Curios in the Making.</h3>
<p>The domestic habits of the people of this and
other civilized countries have been the outcome of
a slow process of upbuilding. There has been no
sudden change; in all grades and under every
different social condition, at every period, the improvement
of the furnishings of the home has been
one of gradual and, for the most part, steady
progress.</p>
<p>There was a time when, beyond the bare furniture,
tapestry hangings, tools of the craftsmen, and
weapons of the warrior, there were few household
goods of a portable nature. In mediæval England
the oak chest was sufficient to contain the valuables
of a large household; and very often beyond a
cabinet or sideboard or corner cupboard there were
few receptacles where anything of value could be
safeguarded. The dower chest, in which the bride
brought to her husband household linen and her
stock of clothing, and in the wooden compartment
in one corner of the chest her jewels and coin of the
realm—if she possessed any—was then a prominent
piece of furniture. The oak chest, rendered formidable
with its massive lock and bolts, opened with a
ponderous key, was the chosen receptacle in after-years
as a treasure chest, and regarded as the safest
place in which to keep valuable documents and other
property. In the Public Record Office may be seen
the old iron box in which the Domesday Book was
kept for many centuries. The old City Companies
have their treasure chests still; and boxes studded
over with iron nails and fitted with large hasps and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">{24}</a></span>
locks are pointed out in many old houses as
passports to family standing.</p>
<p>The household curios which a collector seeks include
objects of utility and ornament. Many of
them are associated with household work, and quite
a number of one-time kitchen and culinary utensils,
as well as those which were once cherished in the
best parlour or withdrawing-room, are found places
among such curios. During the last few years
domestic architecture has passed through several
stages of advancement. The stiff and formal
Georgian houses, the painful Victorian villas, and
some of the earlier attempts at architectural improvement
have been swept away to make room
for modern replicas of still older styles which have
been revived or incorporated in the <i>nouvre</i> art, which
touches the home in its architecture and internal
decoration, as well as in its furnishings. In modern
dwellings the Elizabethan style has often been followed,
although modern conveniences have been
incorporated. When furnishing such houses with
suitable replicas of the antique the householders of
the last quarter of a century have been unconsciously,
perhaps, fostering the love of household
antiques and providing fitting homes for their
family curios.</p>
<h3>The Day of the Curio Hunter.</h3>
<p>This is admittedly the day of curio hunting, and
those who specialize on household curios have exceptional
opportunities of displaying them to better
advantage than those who cared for such things in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">{25}</a></span>
the past. Perhaps it is because there were so few
opportunities of arranging and displaying household
antiques during the last three-quarters of the nineteenth
century that many objects now treasured
have been preserved so fresh and kept in such
excellent condition. The housewives of the past
generation were undoubtedly conservative in their
retention of old household goods, and it is to their
careful preservation that so many objects of interest,
although perhaps fully a century old, come to the
collector in such perfect condition.</p>
<p>The patient labour expended by the amateur
artist, the needleworker, and the connoisseur of
home art a generation or two ago has provided the
collector to-day with an exceptionally interesting class
of curio, for there is much to admire in amateur
craftsmanship, and especially in the handiwork of
the needlewoman and the weaver and decorator of
so many beautiful textiles which have been preserved
to us. Sentiment was strong in the early nineteenth
century, and among the love tokens of that day,
chiefly the work of amateurs, some very beautiful
and unique curios were produced. These, too, have
come down to the collector of the twentieth century,
and help him to secure specimens representing every
decade, so that in a large collection, carefully selected,
the slow and yet sure progress made in the fine arts,
and the improvement in the ornamental surroundings
in the home, is made clear. In each one of the
different groups into which household curios may be
divided there are many distinctive objects, all of
which are in themselves interesting, but when viewed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">{26}</a></span>
in association with other things which have been
used at contemporary periods, or associated with the
home life of persons similarly situated, but dwelling
in different localities, are doubly interesting.</p>
<h3>The Influence of Prevailing Styles.</h3>
<p>In determining the origin of curios, and defining
the periods during which they have been made, it is
useful to have at least a little knowledge of the
influence or character of the prevailing styles in the
countries of origin. French art has exercised a great
influence upon the productions of other nations; it
has also been moulded by the curios and other
articles of foreign origin then being sold in France.
Regal and political influence have left their mark
upon almost every period of French art, and have
had much to do with the contemporary art of other
nations, for France was for centuries a guide in most
of the fine arts, and especially in those things which
tended towards decorative effect. The furniture of
France may be said to be an exponent of the
country's history, so great has been the connection
between French art, controlled by passing events,
and its commercial products. It is said that the
State pageants of the Louis XIV period tended to
raise the tone of the work of French artisans and
to encourage artists. That was a period of great
development, for in the year 1670 the famous tapestry
factories sprang into existence; and it must be
admitted that the designing of those wonderful textiles
influenced the manufacturers of furniture and
smaller objects both in France and in other countries.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">{27}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 433px;"><a name="FIG_2-5" id="FIG_2-5"></a>
<img src="images/fig_2-5.jpg" width="433" height="600" alt="FIG. 2.—ANDIRONS WITH RATCHETS.
FIG. 3.—ORNAMENTED CRESSET DOGS.
FIG. 4.—TELESCOPIC RUSH AND CANDLE HOLDER.
FIG. 5.—RATCHET RUSH AND CANDLE HOLDER." title="" /><br />
<span class="caption">FIG. 2.—ANDIRONS WITH RATCHETS.<br />
FIG. 3.—ORNAMENTED CRESSET DOGS.<br />
FIG. 4.—TELESCOPIC RUSH AND CANDLE HOLDER.<br />
FIG. 5.—RATCHET RUSH AND CANDLE HOLDER.</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">{29}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a></span></p>
<p>Sir Christopher Wren is reputed to have been
carried away by the influence of the Louis XIV
art. It was in that King's reign, too, that Charles
Boule perfected his veneers of tortoiseshell and fine
brass work. Buhl cabinets, fancy boxes, and many
smaller objects found their way into this country,
and are now household curios. When Philip of
Orleans was Regent of France Boule introduced
vermilion and gold-leaf as the groundwork upon
which to throw up the beauty of tortoiseshell, and
his designs became lavishly extravagant. Of these
there are some beautiful examples extant; one,
a facsimile of a bureau made in Paris in 1769, so
elaborate that its cost was reputed to have been
about £20,000, is to be seen in the Wallace Collection
at Hertford House. In the reign of Louis XV
great encouragement was given to the importation
of lacquer work from China, influencing the creation
of similar works in France; and it was owing to
his support that the Vernis Martin enamels or
varnishes were produced. Then came those beautiful
paintings of landscapes with which so many of the
rarer household curios dating from that period were
ornamented.</p>
<p>The French style came over the Channel. Thus
it was that French influence, as shown in its art in
which its political history was reflected, permeated
into the workshops of England. Then came the
popularity of the designs of the Adam Brothers and
Sheraton. During the Revolution in France art was
at a standstill, but as soon as Napoleon had established
his Empire artistic France began again, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">{30}</a></span>
we see its influence in the Empire ornament of
furniture and curios. Perhaps one of the most
striking instances of change in style was that in
our own country when the Prince of Orange came
over and William and Mary were crowned King
and Queen. Dutch influence on the art of Great
Britain was immediately seen, and in the curios of
that period there is a remarkable difference between
those produced at that time, when Englishmen were
content to allow the art of another nation to dominate
their work, and those of an earlier date. Dutch
marquetry is seen in cabinets and smaller household
antiques in the manufacture of which panels were
applicable. There was a change in design about
the year 1695, just after Mary died, the characteristic
seaweed following the floral, as if the very
flowers had been banished after the Queen's death.
The influence of the King and of his successors
was very noticeable in the style and decoration of
household goods; the history of this country at that
time, just as the history of France had been, was
reflected in the art of its craftsmen.</p>
<h3>A Cultivated Taste.</h3>
<p>The love of the antique is regarded by some as a
cultivated taste. The specialization upon any one
branch of household curios may justly be regarded
as such, but surely not the regard, almost reverence,
for family relics, although they are but the common
things of everyday life! Their collection stimulates
the connoisseur, and encourages him to fresh exertions,
and in that sense the habit of keeping a keen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">{31}</a></span>
look out for anything that may illumine previous
researches or add greater lustre to those things
already secured, is gradually cultivated.</p>
<p>Household curios are not unassociated with the
folklore of the district where such objects have
been made, or were commonly in use; and the very
names of many things, the uses of which are almost
forgotten, are suggestive of former occupations and
older methods of practising household economy and
the preparation of food. It is common knowledge
that the purest old English is met with in the dialects
of the countryside, and oftentimes once household
words, now lost in modern speech, are found again
when the old names or original purposes of the curios
remaining to us are discovered. The cultivation of
a taste for gathering together household antiques
is much to be desired, and in the pursuit of such
knowledge there is great pleasure—and as the value
of genuine antiques is ever rising, some profit, too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">{33}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">II<br />
<br />
THE<br />
INGLE<br />
SIDE</h2>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">{35}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II<br />
<br />
THE INGLE SIDE</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Fire-making appliances—Tinder boxes—The fireplace—Andirons and
fire-dogs—Sussex backs—Fireirons and fenders—Trivets and
stools—Bellows.</p></div>
<p>In winter the ingle side, or its equivalent in a modern
house, appears to be the chief centre of attraction.
It was ever so; and to-day the lessened necessity for
crowding round the fire and sitting in the ingle nook,
owing to modern methods of distributing the heat,
in no way lessens the attraction which draws an
Englishman to the fire. In the United States of
America stoves of various kinds are deemed good
substitutes, but in this country the open fire is
preferred, and modern scientific research aims at
perfecting and improving existing accepted methods
of heating and warming rooms rather than of
displacing them.</p>
<p>In the days when the earliest collectable curios of
the ingle side were being made by the village smith,
and the local sculptor and mason were preparing the
chimney corner and the mantelpiece to surround the
fireplace, it was in front of the great open fire in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">{36}</a></span>
kitchen, before which the large joints were roasted,
that the retainers of the baron and the landowner
or lord of the manor assembled on winter nights. It
was around the fire which crackled on the hearth
in the great hall that the more favoured ones forgathered,
and in the lesser homestead the family
drew up their chairs and found seats in the ingle
nook, near the fire, when snow was upon the ground,
and frost and cold draughts made them shiver in the
houseplace.</p>
<p>The fireplace has its attractions still, and builders
and architects have designed many cosy corners
within reach of the fire. The furnishings of the
hearth have become more decorative as times have
become more luxurious and art has gained the
ascendant; and sometimes their greater ornament
has been at the sacrifice of utility, but the root
principles of construction as seen in the older
grates and fire appointments remain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">{37}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 495px;"><a name="FIG_6" id="FIG_6"></a>
<img src="images/fig_6.jpg" width="495" height="400" alt="FIG. 6.—ANCIENT ROMAN FIRE-DOG.
(In the National Museum at Naples.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 6.—ANCIENT ROMAN FIRE-DOG.
<br />
(<i>In the National Museum at Naples.</i>)</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 478px;"><a name="FIG_7" id="FIG_7"></a>
<img src="images/fig_7.jpg" width="478" height="400" alt="FIG. 7.—SUSSEX GRATE BACK, DATED 1588." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 7.—SUSSEX GRATE BACK, DATED 1588.</span>
</div>
<h3>Fire-making Appliances.</h3>
<p>It seems natural to inquire into the origin of the
need of a fireplace, and to do so we must go back
to prehistoric times and trace the discovery of fire-making
apparatus, for without the means of lighting
a fire it is obvious that the grate would be useless.
With the fire came artificial light, the two great discoveries
being perfected side by side, sometimes the
one gaining ground, at others the one that had fallen
behind shooting ahead as the result of some great
discovery, or the application of scientific principles
not deemed of utility to the one or the other as the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">{39}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a></span>
case might be. The fire-making appliances which
were in use for the purpose of lighting fires were
of course used long before any scheme of artificial
lighting—apart from the flames and radiance from
the fire. Professor Flinders Petrie, that great investigator
into the antiquities of the Ancients, tells us that
fire-making by friction has been found to exist in far-off
times. It would appear that the discovery of how
to produce fire has been accomplished independently
by men living under very different conditions and
at all ages. The fire-making of the Ancients has
been rediscovered by primitive people in more recent
days, although it is probable that native races who
until recently have been living apart from the great
world outside have moved slowly in their march of
civilization, and have been using the same methods
as those first tried by their ancestors ages ago. In
the unrivalled collection of appliances got together
by Professor Petrie, there are fire drills from the
Transvaal, bow drills used by the Esquimaux, and
fire ploughs from North Queensland. Lighting fires
must have been a slow and difficult task in the days
when tinder boxes were in request, for when Curfew
rang and the <i>couvre de feu</i> had done its work there
was no fire in which to thrust the torch, and the
entire process had to be gone over again when the
fire had once more to be kindled.</p>
<h3>Tinder Boxes.</h3>
<p>The tinder box, formerly a real necessary, was to
be found in every house, and in many instances, in
the days before lucifer matches, it was a desirable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">{40}</a></span>
pocket companion. Tinder boxes were made of
different materials; some were of wood, others of
iron or brass. They lent themselves to ornamentation:
thus some were engraved and quite artistic;
many of the more recent ones were made of tin, and
on the covers were decorative little scenes. The
contents of the tinder boxes were of course flint
and steel and tinder (something very inflammable,
such as scorched linen), with a damper for extinguishing
the smouldering fire after a light had been
obtained, or in later days by the sulphur-tipped
match applied to it. Among the varieties are what
are termed pistol tinder boxes, instruments which
contained a small charge of gunpowder, which, when
fired, lighted the tinder. Tinder pouches or purses
containing flint and tinder having a piece of steel
riveted on to the edge of the purse or pouch were
a common form. Those brought over from Central
Asia were frequently decorated with dragons and the
swastika symbol, in damascened work.</p>
<p>Many inventions were put forward by chemists
before the perfecting of the common match, the wax
vesta, and the fusee. One of these was Berry's
apparatus, which he devised in the beginning of
the nineteenth century, calling it a "contrivance
for lighting lamps in the dark." It consisted of an
acid bottle with a string by which a conical stopper
could be raised, and a chlorate match held against
the stopper became ignited.</p>
<p>Match boxes are collectable, and collectors of fire-making
and lighting contrivances often include a
few old matches. The lucifer match consisted of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">{41}</a></span>
sticks tipped with potassium chlorate and sugar,
held together with gum, igniting when touched with
concentrated sulphuric acid. They were invented in
1805, and by the year 1820 had quite taken the place
of tinder boxes. Various lighting pastes were used,
until the improvements which resulted in the "safety"
matches. The dangerous sulphur and white phosphorus
have given place in modern match-making to
sesqui-sulphate mixtures; and wax vestas and other
"strikers" have superseded the curious objects the
collector meets with.</p>
<h3>The Fireplace.</h3>
<p>In studying the curios of the fireplace, it is scarcely
necessary to go back beyond the grates and fire
appointments which may be seen in the old houses
standing to-day. Even during the last generation
or two there have been many changes, and in rebuilding
and refurnishing the antiquities of the fireplace
have in many instances been swept away.
During more recent days, however, there has been
a greater appreciation of the curio value of mantelpieces
and old grates, and it is no uncommon thing
for hundreds and even thousands of pounds to be
paid for rare specimens.</p>
<p>In some instances the fireplace may truly be said
to have been the central attraction, for the old grates
and mantelpieces have often realized as much as the
whole of the remainder of the materials secured when
an old house has been pulled down. Some of these
mantelpieces of olden time were magnificent memorials
of the sculptor's and the carver's art. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">{42}</a></span>
included overmantels, the entire breastwork of the
chimney often being covered with stone or marble
or black oak, right up to the ceiling or the
cornice.</p>
<p>The open hearth was the earlier form of fireplace,
and long before chimneys were built logs of wood
burned on it, and in still earlier times in a basket
or brazier, the smoke finding its way to the roof, the
rafters of which soon became blackened. Chimneys,
however, are of early date, and the household curios
of the fireplace have almost entirely been used under
such conditions of fuel consumption, the up-draught
of the chimney carrying away the smoke and harmful
gases. The firebacks and the andirons, and later
the fire-dogs, of the open fireplaces are collectable
curios of considerable interest, and the hobby may
be indulged in at a moderate cost. The collection
of mantelpieces may be left to the wealthy and to
those who have baronial halls in which to refix them.
Fig. <a href="#FIG_1">1</a> represents an old fireplace in a panelled oak
room with a Tudor ceiling. There is a Sussex back
of rather small size, and a pair of andirons, on which
a log of wood is shown reposing. An old saucepan
has been reared up in the corner, and there is a
trivet on the hearth. There is a very remarkable
group of cresset dogs shown in Fig. <a href="#FIG_2-5">2</a>. One pair
of dogs or andirons has ratchets on which supplementary
bars were placed. These show an early
advance from the simple andiron, and point to the
later developments of the fire-grate with the fast
bars which were to come. In the same group two
rush-holders or candlesticks are shown, one with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">{43}</a></span>
ratchet, the other adjusted on a simple rod, the socket
being held in place by a spring (see Figs. <a href="#FIG_2-5">4</a> and <a href="#FIG_2-5">5</a>).</p>
<p>As time went on and change of fuel came about,
the forests of England being gradually consumed on
the domestic hearth, coal was substituted for the fast-vanishing
wood. Then it was that a change was
needed, and instead of the open fireplace and the
andirons on which the logs of wood had formerly
been laid, iron baskets or grates in which coal could
be placed were made, so that the scattering of fuel
and cinders on the open hearth could be prevented.
Sussex backs gave place in time to the grate in
which a metal back was frequently incorporated,
flanked by the dogs in front. Then came the closed-in
grates and the hob-registers of the eighteenth
century, many being designed after the beautiful
ornamentation produced by the Adam Brothers;
also the decorative metal work enriched with ormolu
and brass, which in due course again gave way to
the plain and oftentimes ugly register grates of the
Victorian Age, which in more modern times have
been displaced by the reproductions of the antique,
and by well-grates and scientifically constructed
stoves and heating radiators by which heat can be
conserved, the draught of the fire and the chimney
regulated, and the coal burned more economically
on slow-combustion and semi-slow-combustion principles.
Science has taught builders and others how
to radiate the heat, and prevent that waste which
formerly went up the chimney, so that the necessity
to sit round the fire is not as great as it once was,
and rooms large and small are more evenly heated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">{44}</a></span>
The fireplace has once more become a thing of
beauty, and all its appointments are rendered harmonious
with the furnishings of the home, whether
they are modern replicas of the homesteads of earlier
periods or constructed according to the newer art of
the present day.</p>
<h3>Andirons and Fire-dogs.</h3>
<p>The brazier on a piece of stone in the centre of the
room served well when charcoal was plentiful, and
although the smoke ascended amidst the rafters the
heat spread and there was plenty of room for many
persons to assemble "around" the fire. With chimneys
built at the side of the house for convenience,
the timber was laid upon the hearth flag. Under
the conditions that appertained when great open
chimneys allowed the rain and snow to fall upon
the fire or on the logs laid ready for the burning, the
difficulties of lighting a fire were experienced. Then
the local smith came to the aid of the "domestic" or
serf, and hammered into shape what were termed
andirons, their use making it easier to light the logs,
giving a current of air under them, causing them to
burn brighter. The andirons were afterwards called
fire-dogs, and in course of time bars rested on hooks
or ratchets, or were laid across the dogs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">{45}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 549px;"><a name="FIG_8" id="FIG_8"></a>
<img src="images/fig_8.jpg" width="549" height="400" alt="FIG. 8.—THREE SINGLE DOGS OR ANDIRONS." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 8.—THREE SINGLE DOGS OR ANDIRONS.</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a name="FIG_9-10" id="FIG_9-10"></a>
<img src="images/fig_9-10.jpg" width="600" height="430" alt="FIG. 9.—PAIR OF DATED SUSSEX ANDIRONS (1625).
FIG. 10.—PAIR OF SUSSEX ANDIRONS.
(In the collection of Mr. Wayte, of Edenbridge.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 9.—PAIR OF DATED SUSSEX ANDIRONS (1625).
<br />
FIG. 10.—PAIR OF SUSSEX ANDIRONS.
<br />
(<i>In the collection of Mr. Wayte, of Edenbridge.</i>)</span>
</div>
<p>There are no records of the earliest inventors of
andirons or dogs. It is quite clear that small fire-dogs
were in use in Rome at an early period; the
one illustrated in Fig. <a href="#FIG_6">6</a>, measuring 6¾ in. in height,
of artistic form, two draped figures being the supports
of the arch, is in the National Museum in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">{47}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a></span>
Naples, where there are many other beautiful examples
of early Roman metal work. In the seventeenth
century some of the more elaborate ornamental cast
brass fire-dogs were enriched with black and white
or blue and white enamel, several varieties of fireside
ornaments being decorated in the same way.</p>
<p>Enamel thus applied to metal is exceptionally
valuable, as much as two hundred guineas being
paid for an enamelled pair of fire-dogs. It is the
ordinary forms of cast or wrought dogs with which
collectors are mostly familiar, especially those made
in the famous Sussex ironfields, such as those shown
in Figs. <a href="#FIG_8">8</a>, <a href="#FIG_9-10">9</a>, and <a href="#FIG_9-10">10</a>, which are of early date, the
pair illustrated in Fig. <a href="#FIG_9-10">9</a> being dated 1625, the
others probably contemporary. Single examples of
similar designs are shown in Fig. <a href="#FIG_8">8</a>. The need of the
metal furnishings of the hearth—as the chimney
places of the smaller manor houses and the dwellings
of the traders were being erected—caused an
impetus to the trade of the ironfounder and smith,
and the founders and smiths of the Sussex villages
came to the aid of the builder. There are dated
examples from the sixteenth century onwards,
recording the periods when these interesting souvenirs
of domestic building and the great Sussex
ironfields—now deserted—were in operation.</p>
<h3>Sussex Backs.</h3>
<p>There is a peculiar attraction about the castings
made in Sussex in the days when the foundries of
that county were in full work, and many villages
were filled with busy pattern-makers, moulders, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">{48}</a></span>
founders carrying on a thriving industry in districts
which have now been given up to the plough; for
the Sussex ironfields have been abandoned, as when
the timber of the district was consumed it was impossible
to work the forges economically, for coal was
far distant and transport costs prohibitive. The old
grate backs for which the Sussex foundries were famous
in the seventeenth century were often modelled on
Dutch designs, and some showed German characteristics.
There are many noted English designs,
too, mostly taking the forms of coats of arms and
the shields and crests of the landlords for whom
the stove-plates were made, some becoming "stock"
patterns and often duplicated. There is quite a fine
collection of these grate backs in several museums,
and some good examples can still be bought from
dealers whose agents secure them from time to time
when property is being rebuilt. In the Victoria and
Albert Museum there is a long oblong plate on which
is cast the arms of Browne of Brenchley, in Kent,
probably made in the second half of the seventeenth
century. There are others with cherubs and curious
supporters of shields of arms. A still earlier piece,
probably cast about the year 1600, is an oblong
Sussex back deeply recessed, on which is the arms
of John Blount, Earl of Devonshire, another bearing
the Royal arms of the Tudor period. In Hampton
Court Palace there are some especially fine grate
backs, mostly bearing the Royal arms. At a little
earlier period the cast grate backs were chiefly plain
with isolated crests or designs scattered over the
surface, often quite irregularly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">{49}</a></span></p>
<p>The three fine examples of Sussex backs illustrated
are typical of popular styles. Fig. <a href="#FIG_11">11</a> shows the
Royal lion of England, accompanied by the emblems
appearing on the Royal arms in the seventeenth
century; the Tudor rose crowned, the Scottish
thistle, and the French fleur-de-lis indicative of the
throne of France to which English sovereigns then
laid some claim. The date of this fine back is 1649.
Fig. <a href="#FIG_7">7</a> is of an earlier period, being dated 1588,
beneath which are the initials "I.F.C." There are
also roses and fleurs-de-lis, as well as anchors and
other emblems. The back shown in Fig. <a href="#FIG_12">12</a> has
for its design the Royal arms surrounded by the
Garter, and the initials "C.R.," a design which was
duplicated very extensively soon after the Restoration.
It will be noticed that the Royal arms formed
the design of the Sussex back shown in position in
Fig. <a href="#FIG_1">1</a>. Some of the German and Dutch designs are
very curious, many of them representing scriptural
subjects, like Moses and the brazen serpent; the
death of Absalom; the temptation of Joseph; and
the often-repeated story of the Garden of Eden.</p>
<p>In the American museums there are some very
interesting examples of foundry work; some of the
cast backs, evidently modelled on German or Dutch
designs, take the form of stove-plates, including both
front and side plates, mostly bearing dates in the
middle of the eighteenth century. Pennsylvania
was the chief district in which these plates were
made, some being cast by William Siegel, who went
to America from Germany in 1758, and erected what
was known as the Berkshire furnace. A curious early<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">{50}</a></span>
stove-plate in an American collection, dated 1736, has
upon it a scene known as "the dance after the wedding."
It is said to have been used in the front of
what was known as the German wall-warming stove.</p>
<p>In form the Sussex shape is usually rectangular—that
is, wider than its height. It would appear as if
the back was at first moulded from a wooden plate,
the crest, initials, or design being then impressed by
movable moulds or stamps, generally of wood. These
were irregularly placed, consequently crowns, roses,
crosses, family badges, and all kinds of emblems
were dotted promiscuously over the plate. Some of
the plain plates with cable-twist borders were probably
used as hearthstones and not as backs. The
styles which were gradually developed were chiefly
on the same lines as those which became popular in
France. Their use lingered long in that country
for until recently in many an old family mansion
might have been seen a <i>plaque de cheminée</i>, on which
was the coat of arms and supporters of the original
owner of the château, and sometimes of the kings
of France. The Sussex ironfounders worked chiefly
at Cowden, Hawkhurst, and Lamberhurst, and there
were forges at Cranbrook, Coudhurst, Tonbridge, and
Biddenden. The principal ironmasters of Kent were
the Knights and the Tichbornes, whose descendants
became baronets.</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"Life is not as idle ore,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">But iron dug from central gloom,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">And heated hot with burning fears,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">And dipped in baths of hissing tears,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">And battered with the shocks of doom<br /></span>
<span class="i0">To shape and use."<br /></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i16"><span class="smcap">Tennyson</span>, <i>In Memoriam</i>.<br /></span>
<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">{51}</a></span></div></div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_11" id="FIG_11"></a>
<img src="images/fig_11.jpg" width="400" height="362" alt="FIG. 11.—SUSSEX BACK WITH ROYAL EMBLEMS." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 11.—SUSSEX BACK WITH ROYAL EMBLEMS.</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_12" id="FIG_12"></a>
<img src="images/fig_12.jpg" width="400" height="319" alt="FIG. 12.—SUSSEX BACK WITH ARMS AND ROYAL INITIALS.
(In the collection of Mr. Wayte, of Edenbridge.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 12.—SUSSEX BACK WITH ARMS AND ROYAL INITIALS.
<br />
(<i>In the collection of Mr. Wayte, of Edenbridge.</i>)</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">{53}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a></span></p>
<h3>Fireirons and Fenders.</h3>
<p>Fire brasses or fireirons came into vogue with
grates, although the sets now regarded as old fire
brasses, some of which are very elaborate and massive,
made at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
were first used when fenders came into vogue;
instead of being reared up alongside the fire-dogs
in the chimney corner they rested on the fenders.
There is not much to distinguish the variations in
fireirons except the obvious indications of older
workmanship and design, when contrasted with
modern "irons." The shovel pans gave the artist
in metal some opportunity for showing his skill in
design and perforated work. It is probable that the
earliest form of shovel was that known as the "slide,"
its use being to shovel up the ashes of a wood fire, an
operation necessary more frequently then than in
modern days when coal has been the principal fuel
consumed. Some of the older specimens are dated,
and bear the owner's initials; thus one authentic
specimen from Shopnoller, in the Quantock Hills,
is engraved, "I T. 1784." Many of the Dutch metal
workers produced very beautiful and decorative
stands on which miniature sets of rich brasses were
hung; some of the old English fireside stands were
arranged as receptacles for tongs, shovel, and brush,
and now and then the baluster stem supported by
a tripod base had a central attachment from which a
toddy kettle could be slung. The brass toddy kettle
formerly stood upon the hob of the grate, singing
merrily, always ready for the cup of tea which
"cheers but not inebriates," or, as was frequently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">{54}</a></span>
the case, for the preparation of hot toddy or
spirit.</p>
<p>The evolution of the fender forms a pleasing story
in connection with the ingle side. Perhaps the earlier
form likely to interest collectors of household curios
is that made of perforated brass, often some 8 in.
or 10 in. in depth. These fenders standing on
claw feet were afterwards fitted with bottom plates of
iron, on which was a ridge or rest against which
the fire brasses were prevented from slipping. Then
came iron or steel scroll-shaped fenders, tapering
down from a few inches in height at the ends to
centres almost level with the ground. To obviate
the inconvenience of there being no resting-place
for the fireirons loose supports were fitted into
sockets at the ends, and these afterwards were cast
as part of the scroll. Then came the stiff and formal
early Victorian metal work—iron fenders with steel
tops relieved occasionally by ormolu ornament.
These in their turn gave way to fender kerbs of
metal, stone, marble, or tiles, and loose ornamented
fire-dogs which have in more recent times served
as rests for the fire brasses.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">{55}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_13" id="FIG_13"></a>
<img src="images/fig_13.jpg" width="400" height="621" alt="FIG. 13.—FINE CARVED WALNUT WOOD BELLOWS.
(In the Victoria and Albert Museum.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 13.—FINE CARVED WALNUT WOOD BELLOWS.
<br />
(<i>In the Victoria and Albert Museum.</i>)</span>
</div>
<h3>Trivets and Stools.</h3>
<p>Combination appliances were early adopted,
although we are apt at times to associate combined
utensils with modern innovations. The old
English trivet of wrought iron made in the eighteenth
century was frequently "improved" by the addition
of a toasting fork, which could be adjusted and set at
certain angles so that the toast could be left in front<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">{57}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a></span>
of the fire for a few moments until it was quite ready
to be taken off and put on a plate standing conveniently
on the trivet until the dish or rack of toast
was complete. (Some scarce trivets are illustrated
in "Chats on Old Copper and Brass.")</p>
<h3>Bellows.</h3>
<p>The Germans were noted for the manufacture
of decorative bellows cut and carved in quaint
designs, some of the finest examples being made
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Others
were made in Holland, some of the Dutch bellows
being inlaid with mother-o'-pearl. There are also
examples of old English carving, the style of the
ornament taking the form of the designs on contemporary
oak furniture. Some of the largest and
handsomest bellows of English make are of late
seventeenth-century workmanship. The example
illustrated in Fig. <a href="#FIG_13">13</a> is a magnificent specimen, now
in the Victoria and Albert Museum at South
Kensington.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">{59}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">III<br />
<br />
THE<br />
LIGHTS OF<br />
FORMER DAYS</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">{61}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III<br />
<br />
THE LIGHTS OF FORMER DAYS</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Rushlights and holders—Candles, moulds, and boxes—Snuffers,
trays, and extinguishers—Oil lamps—Lanterns.</p></div>
<p>Household lighting has been one continuous effort
to render the hours of darkness bright, and to provide
by artificial means a luminosity which would, if not
actually rivalling the sun, enable men to carry on
their usual avocations with the same ease, convenience,
and comfort after daylight had disappeared
as during the earlier portion of the day. Every
stage which has been advanced in artificial lighting
has been welcomed in the home just as much as in
the factory and in the workshop, for there are many
daily duties as well as pleasures and amusements
which are carried out much more satisfactorily when
a good light is available than when there are shadows
and dark corners only dimly lighted.</p>
<p>To realize what artificial lighting was in the days
now happily long past, it would be necessary to
visit some old-world village, if one could be found,
where there had been no attempt at street lighting,
and in which not even oil had penetrated. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">{62}</a></span>
candles of very early times did not give more than a
dim glimmer, and the darkness of mediæval England
can be imagined from the primitive lighting appliances
which are preserved. Fortunately the entire
story of lighting as science came to the aid of trader
and householder is revealed in the lights of former
days, which as time went on became more varied
and numerous, found in collections of well-authenticated
specimens. The suggested caution implied
is not unnecessary, for the periods overlap, and there
is but little to show when such things as lamps and
lanterns were actually made.</p>
<h3>Rushlights and Holders.</h3>
<p>In tracing the development of lighting from quite
homely beginnings, rushlights, prepared by the
cottager and the farm hand for the winter supply,
seem to come first on the list. Rushlights, however,
were used in this country by many until comparatively
recent times side by side with lights much
more advanced. But centuries earlier than we have
any record of artificial lighting in this country, and
equally as long before any of the earliest British
curios of lighting were used, lighting engineers, if we
may so call them, in Greece, Rome, Egypt, and still
earlier in other Eastern countries, were far advanced.
None of the lighting schemes of the Ancients, however,
produced much more than the dim light of the
swinging lamp in which oil was consumed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">{63}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_14" id="FIG_14"></a>
<img src="images/fig_14.jpg" width="400" height="301" alt="FIG. 14.—THREE RUSHLIGHT HOLDERS.
(In the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 14.—THREE RUSHLIGHT HOLDERS.
<br />
(<i>In the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.</i>)</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_15" id="FIG_15"></a>
<img src="images/fig_15.jpg" width="400" height="303" alt="FIG. 15.—THREE VARIETIES OF OLD OIL LAMPS." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 15.—THREE VARIETIES OF OLD OIL LAMPS.</span>
</div>
<p>To range side by side a number of rushlight
holders taken from districts widely apart, it becomes
evident that there was a striking similarity between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">{65}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a></span>
the earlier types. The smiths everywhere seem to
have fashioned a simple contrivance by which the
rushlight or early candle could be held upright, and
then, to give the "stick" solidity, the iron shaft was
fastened securely into a wooden block, which was
very often quite out of proportion to the size and
weight of the stand, and apparently unnecessarily
large and heavy. In the larger examples the holder
is often made to slide upon an upright rod so as to
be useful at different heights. The sliding rod was
needed, for the light so dim could only be of real
service when quite close to the person using it, or
to the work it was intended to illumine (see Figs.
<a href="#FIG_2-5">4</a> and <a href="#FIG_2-5">5</a>).</p>
<p>Although some of the more elaborate and advanced
holders were of copper or brass, most of them were
of iron, the work of local smiths, few of whom made
any attempt to decorate what they evidently regarded
as strictly utilitarian articles (see Fig. <a href="#FIG_14">14</a>).
Although rushlights antedated candles, some of the
holders were made to answer a dual purpose, and on
the same stem or slide as the rushlight holder there
was a candle socket, an important feature fully
exemplified in Figs. <a href="#FIG_2-5">4</a> and <a href="#FIG_2-5">5</a>.</p>
<h3>Candles, Moulds, and Boxes.</h3>
<p>The collector of household curios does not trouble
about the candles; his object is to secure a few
candle moulds, candle boxes, and, of course, candlesticks.
It may, however, be convenient here to refer
to the moulding of candles which was at one time a
domestic duty just as it had been to collect rushes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">{66}</a></span>
and after they were dried dip them in fat, and to make
lights which would burn with more or less steadiness.</p>
<p>The candles were made from various fats, much of
which was accumulated in the kitchen during the
processes of cooking, supplemented by other ingredients
deemed best for the purpose. The candle
moulds or tubes in which wicks were inserted were
of varying capacities and ranged from two to a
dozen or more. The moulds were dipped in troughs
of fat, having been heated sufficiently to melt the fat.
The process was by no means new, in that it was
used in this country by the Saxons; and at a still
earlier period candles were made by the Romans,
for among the sundry objects picked up among the
uncovered ruins of Herculaneum have been small
pieces of candle ends.</p>
<p>There was but little advance in the art of candle-making,
for the candle, briefly described as a rod of
solidified tallow or wax surrounding a wick, remained
almost unimproved until the eighteenth century,
when spermaceti was introduced, and in more recent
years paraffin has been substituted.</p>
<p>Candles were hung up by their wicks in bunches
until required for use, but those needed for immediate
supply were always kept in candle boxes. It
is these boxes of copper, brass, and tin which are
sought after. The decorated japanned tin boxes
are very pleasing, and some of the best, ornamented
after the "Chinese style" or painted with little
scenes, and rich in gold ornament, especially those
made with other japanned wares at Pontypool in
South Wales, are desirable acquisitions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">{67}</a></span></p>
<p>Of the varieties of candlesticks there is no end.
The two great divisions are the pillar or table
candlesticks, and the chamber candlesticks. The
first named are chiefly seen with a small socket and
flange to catch the running tallow, the last mentioned
have larger dishes which catch the drips from
candles which are being carried about. Among the
varieties are the earliest form of pricket candlestick
on which the candle was "stuck," the bell candlesticks,
and the candlesticks which were fixed on
brackets against the wall. As time went on varied
materials were introduced, and ornament was chiefly
in accord with prevailing styles, which influenced the
maker of candlesticks as all other metal work. Iron,
copper, brass, pewter, silver, and Britannia metal and
wood have been used, and many of the handsomest
chandeliers and brackets are those made of lustres
and cut glass. The large chandeliers hung a century
or two ago at great expense in the centre of large
rooms have frequently been retained, and gas and
electric light have been introduced instead of candles.
In Fig. <a href="#FIG_16">16</a> we illustrate two exceedingly well-preserved
old walnut floor-candlesticks, with brass
sconces. They come from the Sister Isle, where
there are still curios to be met with.</p>
<h3>Snuffers, Trays, and Extinguishers.</h3>
<p>There were difficulties to contend with in the use of
candles, chiefly on account of the irregular burning of
candles when exposed to the slightest draught, and
to the imperfect combustion, which left a charred
piece of wick which it was necessary to remove to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">{68}</a></span>
make the candle burn once more. Then, again, the
extinction of a burning candle involved some skill,
and instruments were devised to effect this without
causing unpleasant odours or smoke to arise. Previous
to the use of lanterns out of doors, and oftentimes
when halls and corridors were imperfectly lighted,
torches thrust into the open fire and thus lighted
were used. Extinguishers of iron were frequently
erected near an outside door, or added to the iron
railings outside the house. These were for the
purpose of extinguishing links—many such are to be
seen still outside old London houses. They were the
prototypes from which originated the ordinary form
of chamber candle extinguisher, frequently fastened
to the "stick" by a chain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">{69}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_16" id="FIG_16"></a>
<img src="images/fig_16.jpg" width="400" height="620" alt="FIG. 16.—TWO WALNUT WOOD FLOOR-CANDLESTICKS.
(In the collection of W. Egan & Sons, Ltd., of Cork.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 16.—TWO WALNUT WOOD FLOOR-CANDLESTICKS.
<br />
(<i>In the collection of W. Egan & Sons, Ltd., of Cork.</i>)</span>
</div>
<p>The extinguishers used in the early days of candles
are known now as snuffer-extinguishers, to distinguish
them from snuffers (the old name was <i>doubters</i>). In
form they were not unlike scissors; the two circular
metal plates of which they were formed closed in
and compressed the wick, thereby extinguishing the
light. The earlier snuffers had very large boxes, and
some were remarkably handsome, an exceptionally
fine example being shown in Fig. <a href="#FIG_17">17</a>. They were
discovered in an old house at Corton, in Dorset,
in 1768, and were described by a writer towards the
close of the eighteenth century thus: "They are of
brass and weigh about 6 ounces. Their construction
consists of two equilateral cavities, by the edges
of which the snuff is cut off and received into the
cavity from which it is not got out without much
trouble." Snuffers of iron, and later of steel, are the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">{71}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a></span>
commoner forms, but they are frequently of brass
and of silver and Sheffield plate.</p>
<p>The need of some convenient tray or receptacle
for the snuffers, not always over-clean when they had
been used a few times, was met at first by what are
known as snuffer stands made of wrought metal, and
often very ornamental. Then came the oblong tray
of convenient shape, following in its decoration and
ornament prevailing styles in other domestic tin or
metal work. In this connection it should be pointed
out that there are many varieties of taper holders
and stands used for the small wax tapers, then
common on the writing table.</p>
<h3>Oil Lamps.</h3>
<p>Although oil had long been a recognized illuminant
from which a good artificial light could be
obtained, it was not until the eighteenth century
that any marked attempt was made to substitute
oil for candles in this country. For really beautiful
lamps we have to go back to the bronze lamps of
ancient Greece and Rome, and the terra-cotta lamps
of the early Christians, many of which were exceedingly
interesting. Householders in England, and in
America, too, preferred the beautiful silver candlesticks
and those charming and artistic scrolls which
once decorated the walls of the houses of the well-to-do.
There came a time, however, when oil lamps
were reinstated, and although candles still held
sway and were difficult to displace, inventors and
makers of oil lamps began to compete for the
lighting industry. The three old lamps now in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">{72}</a></span>
the Cardiff Museum, shown in Fig. <a href="#FIG_15">15</a>, must be
classed among the commoner types of early lamps,
once plentiful in farmhouses and cottages.</p>
<p>The lamp used on the table in Victorian days was
the moderator lamp, the principle of which was a
spring forcing the oil up through the burner—but
such lamps have no claim upon the curio hunter
either for beauty of form or rarity of material.
These lamps, which burned colza or seed oil, were
superseded in time by paraffin and petroleum lamps.
Now and then some wonderful invention flashed
across the scene, but although various modern improved
burners have come and gone, the lamp,
excepting for purposes of ornament and decorative
effect, has given way to coal gas and, in more
modern times, to electric lighting. There are few
household curios of any value associated with oil
lighting, and as yet gas is too new!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">{73}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"><a name="FIG_17" id="FIG_17"></a>
<img src="images/fig_17.jpg" width="300" height="487" alt="FIG. 17.—FINE PAIR OF ANCIENT SNUFFERS." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 17.—FINE PAIR OF ANCIENT SNUFFERS.</span>
</div>
<h3>Lanterns.</h3>
<p>The portable lantern made of iron and tin and
glazed with horn was long an indispensable feature
in every household. Horn lanterns were carried
about everywhere in the days before street lighting
was general, and to some extent they are needed
in country districts to-day. There is a remarkable
similarity between the modern glass lanterns of
circular type and the old watchman's lanterns of a
couple of centuries ago. The same design seems
to have served the purpose through many generations,
and to have been duplicated again and again.
Among the ancient lanterns are some in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">{75}</a></span>
candles have been burned, and others where the
candle socket has been utilized for the insertion
of a socket oil lamp. In more modern times the
horn has given place to glass. The carriage lamps
of former days served their purposes well, and
although some are certainly antique, they are by
no means desirable curios. The light they gave
when driving through a country lane was indeed
a dim flicker compared with the powerful arcs of
the modern motor-car.</p>
<p>The beacon fire is no longer seen on housetops,
neither is the lantern in the yard and the vestibule
furnished with a candle; but curiously enough, even
in the most modern appointed houses, so great is
the love for the antique in the furnishings of to-day,
that beautifully modelled little replicas of the old
horn lanterns are hung in entrance halls and passages—but
instead of the candle there is the electric
bulb!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">{77}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">IV<br />
<br />
TABLE<br />
APPOINTMENTS</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">{79}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV<br />
<br />
TABLE APPOINTMENTS</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Cutlery: Knives, forks, and spoons—Salt cellars—Cruet stands—Punch
and toddy—Porringers and cups—Trays and waiters—The tea
table—Cream jugs—Sugar tongs and nippers—Caddies—Cupids—Nutcrackers—Turned
woodware.</p></div>
<p>It is very difficult to realize in these days of
refinement and of comparative luxury, even in the
homes of the working classes, what the table
appointments must have been in early English
homes. Sometimes glowing accounts are given of
the feasting of olden time; but no doubt many of
the great occasions contrasted in their luxurious
magnificence with the usual mode of living. They
were, however, the days of feeding rather than of
refinement in partaking of the sumptuous feast. The
table appointments on such occasions were crude and
simple, and they were altogether absent from the
tables of the lower classes. It is difficult, indeed,
to realize that the conditions under which people
lived in mediæval England, in the days when the
baron and his followers assembled in the great hall,
and with his chosen companions sat above the salt,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">{80}</a></span>
satisfied men of wealth; it was, however, in accord
with the spirit of the age.</p>
<p>The primitive methods of serving up food and
eating it observed by the majority of people then
would be looked upon with disgust nowadays by
every one. The table appointments were not only
very few, but those which were used, like the knife
and spoon, were often brought into the feasting hall
by those who were to use them. The polished oaken
board was often laden with rough and readily prepared
dishes, the result of some fortunate expedition
or of a prosperous hunt. The knife was the chief
implement used until comparatively recent days, for
forks are quite a modern innovation. The spoon, it
is true, goes back to hoary antiquity, but in England,
even in the Middle Ages, spoons were used chiefly for
ecclesiastical purposes. In Harrison's <i>Elizabethan
England</i> we read that the times had changed, for
instead of "treen platters" there were pewter plates,
and tin or silver spoons instead of wood.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">{81}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="FIG_18" id="FIG_18"></a>
<img src="images/fig_18.jpg" width="500" height="358" alt="FIG. 18.—HANDSOMELY DECORATED KNIFE CASE AND CONTENTS.
(In the Victoria and Albert Museum.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 18.—HANDSOMELY DECORATED KNIFE CASE AND CONTENTS.
<br />
(<i>In the Victoria and Albert Museum.</i>)</span>
</div>
<h3>Cutlery: Knives, Forks, and Spoons.</h3>
<p>The term "cutlery," derived from <i>coutellerie</i>, the
French for cutlery, had been evolved from <i>culter</i>,
the Latin for knife. Primarily it referred to cutting
instruments, and especially to knives, but in a
general way, when speaking of table cutlery, spoons
and forks may appropriately be included. Early
records referring to cutlery indiscriminately use the
terms knives and swords; indeed, the arms granted
to the London Cutlers' Company in the sixteenth
year of the reign of Edward IV are two swords,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">{83}</a></span>
crossed; later a crest, consisting of an elephant
bearing a castle, was added. Homer tells us of
knives carried at the girdle in his day, and describes
them as of triangular form. The Anglo-Saxons and
the Normans carried about with them met-soex or
eating knives, but it was not until the end of the
fifteenth century that knives were used at table,
other than those which were carried at the girdle,
every man using his own cutlery. In England,
Sheffield was early noted for the manufacture of
knives, for Chaucer tells us, "A Scheffeld thwitel
bare he in his hose." Another form of spelling the
word which denoted knife was <i>troytel</i>, and from
these terms is derived "whittle." The jack knife
came in in the days of James I, after whom it
was named, the original term being Jacques-te-leg,
these knives shutting into a groove or handle
without spring or lock.</p>
<p>The making of a table knife even in early times
necessitated the work of many hands, for taking
part in its production were the smiths who forged
it, the bladers who made the blade out of the metal
already hammered, and the haft-makers. When
the knife was complete it was handed to the sheath-makers,
who fashioned the sheath of leather, and
sometimes encased it in metal. The host did not
provide table cutlery for his guests until the reign
of Elizabeth. In earlier times it was left to the
traveller to provide himself with whatever he deemed
necessary; thus it is recorded that when Henry VI
made a tour in the north he carried with him
knife, fork, and spoon, as it was stated "he scarcely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">{84}</a></span>
expected to find any at the houses of the nobility."
From that custom, no doubt, arose the common
practice of fitting separate sets, and afterwards sets
for more than one person, in cases, the materials
used being for many years the beautifully embossed
<i>cuir boulli</i> leather work. Queen Elizabeth carried
her knife and other appointments at her girdle,
a custom followed by her ladies; although it is
said that at the Court of the virgin queen it was
customary for the gentlemen courtiers to cut up
the meat on the platters of the fair ones with
whom they were dining; the ladies at that time
being content to prove the truth of the adage,
"Fingers were made before forks."</p>
<p>Collectors soon realize that there were many
forms of knives even amongst those specially
reserved for table use. Both blades and handles
have passed through many stages in the gradual
evolution from the hunting knife to the cutlery on
the modern dinner table. The blades have been
narrow and pointed like daggers, and they have
been scimitar-shaped, and rounded off at the point.
The qualities of the material have changed, too,
Sheffield cutlers and those of other places vying
with one another. The cutlery trade has long
drifted north, although at one time the members
of the London Cutlers' Company were proud of
the quality of their goods, and boasted of their
knives being "London made, haft and blade."
This ancient Guild tried hard to maintain their
pre-eminence, and in the days of Elizabeth
obtained a Charter prohibiting all strangers from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">{85}</a></span>
bringing any knives into England from beyond
the seas.</p>
<p>The carving knife seems to have had a separate
descent from the large hunting knives used to cut
up barons of beef, roasted oxen, and portions which
were cut off the joint for each individual or for
several persons.</p>
<p>Forks for table use were a much later invention,
although there were larger meat forks, flesh forks,
and heavier iron kitchen appliances (see Chapter
<a href="#CHAPTER_V">V</a>).</p>
<p>In very early times small forks, of which there
are some in the Guildhall Museum dating from
Roman and Saxon times, were chiefly used for
fruit. The use of forks at table, for meat, is attributed
to the invention of an Italian, and the custom
thus started rapidly spread "in good society" on
the Continent of Europe. Thomas Coryate, a
noted traveller, is said to have introduced them
into Germany, and afterwards into England, where
their use was at first much ridiculed as effeminate,
the "fork-carving" traveller being spoken of in
contempt.</p>
<p>Forks were in regular use in England early
in the sixteenth century. Dean Stanley, in his
<i>Memorials of Westminster Abbey</i>, quotes from the
Chapter Book of 1554, in which it is stated by
Dean Weston (1553-6) that the College dinners
"became somewhat disorderly, <i>forks</i> and knives
were tossed freely to and fro." The old table
forks were two-pronged, the prongs being long and
set near together; the steel forks of the early<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">{86}</a></span>
nineteenth century were three-pronged, and another
prong was added later, the latter form being adapted
by the makers of silver forks in more recent years.</p>
<p>In Fig. <a href="#FIG_18">18</a> is shown a very handsome knife case
and its contents, which are to be seen in the
Victoria and Albert Museum. In Fig. <a href="#FIG_19">19</a> another
example of a set of knife, fork, and spoon in the
same collection is illustrated.</p>
<p>The spoon is, like the knife, of great antiquity.
It is said to have been suggested by shells on the
shore, and by the hollow of the hand which in
the most primitive days was used to drink with.
The most beautiful old spoons are those made of
silver, a magnificent pair being shown in Fig. <a href="#FIG_20">20</a>.
Many such spoons are now almost priceless, especially
the much-valued Apostle spoons, often given
in olden time as christening gifts. Silver spoons
more correctly belong to antique silver, which forms
another branch of curio-collecting.</p>
<p>Of spoons there are many made of other materials
than silver, some being carved in wood (see
Chapter <a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII</a>), others of ivory, and some of bone.
Many of the older spoons were made of brass or
latten; but when silver became popular table spoons
of silver were procured whenever it was possible to
afford them, and a collection including in the varieties
the Apostle and the seal top, and its various
developments from the rat-tail to the fiddle, is
obtainable. As regarding spoons Westman has
written: "The spoon is one of the first things
wanted when we come into the world, and it is one
of the last things we part with before we go out."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">{87}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_19" id="FIG_19"></a>
<img src="images/fig_19.jpg" width="400" height="450" alt="FIG. 19.—KNIFE, FORK, AND SPOON.
(In the Victoria and Albert Museum.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 19.—KNIFE, FORK, AND SPOON.
<br />
(<i>In the Victoria and Albert Museum.</i>)</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">{89}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a></span></p>
<p>The collector revels in the beautifully engraved
blades of the rarer curios; in the handles so varied
in their materials and ornament; and in the cases
in which knives, forks, and spoons have in many
instances been preserved. From the curios in
museums and from family treasures it is evident
that much of the cutlery has been presented as
donations to the housekeeping outfit of a newly-married
couple, or given as presentation sets or
pieces on some special occasion; just as cutlery is
often chosen for presentation purposes to-day.</p>
<p>From the sixteenth century onwards such sets
have been made and presented. The recently
arranged cutlery room in the Victoria and Albert
Museum at South Kensington, that great art treasure-house
of the nation, contains an exceptionally
representative collection. In some instances the
examples are only single specimens which may have
been presented separately, or they may have formed
part of a more complete set. There are sets of
carving knives with long blades, forks with double
prongs, and broad-pointed flat-bladed servers, many
of them etched and engraved all over. Even after
carvers were regular features on the table the small
knives and forks were brought by the guests who
were bidden to the feast, for it must be remembered
that it was not until 1670 that Prince Rupert
brought the first complete set of forks to this country.</p>
<p>In the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a
very beautiful little knife, the handle of which is
delicately carved, the group which constitutes the
design representing our first parents standing beneath<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">{90}</a></span>
the Tree of Knowledge, in the midst of which the
wily serpent is cunningly concealed.</p>
<p>Another pair consisting of a very handsome knife
and fork have handles representing animals and
grotesque figures. These were the work of Dutch
artists in the seventeenth century; but curiously
enough the quaint leather case in which this knife
and fork are enclosed was evidently of earlier date,
for it has upon it "1598." Some of the cases of
leather made by the <i>cuir boulli</i> process are circular,
there being separate holes for each of the knives they
were intended to contain. Some of the knives are
very curious, especially those with wooden or horn
handles of sixteenth and early seventeenth-century
make, which have been found in considerable numbers
in Moorfields and Finsbury, along with sharpening
steels. The ordinary table knives of a little later
date, when they were sold in half-dozens and dozens
along with two-pronged forks, were decorative, their
handles being made of materials varying in quality
and in the excellence of their manufacture. One
of the most beautiful sets of rare historic value now
on view in the Victoria and Albert Museum is part
of a set of fourteen, the ivory handles being carved
to represent the kings and queens of England.
These rare examples of the English cutler's and
ivory carver's art, dated 1607, have blades damascened
with gold. There are knives also with handles of
amber, one very remarkable set in amber over foil
being decorated with the figure of Christ and His
Apostles on one side of the handles, and on the
other side there is the Apostles' Creed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">{91}</a></span></p>
<p>Among other materials used in the manufacture of
handles for knives and forks, some of the latter
having two prongs and others three, chiefly made in
the eighteenth century, are: Battersea enamel on
copper, Staffordshire agate ware, Meissen porcelain,
Venetian millefiore glass, Bow porcelain, jasper,
Venetian aventurine glass, enamelled earthenware,
and Chantilly porcelain. In many instances these
handles made of such beautiful materials are further
decorated by miniature painted scenes and floral
ornaments. Another favourite material is bone,
some of the older handles being stained, mostly
green, afterwards decorated with applied silver in
floral and geometrical designs. There are a few
maple-wood handles of the eighteenth century, and
others of stag's horn and of shagreen.</p>
<p>The knife box with its divisions, referred to elsewhere,
is exemplified in many remarkably fine cases
to be seen in our museums and in isolated specimens
in private collections.</p>
<p>The interest in a collection of household utensils
is greatly enhanced by the halo of romance which
surrounds the uses of some of them. This is seen
and understood by the collector of cutlery perhaps
more than of anything else, for many old customs
have been associated with the giving of cutlery, and
superstitious beliefs have crept in.</p>
<p>The gift of cutlery at weddings was not always the
prosaic thing it is nowadays, for the cases and even
the knives were often accompanied by some sentimental
rhyme or poetic inscription. Two knives,
apparently the gift of bride and bridegroom to one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">{92}</a></span>
another, now in the British Museum, are engraved
with separate inscriptions. One reads:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"My love is fixt I will not range,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">I like my choice I will not change";<br /></span>
</div></div>
<p>while on the other is engraved:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"Witt, wealth, and beauty all doe well<br /></span>
<span class="i0">But constant love doth fair excell. 1676."<br /></span>
</div></div>
<p>The early uses of knives in association with religious
rites are interesting, as, for instance, the golden
knife with which the old Druids cut the mistletoe
with pomp and much mystic ceremony. The early
Christians made use of the knife and symbolized the
cross when feasting; indeed, the old country habit—which
is now deemed a sign of vulgarity—of crossing
the knife and fork after dining, took its origin in that
act of devotion, for together they form the Greek
cross. Browning refers to the custom when he says:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"Knife and fork he never lays<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Crosswise, to my recollection,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">As I do in Jesu's praise."<br /></span>
</div></div>
<p>In Russia this custom of the peasantry was deep-rooted;
and there they were careful to take up the
knife and fork and lay them down on the plate
crossed before commencing their often meagre meal.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">{93}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_20" id="FIG_20"></a>
<img src="images/fig_20.jpg" width="400" height="540" alt="FIG. 20.—PAIR OF DECORATED SPOONS.
(In the Victoria and Albert Museum.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 20.—PAIR OF DECORATED SPOONS.
<br />
(<i>In the Victoria and Albert Museum.</i>)</span>
</div>
<p>Strange to say that although knives and forks
have been crossed in reverence, to cross knives has
been deemed unlucky, and to present a maiden with
a pair of scissors—two crossed blades—has long been
held by those who believe in such signs as unlucky.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">{95}</a></span>
To give a knife is to "cut luck"—so the legend runs;
hence so many when presenting a pocket knife will
demand a penny (as the smallest coin when silver
pennies were in circulation) in return. The Rev.
Samuel Bishop, M.A., Master of the Merchant
Taylors' School in 1795, wrote the following lines
on the subject of presenting a knife to his wife:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"A knife, dear girl, cuts love, they say—<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Mere modish love perhaps it may:<br /></span>
<span class="i0">For any tool of any kind<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Can separate what was never join'd."<br /></span>
</div></div>
<h3>Salt Cellars.</h3>
<p>The condiments of the table were usually supplied
in separate vessels. The use of salt with meat goes
back to primitive times, although we have few records
of the vessels in which it was served. The Arab chief
offers his guest salt as an act of friendship, and as
such it is partaken of. The classic Ancients consecrated
salt before using it, and the salt cellar was
placed upon the table together with the first fruits
"for the gods," those to whom they were offered
being generally Hercules or Mercury. The Greek
salt cellars were shaped like bowls, and as the salt
became an important feature as a dividing line
between rich and poor, the size of the cellar grew.
To realize the importance of the salt cellar in
mediæval England, we have only to visit the Tower
of London, where the great salt cellars of State are
kept. The large standing salt was the dividing line
upon the table. Salt cellars dating from the fourteenth
century are in existence, and many curiously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">{96}</a></span>
shaped designs intervened before the bell-shaped
salts which were fashionable in the days of Elizabeth
and the trencher salts of Queen Anne and the early
Georges. Salt cellars with feet came into fashion
in the reign of George II; then followed many minor
changes until the beautifully perforated salt cellars
with blue liners bearing hall-marks dating from the
close of the eighteenth century came into vogue. It
is from among the Georgian table appointments that
collectors gather most of their specimens. The
materials of which these salt cellars were made
vary; there are sterling silver, antique pewter, and
Sheffield plate; and there are salt cellars of china
and porcelain which may well be included in a
collection of table curios.</p>
<h3>Cruet Stands.</h3>
<p>The separate bottles or cruets, casters, mustard
pots, and very rarely salts, were gradually gathered
together and placed in a frame which grew big in
late Georgian and early Victorian days. For convenience
the stand was placed in the centre of the
table, and often made to revolve. Such cruets are
met with in silver and other metals, also in papier-maché,
often ornamented with mother-o'-pearl and
painted flowers. The greatest interest, however, is
found in collecting separate bottles, such as those
charming Bristol glass cruets, ornamented with flowers
and lettered with the names of their contents, such as
"<span class="smcap lowercase">VINEGAR</span>," "<span class="smcap lowercase">SALAD OIL</span>," "<span class="smcap lowercase">MUSTARD</span>," "<span class="smcap lowercase">PEPPER</span>."</p>
<p>There is a greater variety of form in the metal
cruets and casters, which followed the prevailing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">{97}</a></span>
styles silversmiths were then employing. Especially
graceful are the old pepperettes and vase-shaped
casters. The woodturner, too, contributed to the
table appointments of the eighteenth century, and the
carver made some curious and even grotesque figures,
the heads of which took off, and thus formed pepper
casters. One of the most noted grotesque sets
reminds us of the Toby fill-pot jugs in form, a complete
set consisting of two salts, two mustards, and
two pepper pots. Genuine specimens are very
difficult to meet with now, although those Staffordshire
cruets have been reproduced, and are offered
either singly or in sets; but the difference between
the genuine antique and the modern replica ought
not to deceive even an amateur.</p>
<p>There are varieties of mustard pots, which were in
turn round, oval, square, hexagonal, and cylindrical,
some being like miniature well buckets with perforated
sides and blue metal liners.</p>
<h3>Punch and Toddy.</h3>
<p>A hundred years ago the punch bowl was
inseparable from the convivial feast. It was a
favourite sideboard ornament, and found in frequent
use on the dining table, round which smokers and
card players drew up and filled their glasses with
punch and toddy. Ladles were indispensable, and
were varied in form and in the materials of which
they were composed. Punch ladles were in earlier
days made of cherry-wood, mounted with a silver
rim and fitted with a long handle, often made of
twisted horn. The horn, which was somewhat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">{98}</a></span>
pliable, was secured to the bowl by a silver socket.
Other ladles were made entirely of silver, some
having a current coin of the realm, a guinea
preferably, fixed in the bottom of the bowl—for
luck. Some of the ladles were beautifully decorated
in repousse, others were shaped like sauce boats;
there were ladles without lips, others deep like the
porringers, and yet others were quite round like a
drinking bowl. Some are family heirlooms, others
have been purchased in curio shops, and unfortunately
during the last few years so great has been
the demand for them that many modern copies have
been palmed off as genuine antiques. The hall-mark
on the rim is in many instances a guarantee of age,
although some of the genuine specimens do not
appear to have been hall-marked at all. The fact
that an old coin is found fixed within the bowl is no
criterion of antiquity, and does not always indicate
that the punch ladle itself is contemporary with the
coin, for old coins are common enough and readily
fixed in new ladles.</p>
<p>Collectors of old china simply revel in punch
bowls. Punch was at the height of its popularity
when most of the domestic porcelain and decorative
china, now rare and valuable, was being made. The
best known potters in Worcester, Derby, Bristol,
Liverpool, and the Potteries made punch bowls,
some ornamented with their characteristic decorations;
others were specially emblematical, such, for
instance, as the bowls covered with masonic signs;
some were nautical in design, and many were
enriched with coats of arms and crests. Several of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">{99}</a></span>
the punch bowls belonging to the old City Companies
are on view in the Guildhall Museum, and
isolated specimens are seen to be in other places.</p>
<p>Oriental china was at that time being imported
into this country very extensively, and some remarkably
delicate bowls, contrasting with Mason's strong
ironstone, are obtainable. These bowls, ladles, and
the charming little egg-shaped boxes which formerly
contained a nutmeg and a tiny grater are household
table furnishings of exceptional interest. It may
interest some to learn that punch, which came into
vogue in the seventeenth century, derived its name
from a Hindustani word signifying five, indicative
of the five ingredients of which it was composed—spirit,
water, sugar, lemon, and spice.</p>
<h3>Porringers and Cups.</h3>
<p>Although sterling silver and other materials from
which drinking vessels are usually made have been
exhaustively dealt with in other volumes of the
"Chats" series, as table appointments drinking cups
must be referred to here. Caudle cups were in use
in the sixteenth century, and throughout the century
that followed they were used along with porringers,
which differed from them only in that the mouths of
the porringers were wider and the sides straight.
The caudle cup, sometimes called a posset cup, is
met with both without and with cover, and in some
instances it is accompanied by a stand or tray.
Caudle or posset was a drink consisting of milk
curdled with wine, and in the days when it was
drunk few went to bed without a cup of smoking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">{100}</a></span>
hot posset. Many of the early cups were beautifully
embossed and florally ornamented, although others
were quite plain, with the exception of an engraved
shield, on which was a coat of arms, crest, or
monogram. Many of the porringers which followed
the earlier type were octagonal, and in some
instances twelve-sided. In the reign of William and
Mary the rage for Chinese figures and ornaments
caused English silversmiths to decorate porringers
with similar designs. The style which prevailed the
longest was that known as "Queen Anne," much
copied in modern replicas. Very pleasing, too, are
eighteenth-century miniature porringers.</p>
<p>There is much to please in the work of the silversmith
and potter, as well as the glass blower, in the
cups they fashioned; and the artist admires the
chased engraving or the rich colouring, and perchance
the etching and cutting of the cup. Some, however,
show preference for the earlier cups and drinking
vessels of commoner materials, and for those eccentricities
of the table found in curious hunting cups,
vessels which had to be emptied at a draught, or to
be drunk under the most difficult conditions like the
puzzle cups of Staffordshire make. The peg
tankards of ancient date, a very fine example
originally belonging to the Abbey of Glastonbury,
afterwards in the possession of Lord Arundel of
Wardour, held two quarts, the pegs dividing its
contents into half-pints according to the Winchester
standard. On that remarkable cup the twelve
Apostles were carved round the sides, and on the
lid was the scene at the Crucifixion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">{101}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_21-22" id="FIG_21-22"></a>
<img src="images/fig_21-22.jpg" width="400" height="228" alt="FIG. 21.—TWO WOODEN CUPS.
FIG. 22.—WOODEN FLAGON, WITH COPPER BANDS.
(In the National Museum of Wales.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 21.—TWO WOODEN CUPS.
<br />
FIG. 22.—WOODEN FLAGON, WITH COPPER BANDS.
<br />
(<i>In the National Museum of Wales.</i>)</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIGS_23_24_25" id="FIGS_23_24_25"></a>
<img src="images/fig_23-25.jpg" width="400" height="280" alt="FIGS. 23, 24.—COCOANUT CUPS (SILVER-MOUNTED).
FIG. 25.—COCOANUT FLAGON." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIGS. 23, 24.—COCOANUT CUPS (SILVER-MOUNTED).
<br />
FIG. 25.—COCOANUT FLAGON.</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">{103}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a></span></p>
<p>It is said that the pegs were first ordered by
Edgar, the Saxon king, to prevent excessive drinking,
the tankard being passed round, every man
being expected to drink down to the next peg.
Heywood, in his <i>Philocathonista</i>, says: "Of drinking
cups, divers and sundry sorts we have, some of elm,
some of box, and some of maple and holly." According
to the quaint spelling of those days there were
then in use in Merrie England: "Mazers, noqqins,
whiskins, piggins, cringes, ale-bowls, wassel bowls,
tankard and kames from a pottle to a pint and from
a pint to a gill." The leather cups and tankards or
black jacks (see Chapter <a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII</a>) were mostly used in
country places by "shepheards and harvesters." A
writer in a work published in the early years of the
nineteenth century says: "Besides metal and wood
and pottery we have cups of hornes of beasts, of
cocker nuts, of goords, of eggs of ostriches, and of
the shells of divers fishes."</p>
<p>A simple cocoanut, mounted in silver and made
into a cup, perhaps a century or more ago, is by no
means to be despised. Some are beautifully polished
and ornamented with incised work. Contemporary
with the earlier specimens are pots made of ostrich
eggs, mounted in silver, regarded of great value in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Some of the
university colleges possess fine examples, and there
are many in the hands of London silversmiths.
Figs. <a href="#FIGS_23_24_25">23</a> and <a href="#FIGS_23_24_25">24</a> represent two cocoanut cups with
feet of silver, one engraved with the owner's initials,
the foot being decorated with bead ornament.
Fig. <a href="#FIGS_23_24_25">25</a> is a cocoanut mounted as a flagon with handle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">{104}</a></span>
of whalebone and rim and foot of silver. The use of
such cups seems to have been very generally distributed
all over the world, for there are many South
American examples, as well as the English varieties.
The gourd, too, was used for similar purposes; the
Mexicans made such bowls and cups, finishing them
off with silver mounts and sometimes adding silver
feet. There are French flasks made of small gourds,
sometimes scent flasks being made in the same way,
not infrequently decorated with incised inlays of
coloured composition on a black ground. Some of
the English silversmiths engraved hunting scenes on
small flasks made of the rind of a gourd, choosing
hunting scenes and birds and familiar outdoor
objects.</p>
<p>In Figs. <a href="#FIG_21-22">21</a> and <a href="#FIG_21-22">21</a><span class="smcap lowercase">A</span> are shown two curious old
wood drinking cups, and Fig. <a href="#FIG_21-22">22</a> represents a
wooden jug bound with copper.</p>
<p>Horn was a favourite material for cups, sometimes
surmounted by elaborate covers and feet of silver.
One of the rarest drinking horns, now in Queen's
College, Oxford, was presented to the College by
the Queen of Edward III in 1340. Of later types
there are beakers and tumbler cups, the latter
rounded at the base so that they were easily upset,
the idea being that they must be emptied at the
first draught. From these cups sprang the quaint
hunting cups in porcelain, modelled in the form of
a hare's head, or like a fox, some of the scarcest
being evidently modelled for the fisherman's use,
to take the form of a fish's head.</p>
<p>The very remarkable drinking cup shown in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">{105}</a></span>
Fig. <a href="#FIG_27">27</a> is made of walnut; the ridges, carved in deep
relief, stand out boldly, each one being carved, the
letters forming a complete metaphor, to which is
added the name of its original owner, the inscription
reading as follows:—</p>
<p style="margin-left: 2em;">
"TAKE . NOT . FROM . ME .<br />
AL . MY . STOR . AXCP . YE .<br />
FILL . ME . VEE . SVME . MOR .<br />
FOR . AV . TO . BORROV .<br />
AND . NEVER . TO . PAY .<br />
I . CALL . THAT .<br />
FOVLL . PLAY .<br />
IōN WATSON 1695."<br />
</p>
<h3>Trays and Waiters.</h3>
<p>In olden time not very far from the dining table
stood the cupboard or buffet from which evolved the
sideboard. On it were displayed the cups and
flagons and table appointments not actually in use.
It is true the servants carried the great dishes from
the kitchen, and removed the lesser vessels on trays
and "waiters," and it is such trays, especially those
in silver and Sheffield plate used in the last century,
which are now valuable. The waiter or serving man
or woman has been an essential feature in domestic
service from the earliest times, for the history of
society invariably records those who wait at table:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"The waiters stand in ranks; the yeomen cry<br /></span>
<span class="i0">'Make room,' as if a duke were passing by."<br /></span>
<span class="i16"><span class="smcap">Swift</span>.<br /></span>
</div></div>
<p>It is an easy remove from the waiter to the tray or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">{106}</a></span>
vessel on which the waiters carried the things they
served up to those on whom they waited. The
name "salver," commonly applied to a tray or waiter,
seems to have originated from the old custom of
tasting meats before they were served, to salve or
save their employers from harm. Among the more
valuable are the trays or waiters of silver and
Sheffield plate. Trays made of iron and japanned
after the fashion of Japanese metal lacquer wares,
which towards the close of the eighteenth century
were so largely imported into this country, are often
neglected, yet many of them are truly antiquarian
and by no means unlovely.</p>
<p>One of the chief seats of the industry was at
Pontypool, but the business drifted to Birmingham.
It was when the japan wares, so called from the
attempt of the makers to copy the lacquers of Japan
then much imported, were being successfully made
amidst surroundings then exceedingly romantic in
the little town singularly situated on a steep cliff
overhanging the Avon Llwyd, that dealers found
trays, breadbaskets, snuffer trays, knife trays, caddies,
and urns much in request. In Bishopsgate Street
Without, in London, there is a noted wine house
known as the "Dirty Dick." This curious title was
derived from the owner of a famous hardware store
who kept it, and was dubbed "Dirty Dick" because
of his untidy shop. The wild disorder of the
establishment gave rise to a popular ballad of which
the following are two of the first lines:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"A curious hardware shop in general full<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Of wares from Birmingham and Pontypool."<br /></span>
<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">{107}</a></span></div></div>
<p>In addition to japanned wares there are trays of
paper pulp ornamented with mother-o'-pearl and
richly decorated with gold.</p>
<h3>The Tea Table.</h3>
<p>The modern tea table presents a much less formal
array of china and good things than that of a generation
or two back when high tea was an important
function, and the good wife of the household loaded
her table with many substantial dishes. The best
china was taken from the cupboard, and family heirlooms
in silver were arrayed on either side of the
teapot. Needless to say the teapot was an indispensable
adjunct, and some of the teapots belonging
to the old sets are massive and gorgeous, rather than
beautiful, although the earlier teapots made in this
country in the eighteenth century, a time when tea
was expensive and a real luxury, were quite small.</p>
<p>There are many curiosities, too—such, for instance,
as the Chinese teapots of the Ming period, when the
potters seem to have vied with one another in
producing grotesque forms, and from china clay
fashioned objects which typified their mythological
beliefs. Some of these teapots took the form of
curious sea-horses represented as swimming in
waves of green and amidst seaweed. Some of these
fabulous beasts are spotted over with splashes of
colour, and others have curious twig-like formations
upon their sides, said to denote pieces of coral and
water plants from the ocean. The teapot was at
one time most frequently filled from the pretty little
oval copper or brass kettle on the hob, or from a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">{108}</a></span>
swing kettle on a stand on the table. The table
kettle was generally heated by a spirit lamp which
kept the water boiling ready for use. Of later years
silver table appointments of early eighteenth-century
make have become very scarce, and the curio value
of the larger pieces has steadily risen. It would
seem as if the maximum figure had been reached for
silver of that period, for at the sale of the Fitzhenry
collection a plain kettle and stand, an example of
Ambrose Stevenson's work in 1717, realized £697.</p>
<h3>Cream Jugs.</h3>
<p>The cream jug included in the tea and coffee sets
of silver or metal, and in the tea china of which so
many beautiful sets are still extant, has almost an
independent position in connection with table
appointments, for ever since tea drinking became
general it was regarded as a necessity, and was made
in accord with the then prevailing styles. It is
almost the commonest collectable antique in this
particular group. In silver it was always hall-marked,
and its date can, therefore, be fixed.
Briefly outlining the development of its form, it may
be mentioned that it was quite plain in the reign of
Queen Anne, when tea drinking came into fashion.
When George I came to the throne it was widened
somewhat and made a little shorter. At that time
the silver cream jugs were hammered into shape out
of a flat sheet, there being no seam; after the body
was formed a rim was added and a lip put on.
There was a deeper rim in the reign of George II,
and then feet took the place of rims.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">{109}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_26" id="FIG_26"></a>
<img src="images/fig_26.jpg" width="400" height="503" alt="FIG. 26.—EARLY ENGLISH BRONZE EWER.
(In the British Museum.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 26.—EARLY ENGLISH BRONZE EWER.
<br />
(<i>In the British Museum.</i>)</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">{111}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a></span></p>
<p>Gradually Chippendale carving and the shaped
legs of the furniture then being used were reflected
even in the cream jug, the lip in those days being
hammered out of the body of the vessel with a
graceful curve. Rims again took the place of feet in
the reign of George III, and the tall legged cream
jug came into vogue. The body was decorated with
repousse work or engraved, and the shape gradually
changed until the familiar helmet-shaped cream jug
resulted. The helmet cream jugs were beautifully
engraved with ribbon and wreath decoration, and
frequently there was a beaded pattern round the rim
and the handle. The same styles prevailed both in
Sheffield plate and in Britannia metal, often misnamed
pewter. The decoration on the china cream
jugs was frequently floral, but in those made in the
leading potteries there was a distinct following of the
public style.</p>
<h3>Sugar Tongs and Nippers.</h3>
<p>With the use of lump sugar late in the eighteenth
century sugar tongs were added to the table appointments,
and their decoration and ornament usually
followed that of teaspoons. They were sometimes
engraved with the crests or initials of the owners, and
occasionally, in the case of wedding presents, with
the initials of both the master and mistress of the
household, one being placed inside the sugar tongs
and the other on the arch outside. In connection
with the cutting of lump sugar steel sugar nippers
were much used in the kitchen before lump sugar
was bought from the grocer ready cut up. These<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">{112}</a></span>
nippers, some of the earlier ones being chased and
engraved, have now passed into the region of
household curios.</p>
<h3>Caddies.</h3>
<p>As the tea table would be incomplete without the
beverage brewed from tea-leaves it follows as a
natural sequence that the housewife has always
required a storebox for her supply, and in some
cases one in which she could keep under lock and
key more than one variety. When tea was first
imported into this country it was sent over from China
in a <i>kati</i>, a small wooden box holding about 1-1/3 lb.;
hence the name passed on to the more elaborate
receptacles on the sideboard containing the household
supply. These boxes were mostly fashioned in
accord with the furniture, many having the well-known
Sheraton shell design on the lid, or on the
front of the box. Some are square-sided, others
tapered, generally finished with beautiful little brass
caddy balls as feet, and often with brass ring handles
and ornaments. The inside of the caddy was
divided into two compartments, usually boxes lined
with lead or lead paper, and frequently a central
compartment for a sugar bowl was added. In
nearly all the better boxes there was provision for
the silver caddy spoon with which to apportion the
accustomed supply.</p>
<h3>Chelsea and Bow Cupids.</h3>
<p>Those curious little boy figures known as Chelsea
and Bow Cupids are for the most part classed with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">{113}</a></span>
ornaments, but they more appropriately belong to
table appointments, for in olden time when the cloth
had been removed these curious little figures were
placed upon the mahogany or oaken board along
with the dessert, as if to guard the fruit and the wine.
The Cupids are garlanded with flowers, baskets of
which they have in their hands—delightful little
figures when genuine antiques. They vary in size
and are said to have been divided in the past as
"small" and "large" boys.</p>
<h3>Nutcrackers.</h3>
<p>Many a famous joke has been cracked over the
"walnuts and wine." It was when the board was
cleared of the viands that the nuts and fruit were
partaken of. The edible nuts mostly favoured before
foreign supplies came into the market were the hazel,
walnut, chestnut, and the famous Kent filberts.
Although doubtless supplemented by any objects
handy, the primitive method of cracking nuts with the
teeth was generally practised by the common people.
What more natural than for the early inventor to see
in the human head the "box" in which to place his
mechanical device and to give power and leverage
by utilizing the legs of the man he had carved in
wood. In the Middle Ages some remarkable carvings
were produced, mostly working on the same lines as
the earliest forms. In the seventeenth century, when
metal crackers came into vogue, pressure was applied
by means of a screw, and the contemporary wood
crackers were designed on that principle. Afterwards
the older type of cracker was revived, both in wood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">{114}</a></span>
and metal; subsequently the simpler form at present
in use was adopted.</p>
<p>Here and there in museums and among domestic
relics odd pairs of these old crackers are discovered.
The interest in them, however, grows when several
early examples are placed side by side. There are a
few instances of specialized collections, and through
the courtesy of Mr. Charles Evans, of Nailsea Court,
who possesses a unique collection of all periods, we
are able to illustrate a variety of forms. Fig. <a href="#FIGS_31-34">31</a>
represents a very early pair of nutcrackers, probably
made in the fourteenth century; the one shown in
Fig. <a href="#FIGS_31-34">34</a> has the Elizabethan ruff round the neck of
the carved head; and Figs. <a href="#FIGS_28-30">28</a>, <a href="#FIGS_28-30">29</a>, and <a href="#FIGS_28-30">30</a> represent
the screw period, Fig. <a href="#FIGS_28-30">28</a> being an early example.
One of the finest pieces in the collection is Fig. <a href="#FIGS_28-30">29</a>,
a cracker in the form of a hooded monk; Fig. <a href="#FIGS_28-30">30</a>
being a charming bit of wood-carving in walnut
wood, a somewhat grotesque figure representing
an old fiddler. Fig. <a href="#FIGS_31-34">33</a> is a curious cracker combining
a useful pick almost in the form of the
bill of a bird, Fig. <a href="#FIGS_31-34">32</a> being of similar date.
The next group shows the evolution from the
metal screw to the more ordinary types, Figs. <a href="#FIGS_35-39">36</a>
and <a href="#FIGS_35-39">38</a> being screw nutcrackers; <a href="#FIGS_35-39">35</a>, <a href="#FIGS_35-39">37</a>, and <a href="#FIGS_35-39">39</a>
being quaint examples of early metal nutcrackers
modelled on more modern form. Such curios
are extremely interesting, and whether exhibited
as specimens of carving or of metal
work, or used as table ornaments combining utility
and antiquarian interest, they are well worth
securing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">{115}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_27" id="FIG_27"></a>
<img src="images/fig_27.jpg" width="400" height="211" alt="FIG. 27.—INSCRIBED SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY WOOD DRINKING CUP.
(In Taunton Castle Museum.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 27.—INSCRIBED SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY WOOD DRINKING CUP.
<br />
(<i>In Taunton Castle Museum.</i>)</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIGS_28-30" id="FIGS_28-30"></a>
<img src="images/fig_28-30.jpg" width="400" height="398" alt="FIGS. 28-30.—EARLY CARVED WOOD NUTCRACKERS.
(In the collection of Mr. Charles Evans, of Nailsea Court.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIGS. 28-30.—EARLY CARVED WOOD NUTCRACKERS.
<br />
(<i>In the collection of Mr. Charles Evans, of Nailsea Court.</i>)</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">{117}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a></span></p>
<h3>Turned Woodware.</h3>
<p>Table appointments have afforded amateur wood-turners
and carvers opportunities of showing their
skill. Even before the days of modern lathes with
eccentric chucks and other improvements, turners
were very clever in producing little articles for table
use, and in their making expended a wealth of skill
and time. Among these were pepper boxes and
wooden salt cellars, and carved wooden spoons,
especially salad servers, which are even still made
and delicately carved, the Swiss peasants being
famous for such work. One of the village occupations
during winter evenings in years gone by was to
make wooden objects, although most of their efforts
were directed in other ways than table appointments
(see Chapter <a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII</a>, Fig. <a href="#FIG_85">85</a>).</p>
<h3>On the Sideboard.</h3>
<p>Not far removed from the dining table is the sideboard
or buffet, so important a piece of furniture in
the dining hall, for on it were formerly displayed table
appointments and emblems of the feast. The urn-shaped
knife boxes which were so often placed on
either side were chiefly of mahogany, sometimes
inlaid with satinwood and often with those rare
shell-like ornaments which became so popular in
the days of Chippendale and Sheraton. The compartments
in which were placed the table knives
prevented either blades or handles from being
rubbed. Copper and metal urns were frequently
conspicuous on the sideboard, although many of
the small tables so much treasured now as antiques<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">{118}</a></span>
in the drawing-room were originally made for urns
to stand upon.</p>
<p>There are many beautiful curios of the home made
of wood, among them being such rare gems as wood
screens and the frames of hand screens, some of
which screwed on to the ends of the mantelpieces
with small clamps.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">{119}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIGS_31-34" id="FIGS_31-34"></a>
<img src="images/fig_31-34.jpg" width="400" height="327" alt="FIGS. 31-34.—MEDIÆVAL WOOD NUTCRACKERS." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIGS. 31-34.—MEDIÆVAL WOOD NUTCRACKERS.</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIGS_35-39" id="FIGS_35-39"></a>
<img src="images/fig_35-39.jpg" width="400" height="299" alt="FIGS. 35-39.—EARLY STEEL AND BRASS NUTCRACKERS.
(In the collection of Mr. Charles Evans, of Nailsea Court.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIGS. 35-39.—EARLY STEEL AND BRASS NUTCRACKERS.
<br />
(<i>In the collection of Mr. Charles Evans, of Nailsea Court.</i>)</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">{121}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">V<br />
<br />
THE<br />
KITCHEN</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">{124}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_40" id="FIG_40"></a>
<img src="images/fig_40.jpg" width="400" height="299" alt="FIG. 40.—TWO ANTIQUE WARMING PANS.
(In the Victoria and Albert Museum.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 40.—TWO ANTIQUE WARMING PANS.
<br />
(<i>In the Victoria and Albert Museum.</i>)</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_41" id="FIG_41"></a>
<img src="images/fig_41.jpg" width="400" height="303" alt="FIG. 41.—WELSH KITCHEN FIREPLACE.
(In the National Museum of Wales.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 41.—WELSH KITCHEN FIREPLACE.
<br />
(<i>In the National Museum of Wales.</i>)</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">{125}</a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V<br />
<br />
THE KITCHEN</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>The kitchen grate—Boilers and kettles—Grills and gridirons—Cooking
utensils—Warming pans.</p></div>
<p>It is in the kitchen and the pantry that domestic
economy centres. The very essence of home life is
found in the preparation of suitable food in which to
satisfy human appetites. Whether the kitchen is
furnished with apparatus sufficient to cook for the
inmates of a large institution, or with the more
modest appliances with which a chop or a steak can
be grilled or a small joint roasted in a gas oven, the
basis of cooking operations is the same, and the cook
requires an outfit of culinary utensils small or large,
according to what she has been accustomed to use or
considers necessary for her immediate wants. In
olden time the kitchen was furnished with fewer
accessories in proportion to the meat consumed than
at the present time, and the large hanging caldron and
the strong and heavy wrought or cast iron saucepan
on the fire, and the roasting spit and jack in front of
it, went a long way towards completing the outfit.
The gradual advance and increase in the furnishings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">{126}</a></span>
of the kitchen have been the outcome of development
and progress in culinary art. Since the introduction
of scientific cooking and the establishment of schools
of cookery, the hired cook and the mistress who dons
the apron and assumes the role of the economic
housewife have learned to appreciate the use of
modern culinary appliances, lighter in weight and
convenient to handle. These differ according to the
purposes for which they are to be used.</p>
<p>Hygienic conditions now regarded as essential
have displaced many of the older cooking pots which
have been condemned as injurious to health. Greater
knowledge of the chemistry of cooking, and of the
action of acids upon metals, has enabled the scientific
cook to differentiate between the pots and pans
to use according to the various foods prepared. The
beautifully finished light, handy, and convenient
porcelain-enamelled saucepans and stewpans and
aluminium cooking pots used on modern gas stoves
and ranges, would have been just as unsuitable on the
open fires of the older grates as what are now regarded
as the curios of the kitchen would be deemed to be in
modern culinary operations. In almost every house
there are to be found obsolete utensils, some of which
are valued on account of their great age, others
because of their unusual forms, and some because of
the beauty of workmanship and the costly materials
of which they have been made. It is when turning out
the kitchen and storeroom on the occasion of periodical
cleanings that these old-world pots and pans come
to light; at such times the collector may be able to
secure scarce specimens and rescue them from oblivion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">{127}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_42" id="FIG_42"></a>
<img src="images/fig_42.jpg" width="400" height="882" alt="FIG. 42.—MECHANICAL ROASTING JACKS.
(In the collection of Mr. Charles Wayte.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 42.—MECHANICAL ROASTING JACKS.
<br />
(<i>In the collection of Mr. Charles Wayte.</i>)</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">{129}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a></span></p>
<p>It is not always easy to realize what the old kitchen
was like when these vessels were in use, although in
out-of-the-way places kitchens may occasionally be
discovered in which but little change has been made.
This is especially so in some of the Welsh villages,
and in order that visitors may see what such kitchens
are like a Welsh cottage fireplace showing the objects
which might commonly have been found there a
century ago has been reconstructed in the National
Museum of Wales. This we are able to reproduce in
Fig. <a href="#FIG_41">41</a> by the courtesy of the Director. The grate
came from Llansantffraid, and was made by a local
blacksmith; the spit and its bearers came from
Glamorgan; the brass pot came from Barry, and the
dog wheel (referred to on p. <a href="#Page_130">130</a>) from Haverfordwest;
most of the minor accessories came from different
parts of North Wales.</p>
<h3>The Kitchen Grate.</h3>
<p>The kitchen grate has evolved from the open fire;
at first in the centre of the room, then removed for
convenience to the side or end in front of which
joints of meats were roasted on a spit in olden time.
The spit, at first quite primitive, was improved upon
by local smiths, until quite intricate arrangements
provided the desired revolutions, and turned the meat
round and round until it was properly cooked. In
the thirteenth century the "bellows blower" was an
officer in the Royal kitchen, his duty being to see
that the soup on the fire was neither burnt nor
smoked. In course of time the bellows blower in
lesser households became a useful kitchen boy, turn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">{130}</a></span>ing
the spit by hand. It would seem, however, as if
in quite early days efforts were made to economize
labour in the kitchen, and turn the spit by mechanical
contrivances.</p>
<p>In roasting meat sliding prongs held the joint in
place, a cage or basket being used for roasting
poultry. This contrivance, first turned by hand, was
afterwards accelerated and made more regular by
the mechanical contrivances just referred to. These
appear to have been of three different types. There
was the clock jack, two splendid specimens of
which are illustrated in Fig. <a href="#FIG_42">42</a>, types becoming
exceedingly rare. Those illustrated were recently in
the possession of Mr. Charles Wayte, of Edenbridge,
an enthusiastic discoverer of antiquarian metal work
in out-of-the-way places in Sussex and Kent. Earlier
still there was the smoke jack or rotary fan fixed in
the chimney, operated by an up-draught, pulleys and
cords being attached to the end of the spit. The
third method referred to involved the shifting of
manual labour from man to his domestic beast, for
the faithful hound was pressed into the service of the
cook. The dog worked in a cage, operating a wheel
or drum which in its turn revolved the turnspit.
Such turnspits seem to have had a lingering existence,
and were occasionally heard of in North Wales
late in the nineteenth century.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">{131}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_43_44_45_46" id="FIG_43_44_45_46"></a>
<img src="images/fig_43-46.jpg" width="400" height="623" alt="GRIDIRONS SHOWING FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN DESIGN: FIG. 43, ITALIAN;
FIG. 44, FLEMISH; FIG. 45, DUTCH; FIG. 46, GERMAN." title="" />
<span class="caption">GRIDIRONS SHOWING FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN DESIGN: FIG. 43, ITALIAN;
FIG. 44, FLEMISH; FIG. 45, DUTCH; FIG. 46, GERMAN.</span>
</div>
<p>Roasting before the fire lingered on long after the
old-fashioned iron jacks and spits had ceased to be
the common method of cooking meat. The meat
hastener and the Dutch oven conserved and radiated
the heat, the joint turning slowly by the clockwork<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">{133}</a></span>
mechanism of the improved brass bottle jack. As
the size of the fireplace narrowed and kitchens were
built smaller roasting in ovens became popular; the
cooker of to-day with its hot-plates, grills, and steam
chests—whether heated by coal, gas, or electricity—presents
a remarkable contrast to the old open
fire grate.</p>
<p>It will readily be understood that the necessary
basting of meat roasting before the fire involved the
use of ladles and other utensils before the modern
cooking appliances were invented. Most of the old
vessels were strong and lasting, and the materials
employed in their construction were iron, copper, and
brass. In Fig. <a href="#FIG_49">49</a> we show a selection of fat boats
and hammered iron grease pans (in the centre of the
plate is an old mothering-iron from Sussex) typical
of the vessels used in open fire roasting. To these
may be added basting spoons and skimmers, in
many places called "skummers."</p>
<h3>Boilers and Kettles.</h3>
<p>It is probable that the cooking pot over the fire
has been used side by side with roasting apparatus
from the earliest times, although no doubt vessels
would be required for boiling foods before roasting,
in that discoveries show that the earliest method of
roasting a piece of meat or a small animal was to
encase it in clay and then expose it to the fire. The
clay crust could then be broken and would, of course,
have been destroyed.</p>
<p>No doubt the crock antedated the bronze pot,
which was at first made of metal plates hammered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">{134}</a></span>
and beaten into shape, and then riveted together.
This method was followed by the craft of the founder,
who cast vessels after the same model first in bronze
and then in iron. The cooking pot was indispensable
when the food of the common people was chiefly
such as necessitated a vessel containing liquid; the
name of this ancient vessel has furnished us with
many apt quotations, and it is still the pot so many
find difficult to keep boiling.</p>
<p>There have been many contrivances by which to
suspend the pot over the fire. Years ago the usual
method of suspension was from a beam of wood or a
bar of iron placed across the chimney opening—the
name by which the bar was known in the North of
England was a "gallybawk." Simple contrivances
of metal followed, the suspension hooks and chains
leading to improved cranes with rack and loop
handles.</p>
<p>No doubt many have noticed the apparent indiscriminate
use of the term "kettle"; the tea kettle as
we understand it to-day is a modern invention. The
old kettle was a boiling pot with a bail handle, its
modern survivor being the three-legged kettle of the
gipsies, and the boiling pot or fish kettle of the
modern household. Associated with the early use
of tea kettles slung over a fire is the now scarce
lazy-back or tilter, at one time common in the West
of England and in South Wales.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">{135}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIGS_47_48" id="FIGS_47_48"></a>
<img src="images/fig_47-48.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="FIGS. 47, 48.—TWO WOODEN FOOD BOXES.
(In the Cardiff Museum.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIGS. 47, 48.—TWO WOODEN FOOD BOXES.
<br />
(<i>In the Cardiff Museum.</i>)</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_49" id="FIG_49"></a>
<img src="images/fig_49.jpg" width="400" height="519" alt="FIG. 49.—A COLLECTION OF IRON FAT BOATS AND GREASE PANS." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 49.—A COLLECTION OF IRON FAT BOATS AND GREASE PANS.</span>
</div>
<p>In "Chats on Old Copper and Brass" some very
interesting illustrations of old copper and brass
saucepans, skillets, and pipkins are given. The
skillet has survived for several centuries. Those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">{137}</a></span>
made in the seventeenth century were frequently
inscribed with various religious and sentimental
legends; one in the National Museum of Wales
is inscribed "<span class="smcap lowercase">LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR</span>." Frying pans
have been in common use for a great number of
years and are still daily requisitioned. Bakestones,
on which cakes were formerly baked, are, however,
becoming obsolete. They were called girdle plates
in the North of England, and bakestones in Wales
and elsewhere.</p>
<h3>Grills and Gridirons.</h3>
<p>The gridiron or "griddle" was an appliance used
extensively all over the Continent of Europe from
the sixteenth century onward. In this country it
was formerly made by the village blacksmith, and,
like the iron stool, kitchen fender, and other iron and
brass kitchen utensils and furnishings, was often
made quite decorative. It would appear as if the
smith filled up his spare moments in designing
intricate patterns with which to decorate the grid.
Some of the sixteenth and seventeenth-century
European gridirons were quite elaborate, serving the
double purpose of ornament and use, for when
finished with for cooking purposes they were carefully
cleaned and polished and hung up over the
kitchen mantelpiece. Some of the characteristic
types met with are shown in the accompanying
illustrations. In Fig. <a href="#FIG_43_44_45_46">43</a> is seen the light and lacy
Italian style; in Fig. <a href="#FIG_43_44_45_46">44</a> the openwork design of the
Flemish; a formal Dutch pattern being illustrated
in Fig. <a href="#FIG_43_44_45_46">45</a>; whereas the heavy German floreated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">{138}</a></span>
type is shown in Fig. <a href="#FIG_43_44_45_46">46</a>. Contrasting with these
Continental types the English gridiron was strong
and serviceable, and essentially a grid or grill, the
smith putting his best work in the handle rather
than the grid.</p>
<h3>Cooking Utensils.</h3>
<p>Besides pots and pans there are many cooking
utensils which may now be reckoned among the
domestic curios. There are, of course, ewers and
basins, water-carrying and retaining vessels, and
colanders of brass and earthenware, strainers and
graters which have been used from time to time in
the kitchen. Sometimes the metal worker appears
to have gone out of the way to produce curious
forms not always the most convenient for the
purposes for which they were made—such, for
instance, as the aquamaniles, several of which may
be seen in the British Museum (see Fig. <a href="#FIG_26">26</a>).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">{139}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_50" id="FIG_50"></a>
<img src="images/fig_50.jpg" width="400" height="283" alt="FIG. 50.—WOODEN COFFEE CRUSHERS AND PESTLES AND MORTAR." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 50.—WOODEN COFFEE CRUSHERS AND PESTLES AND MORTAR.</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_51" id="FIG_51"></a>
<img src="images/fig_51.jpg" width="400" height="310" alt="FIG. 51.—APPLE SCOOPS OF BONE." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 51.—APPLE SCOOPS OF BONE.</span>
</div>
<p>Some of the minor kitchen utensils include flesh
hooks and forks and carving knives. There are
spoons of every kind made in all metals, some
of the earlier examples being of brass and
latten. In this connection also may be mentioned
ladles, fish slicers, and scoops. There are also
many curious little pastrycooks' knives, and
knives used for cutting vegetables and preparing
a repast in olden time, many of them quite decorative,
even the common pastry-wheel frequently
being carved. It was at one time customary to
expend much skill in decorating apple scoops, those
shown in Fig. <a href="#FIG_51">51</a> being very choice specimens in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">{141}</a></span>
National Museum of Wales, in Cardiff. The one on
the left hand of the picture is made of bone, and
is inlaid with a small brass name-plate; that on the
right-hand side is of ivory delicately turned, the
scoop being exceedingly thin; and those in the
centre are all home-made out of the metacarpal
bones of the sheep, being slightly ornamented with
cut X-shaped lines and hatchings. In the same
museum there are some remarkably interesting coffee
crushers and mortars and pestles, several of these
being illustrated in Fig. <a href="#FIG_50">50</a>. In Fig. <a href="#FIG_53">53</a> we show a
representative selection reminiscent of the days when
wooden spoons and wooden platters were in common
use. The trencher takes its name from <i>tranche</i>, the
old name of the platter which replaced the piece of
bread on which it was formerly customary to serve
up meat; like the bread, it was at first square. The
minor kitchen accessories formerly in constant use
included many objects of wood, such as the charming
little nutmeg mills of turned rosewood, some of which
are to be seen in the British Museum. There are
also antique pasteboards and rolling-pins for rolling
shortbread, pot stirrers of wood, and other utensils
such as sand glasses.</p>
<p>In Figs. <a href="#FIGS_47_48">47</a> and <a href="#FIGS_47_48">48</a> we illustrate two wooden food
boxes, such as were formerly used to carry food to
men working in the field. They are now deposited
with other curios in the Cardiff Museum, where
also may be seen some little wooden piggins, and
bowls used for porridge; the piggin was an ancient
vessel often mentioned in mediæval days (see
Fig. <a href="#FIG_52">52</a>).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">{142}</a></span></p>
<h3>Warming Pans.</h3>
<p>There are some household appointments which,
like some of the brass skimmers, platters, engraved
foot and hand warmers, chestnut roasters, and the
like, have always served the double purpose of use
and ornament. Among these are warming pans
which in modern days have been brought out of
their hiding-places, repolished, and hung up in conspicuous
places by the fireside. In the Victoria
and Albert Museum, as well as some of the provincial
museums, there are many very fine examples,
those having dates and names upon them being
especially valued. As an instance of an exceptional
specimen in the Victoria and Albert Museum we
may mention one on which there is an engraving of
reindeer, ducally gorged, the inscription upon this
pan reading: "<span class="smcap lowercase">THE EARL OF ESSEX. HIS ARMES.</span>
1630." Another elaborate warming pan is engraved
with figures of a cavalier and a lady, richly embellished
with peacocks and flowers. The pan is of
copper, but the handle is of wrought iron with brass
ornamental mounts. Some pans have wooden
handles, either walnut or oak, some of the more
modern being ebonized (see Fig. <a href="#FIG_40">40</a>).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">{143}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_52" id="FIG_52"></a>
<img src="images/fig_52.jpg" width="400" height="271" alt="FIG. 52.—WOODEN PIGGINS AND PORRIDGE BOWL." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 52.—WOODEN PIGGINS AND PORRIDGE BOWL.</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_53" id="FIG_53"></a>
<img src="images/fig_53.jpg" width="400" height="314" alt="FIG. 53.—WOODEN PLATTER, BOWL, AND SPOONS.
(In the National Museum of Wales.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 53.—WOODEN PLATTER, BOWL, AND SPOONS.
<br />
(<i>In the National Museum of Wales.</i>)</span>
</div>
<p>This brief review of kitchen utensils by no means
exhausts the varieties of old metal work and other
curios which may still be found in kitchens.
There appears to be no end to the minor varieties in
form and decoration. This is natural when we
remember that years ago kitchen utensils were not
made in quantities after the same pattern as they
are nowadays. They were the product of the local<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">{145}</a></span>
maker, the smith and the village woodworker
being frequently called upon to supply new kitchen
utensils, and it would appear that they did their best
to make their work successful in that the vessels
they fashioned were lasting, and during their use
contributed in no small degree towards the
ornamentation of the home.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">{147}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">VI<br />
<br />
HOME<br />
ORNAMENTS</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">{149}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI<br />
<br />
HOME ORNAMENTS</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Mantelpiece ornaments—Vases—Derbyshire spars—Jade or spleen
stone—Wood carvings—Old gilt.</p></div>
<p>We are apt to wonder sometimes what it is that
makes the house homelike, and why there are such
strong attachments to the old home. Surely it is the
familiar aspect of the furnishings, rather than the
bricks and mortar, that makes the old home so dear!
To the original owners there was an individuality
about every piece, although to the collector the same
characteristics of well-known objects tell that in days
gone by the cabinet-maker followed stereotyped lines,
and there were but few who moved out of the
regular ruts and made distinctive designs in home
ornaments and sundry furnishings. It is noteworthy,
however, that however much alike in furniture no two
houses were alike in their ornamental surroundings.
The pictures and portraits on the walls have peculiarities
recognized and understood by those who
have dwelt for many years among them. Familiar
table appointments, however humble, have a homelike
look, and there are odd bits of old china in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">{150}</a></span>
cabinet and silver or pewter on the sideboard which
distinguish one house from another; and it has ever
been so. Chimney ornaments, which may be quite
commonplace, have well-known characteristics which
cannot be duplicated. It is undoubtedly among the
home ornaments that the tenderest thoughts linger,
and it is the trinkets of comparatively little value to
an outsider that members of the family store when
the old home is broken up. There are such ornaments
in every household; and whenever there is a
sale there are those who gladly buy them because of
their associations with those by whom they were
owned and valued. The collector rarely gathers
them on sentimental grounds, securing them as
curious specimens or characteristic styles wanting in
his collection. Some specialize on old china cups
and saucers; others on rare porcelain figures; some
on the beautiful gilt and ormolu knick-knacks which
looked so well on the early Victorian drawing-room
table, and others prefer odds and ends, some of
which are mentioned in the following paragraphs.
It is, perhaps, from the old ornaments of the home
that we learn most about the true home-life lived in
former years. Wood carvers, silversmiths, leather
workers, glass blowers and potters fashioned their
ornamental things after the living models they saw
about them, in the days in which they worked. Thus
in the groups of Staffordshire figures, now much
sought after, we learn something of the story of
life in the Potteries in the closing years of the
nineteenth century. The story is recorded in the
earthenware "landlord and landlady," "lovers arm
in arm," and rustic cottages with which collectors
are familiar.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">{151}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_54" id="FIG_54"></a>
<img src="images/fig_54.jpg" width="400" height="587" alt="FIG. 54.—BRASS CHIMNEY ORNAMENT (ONE OF A PAIR)." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 54.—BRASS CHIMNEY ORNAMENT (ONE OF A PAIR).</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">{153}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a></span>
</div>
<h3>Mantelpiece Ornaments.</h3>
<p>There are many quaint brass chimney ornaments
which were popular in many parts of England
fifty to sixty years ago much sought after nowadays.
They were of polished brass, usually in pairs,
and when several were arranged on a mantelpiece
they presented a bright array. The one illustrated
in Fig. <a href="#FIG_54">54</a> is of the type much favoured in country
districts. It represents a shepherd with his crook,
the companion brass being a shepherdess. On the
sea-coast fishermen were much fancied, and in
mining districts the miner with his pick and other
industrial models were extensively sold. These
were varied with birds and animals and miniature
replicas of household furniture. The older ones are
not very common, and therefore have been much
copied, for of these goods there are many modern
replicas.</p>
<h3>Vases.</h3>
<p>Ornamental vases have varied much in form,
until a collection seems to cover every style of art.
Thus Egyptian and Roman influence is seen in
some; others of French origin, dating before the
Empire period, are a combination of French art
with Egyptian ornament, brought out during the
Directoire, when after the Battle of the Pyramids
French artists introduced the sphinx and other
Egyptian ornaments into their art designs. During<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">{154}</a></span>
the Empire period, the style that is said to consist
of a blending of Roman, Greek, and Egyptian prevailed.
Many of the continental countries have
been noted for glass ornaments—especially vases.
The beautiful Venetian glass is rich in colour, and
the vases are varied and graceful in form, especially
those of ewer-like shape. Bohemia has always been
a noted centre of the glass industry. Then in our
own country some beautiful vases have been produced.</p>
<p>There are other materials which are met with in
curiously shaped vases. At one time the beautiful
Derbyshire spars were much used. There are
biscuit china and Parian vases, and many exquisite
vases of silver and other metals. Much might be
written of the Oriental vases and enamels, especially
of the artistic treasures of Old Japan and China,
from whence so much of our early vases and beautiful
porcelain came. Of the products of Chelsea
and Bow, of Coalbrookdale and Derby, and of
Bristol and Nantgrw, writers and collectors of rare
ceramics have had much to record of the many-shaped
vases with which the homes of the middle
classes were made beautiful in the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries. These are preserved with
care, but many of the vases produced by the pioneers
of the potting industry in this country serve their
original purpose still, and glass and china and rare
Wedgwood jasper ware ornament the home of the
twentieth-century reader of the "Chats" series, as
they did the "withdrawing" rooms of their original
owners in the eighteenth century.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">{155}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_55" id="FIG_55"></a>
<img src="images/fig_55.jpg" width="400" height="416" alt="FIG. 55.—BLACK AND GOLD DERBYSHIRE MARBLE VASE.
(In the Author's collection.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 55.—BLACK AND GOLD DERBYSHIRE MARBLE VASE.
<br />
(<i>In the Author's collection.</i>)</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">{157}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a></span></p>
<h3>Derbyshire Spars.</h3>
<p>The Derbyshire spars and inlaid marbles just referred
to were very popular, some exceedingly ornamental
and decorative pieces being produced. Others
were stiff and formal, and can scarcely be regarded
as beautiful. The variety of marbles quarried in
Derbyshire gave the artist ample opportunity of
displaying taste in colour. The most beautiful are
those made of fluor-spar, the celebrated Blue John
Mine providing the most beautiful specimens. The
purple shades present delightful tints, and some of
the old workers in Derbyshire mosaics were exceptionally
fortunate in their schemes of arrangement of the
tiny pieces they inlaid so carefully. The marble
workers in this country have never been able to
produce those beautiful effects for which the Florentine
school of artists was famous, although it has
been claimed by some that the artists of the Peak
produced in their larger works some equally as
effective. Among old household ornaments small
Roman mosaics, so called, are often met with. At
one time the Florentine artists used gems and real
stones, whereas the Romans chiefly employed glass.
Many will be familiar with the Vatican pigeons and
the fountain so frequently copied. It is said that the
Derbyshire workers in mosaic excelled themselves in
the production of a beautifully inlaid vase covered
with flowers, foliage, and birds, prepared for the late
Queen Victoria, in 1842. Half a century ago fancy
shops were filled with the products of the Derbyshire
mines, but most of the best pieces are now among
household curios. The wide-topped vase shown in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">{158}</a></span>
Fig. <a href="#FIG_55">55</a> is made from Derbyshire black and gold
marble, and was produced in Matlock about sixty
years ago. It may be interesting to collectors to
mention that although the Romans are believed to
have worked the Blue John mines, it was not until
1770 that the lovely purple spar was rediscovered in
the Hope Valley, a workman passing through the
Winnats being attracted by the pieces of spar he
saw lying about, eventually bringing them under the
notice of the owner of a Rotherham marble works.
Besides the smaller objects there are the larger
tables, worked in the same materials, some of which
are sometimes met with second-hand for quite
trifling sums.</p>
<h3>Jade or Spleen Stone.</h3>
<p>Among the rarer curios of the home are those
wonderful ornaments cut and carved out of jade, a
beautiful stone which has been so highly prized by
the Chinese. Its special value lies in the exquisite
tints of the different hues. These marvellously varied
stones were formerly quarried from the Kuen-Kask
Valley, where jade or yu-stone runs in different-coloured
veins through the rocks. It is said that
jade in the form of spleen stone first came to Europe
from America. It is found extensively in Mexico,
and also in Burma, but the chief interest centres in
the grotesque and cleverly carved Chinese curios.
The beauty and value of these pieces lies not so
much in their forms as in their marvellous tints and
the clever way in which the Chinese workmen, in
fashioning grotesque forms, have cut away practically<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">{159}</a></span>
all the colour of certain intruding shades, leaving the
figures in some brilliant hue of green, red, or pink,
standing out upon a base of some other shade. The
curiously smoked mutton-fat colour is one of the
rarest, but to the amateur the more transparent and
brilliant tints possess the greatest beauty.</p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_56" id="FIG_56"></a>
<img src="images/fig_56.jpg" width="400" height="602" alt="FIG. 56.—TEMPLE GUARDIAN, CARVED FROM THE GNARLED ROOT OF A TREE.
(In the Author's collection.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 56.—TEMPLE GUARDIAN, CARVED FROM THE GNARLED ROOT OF A TREE.
<br />
(<i>In the Author's collection.</i>)</span>
</div>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">{161}</a></span>True jade, or nephrite, is a native silicate of calcium
and magnesium, and does not exhibit either crystalline
form or distinct cleavage. In addition to the
"mutton-fat" shade spoken so highly of there are
lovely shades in green, emerald, moss, tea and sea
green, violet and yellow, and white and camphor; but
the rarest of all combinations is violet, mutton-fat,
and emerald green.</p>
<h3>Wood Carvings.</h3>
<p>Many of the more decorative household ornaments
are made of wood. To cut down a tree or to whittle
a stick has been the favourite occupation of men of
all ages, and the possession of a pocket-knife the
ambition of the schoolboy from time immemorial.
Something to cut keeps him out of mischief and calls
forth any ingenuity he may have. Some of the most
wonderful curios have been cut by hand, fashioned
with skill. Some are remarkably realistic in their
forms, faithful copies of living originals, or of objects
of still greater antiquity with which the wood carver
has been familiar. Carvers have sometimes allowed
themselves to run wild in their imaginations as they
have cut and shaped a block of wood, giving it the
most fantastic form, picturing myths and fables in a
wonderfully realistic way. There seems to be no end<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">{162}</a></span>
to the variety of wooden ornament. The carver has
found a place in architectural design, too, many old
houses being enriched with his handiwork. In the
days when walls were panelled with oak, the carver
and the wood worker delighted in cutting deep and
intricate mouldings and in giving that delightful linen
fold to the panels which would otherwise have been
plain. That was the ambition of the household
decorator of Elizabethan days. Tudor beams were
cut and carved and quaint mottoes engraved upon
them. The old oak settles—sometimes portable, at
others fixtures—were carved all over, and the fronts
of oak chests were often made into pictures of wood.
They told the tale of the family tree by the coats of
arms and the shields emblazoned by the cutter of
wood, sometimes being enriched with colour; at
others the picture forms were created by inlaying
and superadding fretwork. There were intricate
carvings of the Sheraton and Chippendale periods,
and there were the wonderful floral sprays, cherubs,
and other ornaments so cunningly wrought by Grinling
Gibbons and his followers. Wooden ornament
in those days took the form of over-doors, and wreaths
running down the lintels; and massive mantelpieces
of oak were carved deeply. There were vases of
wood full of flowers cut from the same material
standing on wooden pedestals. The floral sprays, it
is said, were in some cases so delicately cut that they
shook like natural flowers when any one crossed a
room or a post-chaise rumbled along the street.
Some remarkable picture frames were cut and carved
by amateurs, corresponding well with the handiwork
of the needlewoman they enshrined. The cutting
and carving of banner screens was a work of art, and
many times a labour of love.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">{163}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_57" id="FIG_57"></a>
<img src="images/fig_57.jpg" width="400" height="597" alt="FIG. 57.—CARVED PLAQUE STAND." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 57.—CARVED PLAQUE STAND.</span>
<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">{165}</a></span>
</div>
<p>There are quaint relics of other countries in wood
carving among the curios of the home. Some remarkable
pieces of carved cherry-trees have been brought
over from Japan, the black trunk or root of the tree
being turned into a grinning demon, similar to the
one illustrated in Fig. <a href="#FIG_56">56</a>, which resembles the "temple
guardian." Others have been fashioned like ancient
idols or apes, many being an intermixture of different-coloured
woods, varying from almost red-brown to
black, throwing up the carving in relief. The Oriental
was a clever wood carver, and with his primitive tools
he cut and fashioned a piece of wood according to
his own sweet will, evolving from it intricate works
of art in wood. Perhaps the most remarkable examples
of the wood-worker's skill are those tiny
miniatures of which there is such a splendid collection
in the British Museum, notably the almost microscopic
reliquaries. The Japanese and Chinese have shown
remarkable skill in carvings, and especially in the way
they have set off china plates and bowls intended as
ornamental objects; a truly magnificent example of
such work is shown in Fig. <a href="#FIG_57">57</a>.</p>
<h3>Old Gilt.</h3>
<p>The highly decorative work known as old gilt, very
fashionable in the early Victorian drawing-room, has
quite recently been hunted up, and many pieces have
been restored to positions of honour. The gilt, so-called,
was in reality eighteen-carat gold overlaid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">{166}</a></span>
upon soft brass by a process not now practised.
Delightfully decorative trinket stands, card trays, and
little baskets were made in this way; and as they
were afterwards coated over with a transparent
varnish, they have preserved their colour; indeed,
when found black with age, after carefully washing
in soap and water, they frequently come out bright
and untarnished. Then if brushed over with white
of egg or some transparent white varnish they will
keep their colour for many years to come. These
decorative ornaments, often perforated as well as
embossed, were frequently enriched with imitation
jewels. Those shown in Fig. <a href="#FIG_61">61</a> are typical of the
style of ornament referred to. Sometimes scent
satchets and jewelled caskets are found fitted with
quaint reels for sewing silk and curious needle
holders. The more elaborate pieces are often ornamented
with floral sprays made of porcelain; some
of the baskets filled with coral and seaweed have
curiously made little birds and butterflies, many of
them being genuine Chelsea. Others are the framework
for holding Bow figures or painted plaques.
This Victorian gilt is at present not over-scarce, and
as it is not as yet much in demand collectors have
an exceptional opportunity of securing interesting
specimens at moderate cost.</p>
<h3>Old Ivories.</h3>
<p>Much might be written about old ivories. Ivory
has been a much-valued material for ornamental
decoration from quite early times. In almost every
home there are curios and pieces of furniture in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">{167}</a></span>
ivory has either been overlaid or inserted as panels.
At one time it was much used for overlays, and in
very thin plates made up into all kinds of decorative
models.</p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIGS_58_59_60" id="FIGS_58_59_60"></a>
<img src="images/fig_58-60.jpg" width="400" height="173" alt="FIGS. 58, 59.—MINIATURE COPPER AND SILVER KETTLES.
FIG. 60.—MINIATURE IVORY COFFEE BOILER." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIGS. 58, 59.—MINIATURE COPPER AND SILVER KETTLES.
<br />
FIG. 60.—MINIATURE IVORY COFFEE BOILER.</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_61" id="FIG_61"></a>
<img src="images/fig_61.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="FIG. 61.—TWO OLD-GILT JEWELLED ORNAMENTS." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 61.—TWO OLD-GILT JEWELLED ORNAMENTS.</span>
</div>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">{169}</a></span>There are carved tusks from Africa and India, and
quaint native curios made of ivory cunningly wrought.
It is from the East that we receive so many beautiful
curios, and especially so from India, China, and Japan.
The three remarkably handsome ivories illustrated
in Fig. <a href="#FIG_62">62</a> will serve to illustrate the beautiful and
oftentimes costly curios found in so many homes.</p>
<h3>Miniature Antiques.</h3>
<p>Some of the most pleasing little antiques are silver
models of children's toys. The original models made
contemporary with the furniture or household gods
they purport to represent were frequently the gifts of
godparents, and many are most elaborate in their
designs, every detail found in the larger originals
being faithfully reproduced. Some of these little
silver toys, with which probably children were seldom
allowed to play, represented common objects outside
the home, such as the dovecote in the garden, the
travelling coach with its prancing steeds, the pack-horse
ascending the slope towards a bridge over a
stream, in some instances objects of husbandry and
agriculture, being given to children familiar with the
country.</p>
<p>Another favourite type of model curio is found in
the remarkably tiny objects workmen sometimes
prided themselves upon making—such curios, for
instance, as the silver and copper kettles and coffee<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">{170}</a></span>
pot shown in Figs. <a href="#FIGS_58_59_60">58</a>, <a href="#FIGS_58_59_60">59</a>, and <a href="#FIGS_58_59_60">60</a>. The larger specimen
(drawn larger than the original) was made from
a copper farthing, the smaller kettles being hammered
out of threepenny-pieces; the coffee pot is of ivory—a
charming model.</p>
<p>There are a few sundries which should not be
overlooked when collecting curious things reminiscent
of home-life as it once was. Among these are
the glass pictures once so much prized by well-to-do
folk, now valued only by the collector of such things.
These were really "prints from prints." The method
of their preparation was most inartistic, although it
was effectual. A piece of glass was coated with
varnish, the print was then placed upon the varnish,
and when dry and quite hard the paper was washed
off, leaving a "print" upon the prepared surface,
which was then painted over at the back, the picture
thus being made complete.</p>
<p>Much store was formerly set by the little plaques
and medallions which, with silhouettes, hung upon the
walls. Among the gems of such ornaments were the
exquisite tablets and cameos made by Josiah Wedgwood,
whose beautiful vases and miniature bottles, as
well as tea-sets in the same wares, were so much
admired.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">{171}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_62" id="FIG_62"></a>
<img src="images/fig_62.jpg" width="400" height="311" alt="FIG. 62.—THREE FINE OLD IVORIES." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 62.—THREE FINE OLD IVORIES.</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">{173}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">VII<br />
<br />
GLASS<br />
AND<br />
ENAMELS</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">{175}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII<br />
<br />
GLASS AND ENAMELS</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Waterford, Bristol, and Nailsea—Ornaments of glass—Enamels on
metal.</p></div>
<p>Glass is used in every home. It is seen in its ornamental
forms, and is necessary in almost every
department. In kitchen and pantry there are dishes
and tumblers and wine glasses and decanters ready
for use. Among these there are often found old
glasses—that is, glass vessels which from their rarity
or age have attained a curio value; indeed, many
housewives are unaware that their kitchen cupboard
contains what would be valued as interesting specimens
gladly purchased by collectors of glass. Many
of the old tumblers are beautifully engraved, often
having floral ornament and dainty rustic scenes.
They are now and then commemorative of events
which the glass maker has recorded with his graving
tool, and sometimes they have been prepared to catch
the passing fancy. The styles of table glass have
changed, and their shapes and sizes have altered
according to the popular custom of imbibing certain
liquors.</p>
<p>When punch ceased to be the customary drink,
and lesser quantities of ale were consumed, punch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">{176}</a></span>
bowls and tankards were less in request. Their
places were taken by wine glasses of more delicate
forms, and charming tallboys and crinkled vessels of
glass took the place of the older mugs and pewter
cups. The glasses used in proffering and drinking
toasts have changed much during the last century,
and the "fiat" glasses of the Jacobite period, and
those curious glasses with portraits of the Old
Pretender and the Young Pretender upon them, are
curios only, for they are no longer needed, neither
is the toast of "The King" drunk "over the water."
Spirit glasses and decanters have altered in form, but
among those which have survived and are still sound
are some rare examples of cutting, made in the days
when the glass cutter worked with primitive tools,
and such methods as the sand blast, chemical etching,
and some of the newer processes were unknown.</p>
<h3>Waterford, Bristol, and Nailsea.</h3>
<p>Among table sundries are glass salts and cruets;
the latter, however, have been modernized and
reduced in size, and the bottles and curiously shaped
oil and vinegar cruets of a hundred or more years
ago look quaint when compared with those of the
present day. Even the flower vases which formerly
adorned the table, and the more decorative dishes
used for fancy sweetmeats and confections, have
changed, leaving in the process many of the older
pieces, relegated to the store-cupboard, where disused
glass so often remains until in due time it is rescued
from oblivion by the collector of household curios.
Among the eighteenth-century cut glass jugs and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">{177}</a></span>
trifle bowls are many beautiful vessels, for the making
of which certain districts from time to time became
famous. The old Waterford glass is especially noteworthy,
and as a speculation, apart from the interest
it possesses for collectors, is worth securing. Bristol
glass to the uninitiated appears to be a misnomer, in
that the beautiful white milk-like surface upon which
so many exquisite floral designs have been painted
looks more like egg-shell porcelain, but when held up
to the light is found to be of glass-like nature, pellucid
although semi-opaque.</p>
<p>Nailsea glass has many peculiar characteristics
about it, notably the curiously introduced waved and
twisted lines in colours. Many objects which were
essentially curios, their utilitarian purposes having
always been secondary, were made at Nailsea.
There are gigantic models of tobacco pipes, formerly
hung up against the walls as ornaments. As fitting
companions to the pipes were walking-sticks of glass,
some very remarkable designs which might at one
time have been carried by the gallants of that day.
They were often filled with sweetmeats and comfits,
ornamented with bows of ribbon, and presented to
ladies of their choice by devoted swains. A few of
those curious sticks or shepherd's crooks, as they were
called, are to be seen in most representative museum
collections. The so-called rolling-pins of glass, made
at Sunderland as well as at Nailsea and Bristol, were
known as sailors' love tokens, and are referred to
more fully in Chapter <a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII</a>. In the Taunton Castle
Museum there are some interesting specimens of old
glass, notably one of the very rare dark bottle-glass<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">{178}</a></span>
linen smoothers which came from South Petherton.
Such smoothers were at one time favoured in the
kitchen laundry in the days when servant-maids
excelled in getting up linen, and prided themselves
on the beautiful gloss they were able to impart—in
the days before public laundries with their modern
glossing machines were instituted.</p>
<p>Some of our readers may have seen the curious
glass tubes, one yard in length, into which ale was
poured in the days when it was considered a desirable
attainment to be able to drink at one draught a
"yard of ale."</p>
<p>Of the larger vessels such as wine bottles, the chief
collectable feature about them is the old glass-bottle-makers'
stamps, very frequently found on fragments
of bottles, such stamps often turning up among the
oddments of kitchen drawers which have probably
been undisturbed for many years. To collect bottle
stamps is certainly an uncommon hobby, but one
that is not altogether devoid of interest.</p>
<h3>Ornaments of Glass.</h3>
<p>Of household ornaments in glass there appears to
be no end. There are the glass Venetian vases and
ewers, beautiful and graceful in form, richly ornamented
in gold; and there are the old English and
French vases, the colouring of which is not always in
accord with modern taste. Cut glass, in whatever
form it is met with, is appreciated, in that the workmanship
involving so much studious labour is recognized.
Continental glass has at all periods been
imported into this country, and especially so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">{179}</a></span>
Bohemian glass, of which there are decanters of ruby,
claret, blue, and other rich colours; some remarkable
effects have been produced upon red glass by adding
tinted colours and white decoration interspersed with
gold. Glass lustres have acquired an antiquarian
value, and chandeliers and mantelpiece lustre candlesticks
are sought after by the collector, who sometimes
finds interspersed with cut glass lustre pretty
coloured china droppers.</p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_63" id="FIG_63"></a>
<img src="images/fig_63.jpg" width="400" height="646" alt="FIG. 63.—BATTERSEA ENAMELS." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 63.—BATTERSEA ENAMELS.</span>
<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">{181}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a></span>
</div>
<h3>Pictorial Art in Glass.</h3>
<p>Stained-glass windows are associated with ecclesiastical
edifices. Old English houses, however, not
infrequently contain armorial panels, coats of arms in
leaden frames, and curious little pictures in colours
which can be hung against modern windows where
the light will throw up the rich colouring of the old-time
painters. Little patches of colour, too, were
often introduced in otherwise plain diamond-shaped
lattice panes.</p>
<p>There are glass pictures, so-called, oftentimes consisting
of coloured prints pasted on one side of the
glass, a softened effect being produced by the glass
through which they were seen; but they must be
distinguished from the more costly paintings <i>on</i> glass
sometimes met with.</p>
<p>In many an old house the glass shade with its
contents so inartistic, although removed from its
place of honour on the parlour table, found a niche
where it is preserved. Under such shades were preserved
wool-work baskets filled with artificial flowers,
among which were often small porcelain figures,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">{182}</a></span>
butterflies and birds. Sometimes a Parian vase has
been filled with wax flowers, the making of which
was a favourite pastime half a century ago. The
dried plant called "honesty" was frequently covered
with a glass shade. Glass ships were exceedingly
popular in seaport towns, and little miniature replicas
of household furniture in glass are met with; indeed,
there seems to have been no limit to the fancies and
freaks of the glass blower, who has at different periods
provided the present-day collector with curious, if
very breakable, curios.</p>
<h3>Enamels on Metal.</h3>
<p>The art of enamelling on metal has been practised
from very early times. In its earlier forms it was
chiefly an art applied to jewellery and the ornamentation
of ecclesiastical metal work. In time, however,
it was applied as a convenient method of decorating
utilitarian household articles such as fire-dogs and
candlesticks. Those who frequent the more important
museums often associate enamels with the
costly and rare enamels of Limoges, and the choice
bits of Italian enamels seen in the cases of metals
where the most valuable curios are gathered together.
Such vessels as those marvellous effects produced by
the enamellers of Limoges are indeed rarely found
among household curios; it is well, however, to note
that the processes by which those effects were produced
changed as time went on. The earlier translucent
enamel of the Italian artists was laid over an
incised metal ground, the design previously prepared
showing through. In the later Limoges enamels the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">{183}</a></span>
surface with which the copper base was overlaid was
painted, very much in the same way as the miniature
painters on enamels operated in after-years.</p>
<p>The process of covering metal with enamels made
of a species of glass is very ancient, but the basis
of all enamels is the application of fusible colourless
silicate or glass in pattern or design, mixed with
metallic oxides, the prepared surface being afterwards
fired until the enamel adheres firmly to the copper or
other metal. The processes varied, but the firing or
fusing was the same throughout. The name "enamel"
is traceable to the French word <i>enail</i> and the Italian
<i>smalto</i>, both having the same root as the Anglo-Saxon
word "smelt." The enamels of China and
Japan so extensively imported into this country of
late years are chiefly made by filling cloisons or cells
formed of fine metal wires or plates with coloured
enamels and then firing them. As the collector
advances in his appreciation of the old craftsmen, he
soon recognizes the difference between the antiques
sent over by Oriental merchants and the modern
works made on present-day commercial lines, and
not the work of men whose time was deemed of small
account if they acquired notoriety for the beauty of
their work.</p>
<p>The household enamels of English make consist
chiefly of those beautiful little boxes, trinkets, and
domestic objects made at Battersea and Bilston in the
eighteenth century. The enamels used for the ground
were tinted rose, blue, and other shades, and ornamented
with painted pictures and mottoes. A very fine
group of Battersea patch boxes is shown in Fig. <a href="#FIG_63">63</a>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">{185}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">VIII<br />
<br />
LEATHER<br />
AND<br />
HORN</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">{187}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br />
<br />
LEATHER AND HORN</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Spanish leather—"Cuir boulli" work—Tapestry and upholstery—Leather
bottles and drinking vessels—Leather curios—Shoes—Horn
work.</p></div>
<p>That "there is nothing like leather" has been
believed by people of all ages, and in many countries
the general belief has been put into practice, for many
indeed are the uses to which leather has been put.
As a lasting material it has been proved to possess
excellent qualities. The artist, too, has found that
leather is capable of being treated so as to give the
effect of delicate carvings, and to serve well many
purposes of decoration.</p>
<p>In the East leather was used in patriarchal times,
the skins of animals making excellent water bottles.
In mediæval England leather black jacks, cups, and
flagons withstood the rough usage of those roisterous
times. The collector seeks both useful and ornamental,
and finds much to delight among the old
leathern objects hid away as being now quite useless
or antiquated.</p>
<h3>Spanish Leather.</h3>
<p>As early as the fifteenth century Cordova, in Spain,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">{188}</a></span>
was celebrated for its workers in leather, and for the
fine ornamental leather vessels produced there. Some
of the designs favoured by Spanish craftsmen were
gruesome in the extreme. Indeed, many were
fashioned for the purpose of creating fear in the
use of the vessels so ornamented.</p>
<p>A few years ago a remarkably fine collection of
old Spanish leather work was exhibited in London.
There were some hideous and grotesque figures,
which it was said had been designed for the mental
torture of the victims of the Inquisition. Some of
the larger specimens were remarkably well executed,
especially so some of the wine bottles which imitated
very realistically the pose of men and women. Some
of the female figures were represented wearing flowing
gowns and costumes of the height of fashion—tall
and noble women. By way of contrast there
were little manikin wine jugs of the most grotesque
forms.</p>
<p>The Spaniards made leather upholsteries of
remarkable designs; they also ornamented boxes,
trunks, and cases for knives and costly trinkets.</p>
<h3>"Cuir boulli" Work.</h3>
<p>Most of the decorated leather work of that period,
examples of which are not very difficult to secure, was
made by the <i>cuir boulli</i> process. The leather, after
being boiled down to a pulp and salt and alum added,
was then moulded to any desired form, the decoration
being imparted in the process.</p>
<p>The Victoria and Albert Museum is very rich in
fine examples, and a description of some of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">{189}</a></span>
typical pieces there may serve as a guide to collectors
hopeful of including some objects moulded by
this process among their household relics.</p>
<p>The work was carried on at Cordova and other
places for a long period, some of the museum examples
dating back to the fifteenth century. There
are cases for holding what were then rare books and
manuscripts, and a remarkable scribe's case with a
red cover has loops on either side to which a cord was
attached. The scribe was an important personage
in commercial and private correspondence in the
days when even rudimentary education was by no
means general.</p>
<p>In the same collection is a leather box for holding
a knife and fork; on the outer case is a medallion, in
the centre of which is a representation of the two
spies returning from Canaan with a large bunch of
grapes. There are also cases which have once held
wine bottles, some ornamented in colours; indeed,
the stamped, cut, and embossed designs of the <i>cuir
boulli</i> work were frequently enriched by the addition
of red, yellow, and gold.</p>
<p>There are some specially interesting examples of
Italian work, representing a period covering nearly
the whole of the Renaissance. In this connection
there are pilgrim bottles of yellow glass encased in
wonderful leather covers, cut and embossed. There
are leather snuff boxes with trellis-work ornament
and scroll borders, one very interesting piece being
varnished to imitate tortoiseshell. There are also
some attractive toilet objects, evidently antique presentation
pieces. One is a most elaborately cut and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">{190}</a></span>
incised comb case, on the exterior of which is the
motto or legend: "<span class="smcap lowercase">DE BOEN AMORE</span>." In the same
collection there is a fine leather case for a cup or
tankard. Such cup cases are not uncommon, many
being the receptacles for treasured heirlooms. Perhaps
one of the most noted examples of the use of
embossed and decorative leather work is the ancient
case of stamped leather intricately foliated, a highly
decorative work of art in which is enclosed that remarkable
goblet of legendary fame known as "The
Luck of Eden Hall."</p>
<h3>Tapestry and Upholstery.</h3>
<p>Stamped and embossed leather work is very conspicuous
in domestic upholstery. In very early
times the leather work, hung upon the wall in panels,
took the place of more modern wall-coverings, and it
was truly lasting. Much of the Cordovan leather is
still very fresh in appearance, although several centuries
old. Some of the panels hanging on the walls
at South Kensington look remarkably fresh, and,
richly decorated in colours, many of them are very
effective. A special branch of this work was that
devoted to the decoration of chair backs; stamped
leather work for upholstery has been used in this
country to a large extent, and some of the large oak
chairs are still upholstered in the original ornamental
leather produced by boiling the hides by a special
process, so that the material could be readily moulded.
In more modern times, however, the decoration is
effected by embossing and stamping, supplementing
such ornament by the use of an immense quantity of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">{191}</a></span>
small brass nails, which are arranged in geometrical
patterns or straight lines, oftentimes names and dates
being included in the design.</p>
<p>In this connection also are screens of painted and
gilt leather, chiefly of eighteenth-century manufacture.
There is a good deal of this leather work to be found
in old houses still, and much of it is capable of improvement
by properly cleaning and touching up here
and there so as to revive the old colours. Here and
there hung up as wall decorations may be seen leather-covered
boxes which were specially made to hold
deeds; in the older examples there is a large circular
piece below the narrow box, arranged so that the seal
could hang in its proper position from the end of the
deed; they were, of course, in common use before
the days of safes and other methods of preserving
parchments and property deeds. One in the
Victoria and Albert Museum is stamped on the
exterior with the description of the deed it
originally contained, the inscription commencing
thus: "<span class="smcap lowercase">THE GRAUNT OF HEN: THE 5 TO THE
ABBOT OF RADING</span>."</p>
<h3>Chests and Coffers.</h3>
<p>Before modern travelling requisites were known
and in the days when journeys were few, the leather-covered
coffer contained the whole travelling outfit of
perhaps some noble lord and his household. There
were also large coffers covered with leather used as
permanent receptacles of clothing, covered with ornamental
embossed leather work, some very decorative.
There were smaller coffers, too; possibly they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">{192}</a></span>
jewel caskets in their day. There are others which
may have been presentation cases, for their decoration
is especially elaborate. In making these continental
craftsmen seem to have excelled. In the Victoria
and Albert Museum there is a curious German casket
of wood covered with leather, strongly bound with
iron, having three immense hasps from which locks
once hung, altogether too massive for the little casket.
One would think such precautions were of not much
avail against theft, for the box itself could be removed
readily! There is another charming little casket, with
a circular or dome-shaped top, decorated and banded,
a veritable prototype of the tin trunks generally in use
a quarter of a century ago. There is also a remarkable
piece, a wood box covered over with leather
embossed by the <i>cuir boulli</i> process. The chief design
takes the form of two armed horsemen, surrounded
by grotesque ornament on the top, on the sides
being hunting scenes, episodes of the chase. This
curious example of the work of seventeenth-century
artists in leather measures 16½ in. in length by
12½ in. in width. Another typical piece, of a highly
decorative allegorical character, is a rectangular coffret
with arched lid, the ornament being in colours and
gilt. On the front is a knight and a lady, on the lid
two paladins mounted on griffins, two savages with
clubs and shields, and two images of the sun, these
typifying the story of the delivery of a captured lady
by a knight.</p>
<h3>Leather Bottles and Drinking Vessels.</h3>
<p>Several interesting specialistic collections of leather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">{193}</a></span>
bottles and drinking vessels have been got together,
showing the varied forms of the almost imperishable
vessels, so suitable as liquor carriers and drinking
cups in olden time. In the Guildhall Museum are
several different types of bottles, black jacks, and
silver-rimmed cups. Until comparatively recent
times many old inns were famous for their leather
drinking cups, but as the coaching days came to an
end such vessels were gradually dispersed. Now that
motor-cars have popularized the road once more, and
old inns are again frequented, the collector seeks in
vain for what were once quite common. In another
noted collection there is a drinking cup or bottle
moulded like a negro's head, and there are what are
called pilgrim bottles, some of which are of ornamental
type. The so-called pots have sometimes
lids and loosely fitting covers; the black jacks, however,
are chiefly open, ill-shaped vessels. Some of
the black jacks were very large, one in the Taunton
Museum measuring 19 in. in height. It was
originally used in the servants' hall at Montacute
House, which is one of the finest old buildings in
Somerset. This famous jack was in olden time filled
with beer every morning and placed on the servants'
breakfast table. Those smaller cups with silver
mounts and shields, on which are often engraved
crests or initials of their former owners, are of the
rarer type, but they are not infrequently found among
the relics of an old family. There is a fine collection
in the Hull Museum, and in other places where they
are found in excellent condition, proving the truth of
the rhyme published in <i>Westminster Drollery</i> in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">{194}</a></span>
seventeenth century in praise of the black jack, which
runs as follows:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"No tankard, flagon, bottle, or jug<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Are half so good, or so well can hold tug;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">For when they are broken or full of cracks,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Then must they fly to the brave black jacks."<br /></span>
</div></div>
<h3>Leather Curios.</h3>
<p>Some very fine pieces of leather work have been
modelled as curios and ornaments. Some of the
most notable are models of old warships and fully
rigged galleons made of leather. Leather pictures
were made some years ago; a little later leather
modelling of baskets of flowers, and the making of
picture frames of leather was a popular amusement,
some of the ornamental brackets made of leather
being specially effective. The surrounds of picture
frames made of leather cut to shape, carved and
modelled, had a very similar effect to the beautiful
carved wood work of an earlier period. Some of the
powder flasks of leather which were used a century
or two ago are valued curios, as well as the leather
cases stamped and embossed so decorative and appropriate
to the pistols and knives they were made to
contain. Of the finer objects there are small curios
like leather snuff boxes and trinket cases.</p>
<p>Of the more utilitarian leather work there is the
wearing apparel of former days, the leather clothing
of Cromwellian times and the leather boots. In the
Victoria and Albert Museum there is a remarkably
interesting case of leather shoes showing the evolution
in style and appearance. There are some very pointed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">{195}</a></span>
shoes worn in the fourteenth century, a slightly different
shape in the fifteenth, both contrasting with
the change in fashion which had come about in the
sixteenth century, when the boots were square and
some of the shoes very rounded. The Wellington
boots of a later period are not yet much valued;
there may come a time, however, when they will be
regarded as museum curios. Leather gloves date
back many centuries, and some of the old specimens
with gauntlets and decorative cuffs are interesting
antiques, as well as leather wallets, purses, and
girdles.</p>
<h3>Shoes.</h3>
<p>Among sundry Eastern curios quaintly shaped and
sometimes beautifully embroidered shoes are met
with, such as those which have been brought over to
this country from China and Eastern lands. Most of
the shoes worn in the East are slipped off easily, and,
like Persian and Turkish slippers, are made of red
leather beautifully embroidered, silk, satin, and velvet
being overlaid and embroidered with silver and
sequins. The old practice of compressing the feet of
young girls in China is dying out, but some of the
curious little shoes which gave such pain to their
wearers are seen as museum curios on account of
their curious decoration. Indian shoes are met with
at times, especially those embroidered with silver
thread, and with green and other coloured silks. A
curious ceremony is associated with the marriage of
a Turkish bride, who wears a pair of clogs carved all
over, sometimes with symbolical significance, on her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">{196}</a></span>
way to her prescribed ceremonial visit to the bath.
At one time it was customary for a Jewish bridegroom
to present his bride with a shoe at the conclusion
of the wedding ceremony, this custom being
not far removed from that of throwing an old shoe
after a newly married couple for luck.</p>
<h3>Horn Work.</h3>
<p>Art in horn work was practised more a century ago
than it is to-day, the material being then a favourite
one for drinking cups and a variety of ornamental
work. Old snuff boxes were frequently made of horn
impressed or stamped with beautiful designs, such as
hunting scenes and mythological figures. Horn can
either be cut, moulded, or turned, its natural elasticity
making it very durable and difficult to break. Its
source of supply is chiefly from the horned cattle, the
buffalo and the bison, the horns of these beasts in
their natural state frequently being mounted on
shields just as in later years the horns of smaller
animals, such as the South African varieties of the
ibex, springbok, and similar horned sheep and cattle,
are brought over to this country and mounted as
ornaments. It is said that the old art of impressing
or stamping horn and tortoiseshell has long been
discarded, and is only retained for stamping buttons.
Fancy hair ornaments were frequently so moulded,
the horn or tortoiseshell being afterwards decorated
with inlaid silver and gold.</p>
<p>Some of the pressed work is extremely beautiful
and has every appearance of being done by hand,
but much cheaper, of course, as the patterns could be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">{197}</a></span>
multiplied to any extent after the dies had been cut.
Thin plates of horn were formerly used in lanterns,
and a similar piece of horn was used as a protector
over the ancient alphabet and child's spelling tablet
that gave it the name of the horn book. Among
household curios are drinking horns elaborately
etched, and frequently turned in a lathe. They were
popular in the seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries, and the turned patterns then so common
were copied by the silversmiths, who made silver
tankards and drinking cups on the same models.
The cornucopia or horn of abundance figures
frequently in sculpture, paintings, and works of art.
The horn is one of the early instruments of music
(see Chapter <a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV</a>), and has long been associated
with sports. It has sounded the "Tally Ho" of the
fox hunt, and played an important part in coaching
days. In some old houses veritable horns are found
hung in conspicuous places as relics of the past,
but the coaching horns just referred to are for the
most part of metal.</p>
<p>The Worshipful Company of Horners is still in
evidence at City feasts. The work of the craft in
olden time, as recorded by the chaplain of the
Company in a little book he has prepared, giving the
history of the Horners, was practised in the days of
King Alfred. At least two hundred and fifty years
before the Norman Conquest many of the patens
and chalices used in churches were made by horners,
and at one time cups, plates, and other vessels made
of that useful material were in daily use in English
homes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">{199}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">IX<br />
<br />
THE<br />
TOILET<br />
TABLE</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">{202}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_64" id="FIG_64"></a>
<img src="images/fig_64.jpg" width="400" height="533" alt="FIG. 64.—ANTIQUE DRESSING OR TOILET GLASS.
(In the Victoria and Albert Museum.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 64.—ANTIQUE DRESSING OR TOILET GLASS.
<br />
(<i>In the Victoria and Albert Museum.</i>)</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">{203}</a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX<br />
<br />
THE TOILET TABLE</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>The table and its secrets—Combs—Patch boxes—Enamelled objects—Perfume
boxes and holders—Dressing cases—Scratchbacks—Toilet
chatelaines—Locks of hair—Jewel cabinets.</p></div>
<p>The mysteries of the toilet table are sometimes
revealed in the curious furnishings of the dressing-room.
The numerous accessories which are purchased
from the beauty specialist, and as the result
of speciously worded and attractively illustrated
advertisements, in the present day, indicate that it
is not at all unlikely that the fashions of all ages
have demanded a plentiful supply of toilet requisites
in order that the Society beauty might vie with her
nearest rival. The curio collector is not so much
concerned with the cosmetics, salves, pomades, and
hair washes and dyes, the use of which has called
forth receptacles for them, as with the choice boxes,
cases, and implements of the tonsorial art which
their use involved.</p>
<p>To search for such things and to secure some
hitherto unknown instrument or receptacle is ever
the ambition of the energetic curio hunter. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">{204}</a></span>
field is large enough, for such curios are found in
the tombs of the prehistoric dead, and among the
household gods of the primitive savage in the few
remaining unexplored inhabited countries to-day.
Such objects may with a fair prospect of success be
looked for among the relics of Assyrian and Egyptian
races, and among the bronze curios of Ancient Greece
and Rome; and excavations reveal relics of Saxon
and mediæval England among the ruins which
have been covered up for centuries.</p>
<p>Coming down the ages, the mysteries of the toilet
table, as pictured in the not always refined engravings
of the copper-plate artists of a century or so
ago, tell of habits and conditions prevailing among
the ladies of Society then which would hardly be
deemed polite and refined now.</p>
<p>Ladies who used patches and cosmetics and
dressed their hair in such a mode that it was rarely
let down and brushed, needed many accessories now
obsolete. Moreover, the gradual change which
passed over Society, and the privacy of the modern
toilet as compared with the days when much that
is now deemed curious and antique was in common
use, has brought about a new order of things, and
made other trinkets than patch, powder, and salve
boxes acceptable gifts between lovers; hence we
scarcely realize the sentiment that induced the
donors of toilet requisites to bestow them on the
ladies of their choice, or the recipients to welcome
some of the curios obviously given from sentimental
motives.</p>
<p>The illustrations in books published many years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">{205}</a></span>
ago incidentally recorded the use of some of the
curios then in the making. The artists certainly
were not over-modest, and far from bashful in the
lucid way in which they pictured or caricatured the
toilet table, and the maiden who in those days was
acquainted with the uses of the little relics of her day
which are now among the household curios appropriately
grouped under the heading of this chapter.</p>
<h3>The Table and its Secrets.</h3>
<p>It is before the looking glass, the central object
on, or forming a part of, the toilet table, that the
chief mysteries of the toilet are performed. It is
obvious, therefore, that the table, to be in accord with
the use its name suggests, should be the grand
receptacle for all the minor preparations and their
boxes or covers, as well as for the brushes and combs
and mirrors and sundries a Society beauty may
require.</p>
<p>It is scarcely necessary to tax the mental faculties
in imagining what may have been the equivalent
to brushes and combs with which the prehistoric
woman of thousands of years ago brushed and
combed her tangled tresses. She was ingenious
enough to break off and trim sharp prickly thorns,
and to use them as pins to fasten her scanty home-made
garments, no doubt; and she would probably
find in Nature's supply what served her when making
her toilet, and viewing herself in clear pool or stream.
Artists have pictured such toilets, and poets have
told of the toilet and the bath of Greek and Roman
maidens of olden time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">{206}</a></span></p>
<p>It is said that the toilet of a Roman lady occupied
much of her time. After she had risen and taken
her bath she placed herself in the hands of the
<i>cosmotes</i>, slaves who possessed the secrets of preserving
and beautifying the complexion of the skin.
She frequently wore a medicated mask and went
through what would to-day be considered very
painful operations. Her skin was rubbed with
pumice stone, and superfluous hairs were removed
with a pair of tweezers. Grecian slaves were adepts
at colouring eyelashes and eyebrows and treating
the lips with red pomade. The mirror was in
frequent use. Many of the polished metal mirrors
of those days were adorned with precious stones and
had handles of mother-o'-pearl; and silver and gold
were common in the fashioning of the framework.
Hair appointments, including combs, were very
decorative, frequently being made of ivory, and
many beautiful carved specimens are to be seen in
our museums.</p>
<p>The dressing table as we understand it to-day
was of later days, for many centuries elapsed between
the toilet of the ladies just mentioned and
that of English dames whose odds and ends are
to be found in most houses to-day—for few are
without family relics of the toilet.</p>
<p>The toilet or dressing table was originally quite
small, and made solely for the purpose named. It
opened very much like a small desk or bureau, and
was seldom more than 18 in. or 20 in. in width.
The desk-like flap served the purpose of a table;
behind it was a number of tiny drawers in which the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">{207}</a></span>
secret mysteries of the toilet were hidden. There,
too, were the lady's trinkets and jewellery, safely
housed in the depths of those curious recesses. Such
a table was surmounted by a looking glass of the
type now spoken of in a generic sense as Sheraton.
In line with the more elaborately fitted tables were
independent glasses fitted with a small drawer—a
poor substitute, however, for the toilet table and glass,
combined or used in conjunction, in front of which
the ladies of the eighteenth century performed their
toilets.</p>
<p>In Fig. <a href="#FIG_64">64</a> is illustrated a very beautiful glass of
the Oriental style of japanned decoration. The slide
supports of the desk-like flap are on the principle
adopted in the construction of contemporary bureaux.
There is also a drawer, full of compartments, which
draws out and discloses their covers and some
of the instruments and articles of the toilet they
contain.</p>
<h3>Combs.</h3>
<p>The combs of olden time were much more
elaborate affairs than they are to-day. It would
appear that the comb which must so frequently
have been viewed by the fair user was considered
the most appropriate toilet requisite on which to
expend care and to lavish costly labour in order
to make it truly a thing of beauty, to be retained
and even jealously guarded.</p>
<p>The precious metals and ivory were used as well
as hard woods. Alas! like the fate of modern combs,
the teeth—coarse and fine—snapped one by one,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">{208}</a></span>
and oftentimes a rare and beautiful back, between
the two rows of teeth that once were, is nearly all
that is left of the once perfect comb. Many combs
of ivory, however, carved all over with exquisite
miniatures, have been preserved, and the scenes upon
them have been incidents of the chase, classic love
scenes, and sometimes reproductions in picture form
of well-known biblical scenes, not always of the most
delicately chosen subjects.</p>
<p>Not long ago a very remarkable gold comb of first-century
workmanship was found near the village of
Znamenka, in Southern Russia, where excavations
in a burial mound had brought to light the tomb
of a Scythian king, whose head was adorned with
this beautiful comb. The upper portion represented
a combat between three warriors, one mounted on
a charger. That comb, however, should be classed
among "dress" combs rather than dressing combs.</p>
<p>The ivory combs for combing the hair vary in
size and in the strength of their teeth. Sometimes
a comb made of boxwood was inlaid with ivory, and
delicately pierced panels were inserted in the centre
of the comb. In some instances a small mirror is
found instead of a carved panel; especially is that
the case with the smaller combs carried in a reticule
or bag.</p>
<p>Inscriptions were common, such, for instance, as
those which breathed the sentiment on a boxwood
comb in the British Museum, which is inscribed in
French: "Accept with goodwill this little gift"; it
is a pretty piece of early work, dating probably from
the middle of the sixteenth century.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">{209}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px; clear: both;"><a name="FIG_65" id="FIG_65"></a>
<img src="images/fig_65.jpg" width="400" height="205" alt="FIG. 65.—THREE OLD SCRATCHBACKS." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 65.—THREE OLD SCRATCHBACKS.</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px; height: 400px;"><a name="FIG_66" id="FIG_66"></a><a name="FIG_67" id="FIG_67"></a>
<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px;">
<img src="images/fig_66.jpg" width="200" height="497" alt="FIG. 66.—SILVER CHATELAINE
TOILET INSTRUMENTS." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 66.—SILVER CHATELAINE
TOILET INSTRUMENTS.</span>
</div>
<div class="figright" style="width: 200px;">
<img src="images/fig_67.jpg" width="200" height="560" alt="FIG. 67.—ANOTHER CHATELAINE
SET." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 67.—ANOTHER CHATELAINE
SET.</span>
</div></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a></span></p>
<h3>Patch Boxes.</h3>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">{211}</a></span>The accessories of the toilet table—useful and
ornamental—are many. It has ever been so, and
in the change going on many odds and ends are
left behind and become relics of former practices.
Perhaps among the most interesting of these curios
are the little boxes of porcelain, enamelled wares,
and wood, which were once used as "patch" boxes,
and as receptacles for the pigments employed when
gumming patches upon the cheeks and forehead
was the height of fashion, and when painting the
face was the rule rather than the exception.</p>
<p>It may be contended by some that these mysteries
of the toilet are not unknown in the present day, but
as yet the modern accessories of the toilet table
do not come within the ken of the curio hunter.
It was at the Court of Louis XV of France that
the practice of gumming small pieces of black taffeta
on the cheeks originated, the patches soon afterwards
becoming common in this country. From simple
circular discs were evolved stars, crescents, and other
curious forms; then, as in so many other instances,
extremes of fashion brought the practice into
disrepute, for so extravagant became the style that
the "coach and horses" patch and others as absurd
came into favour. The famous Sam Pepys recorded
in his Diary the first time he saw his wife wearing
a black patch; apparently it caught his fancy, for
he wrote: "My wife seemed very pretty to-day, it
being the first time I had given her lief to wear
a black patch." Incidentally it may be noted that
the famous Pepys controlled even his wife's toilet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">{212}</a></span>
and that she was obedient to him even in the
mysteries of the dressing table!</p>
<h3>Enamelled Objects.</h3>
<p>The receptacles for all these compounds varied;
some were of wood, beautifully carved, often embellished
with brass mountings, the insides being
lined with silk, and small mirrors were inserted in
the lids. The pretty trinket trays, curiously coloured
and decorated, boxes, and little candlesticks for "my
lady's table," made of Battersea and other enamels,
were much in favour a century or more ago.</p>
<p>Some remarkably charming boxes are met with
stamped with the name of Lille, in France, where
many such objects were made—the English enamels
of that period are rarely if ever marked.</p>
<p>It would appear that very many of these little
articles were the gifts of friends or purchased as
souvenirs of the comparatively rare visits to
fashionable places of resort. Many of those given
by friends were chosen because of the mottoes and
emblems with which they were decorated; for, like
the combs, they were made use of to convey
messages of love and friendship. We can well
understand the fear that might arise lest patches
became loose and rendered the fair wearer ludicrous;
hence the little mirrors so often found within
the boxes, which it may be mentioned were carried
about in the pocket ready for use when opportunity
served.</p>
<p>Many of the older specimens are found with
mirrors of steel which, owing to exposure to damp,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">{213}</a></span>
have become very rusty, and, in some instances, have
perished altogether. Others with silvered glass
mirrors show spots, and are much blurred from the
same cause. The colourings of enamels vary; in
some the groundwork is white, in others pink or rose-colour
or blue. Little picture scenes are varied with
the quaint mottoes or sentimental lines so much in
vogue then.</p>
<p>The illustrations given in Fig. <a href="#FIG_63">63</a> are typical of
the choicer decorations, showing the floral style as
well as the pictorial miniature scenes for which the
artists of that time were famous. Some of the toilet
sundries took the form of scent bottles, others etui
cases and boxes for toilet requisites, including
manicure sets.</p>
<h3>Perfume Boxes and Holders.</h3>
<p>Perfume has always been associated with the
requisites of the lady's toilet. Sweet-smelling spices
are referred to in biblical records, and even to-day
the offering of perfume is a symbol of honour to the
guest in the East; and some very beautiful Oriental
scent sprinklers and spice boxes are now and then
met with among Eastern curios. The long-necked
rose-water sprinkler is the most common form,
supplemented by betel-nut boxes and receptacles
made by Persian artists for the famous attar of
roses. Scents and "sweet odours" became fashionable
in Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries; articles of clothing were scented, and
there was a profusion of scent for the hair and in
making the toilet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">{214}</a></span></p>
<p>The pomander box, the favourite perfume holder
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of
England, was in the form of an apple, the
perfumes and spices being made up like a ball.
It is said that the perfume was prepared from
a sixteenth-century recipe, the basis of which was
sweet apples or apple pulp, and scented gums
and essences. From the pomander box smaller
receptacles were evolved, and more elaborately prepared
scents were kept in them. Some of the
preparations consisted of camphor, mint, rosemary,
and lavender in vinegar, a piece of sponge being
saturated with the liquid. Then came the use
of aromatic vinegar, and gradually beautiful little
silver vinaigrettes were introduced. Many of them
were very ornamental in shape, highly decorated
with miniatures and floreated embellishment, the
monogram or name of the owner often being added.
In the outer case was usually a cover of perforated
gold which closed over a piece of sponge, upon which
aromatic vinegar or some similar preparation was
poured. The best vinaigrettes are those bearing the
hall-marks varying from 1800 to about 1840, when
the making of vinaigrettes declined and other
scents took their place.</p>
<p>The burning of perfumes in bedrooms and the
fumigation of wardrobes and chests by means of a
fumador was a custom much resorted to by Portuguese
ladies in the eighteenth century. Sweet lavender is
still used in the linen cupboard, although its use was
much more general in the days when London street
cries were heard.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">{215}</a></span></p>
<h3>Dressing Cases.</h3>
<p>When people travel and visit their friends their
luggage includes among other things a dressing case,
for there are many toilet requisites which are of a
personal character, and cannot well be substituted
by others. It is true that the need of portable
dressing cases has increased of late years owing
to greater travelling abroad. Dressing cases,
however, are by no means modern, for some very
beautiful examples with silver-topped bottles, hall-marked
in the days of Queen Anne, are among the
collectable curios. There is a still older example in
the Victoria and Albert Museum—a case of tortoiseshell,
filled with a complete toilet set, consisting of
four combs and thirteen toilet instruments, partly of
steel and partly of silver. It is an historic case,
having been presented by Charles II to a Mr. T.
Campland, who is said to have at one time sheltered
him. Many old families have interesting and valuable
examples, and not infrequently isolated cut-glass
bottles with Georgian hall-marked silver tops which
have formed part of the equipment of dressing cases
are met with.</p>
<h3>Scratchbacks.</h3>
<p>Old English scratchbacks are among the rarities
of the curios associated with the toilet table. It is
unnecessary to comment upon the habits and customs
of those periods when scratchbacks were found
necessary, or to refer to the hygienic conditions of
the toilet then conspicuous by their absence. It is
sufficient to allude to these curious little instruments,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">{216}</a></span>
mostly shaped like a hand, often of ivory, and always
fitted with a handle in length from 12 to 15 in.
The hand in some cases is large in proportion,
measuring as much as 2½ in. in length, sometimes
as an open hand, at others with the fingers closed,
often very beautifully modelled. Horn and whalebone
were favourite materials for the handle, although
some were of ebony and other woods. Scratchbacks
appear to have been made both in lefts and rights in
this country; but the scratchbacks of the Far East
were invariably rights. The accompanying illustrations,
Fig. <a href="#FIG_65">65</a>, show the usual types of these now
obsolete toilet requisites, which it may be noted were
sometimes duplicated by miniature scratchbacks
carried about on the person, hung from the girdle.</p>
<h3>Toilet Chatelaines.</h3>
<p>The chatelaines worn by the ladies of olden time
were bulky, and the various objects deemed necessary
to carry about the person rendered them
cumbersome in the extreme. A bunch of keys was
always in evidence, and a glance at a few old keys
indicates how large the keys of even quite small
boxes were in olden time. There were the keys of the
store cupboard, of the linen chest, and of the larder
and the wine cellar. Drawers and cupboards and
boxes, as well as the bureau or desk, were always
locked, and to deliver up the keys was indeed to
surrender one of the privileges of the matron and
housewife which were jealously guarded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">{217}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_68_69_70_71" id="FIG_68_69_70_71"></a>
<img src="images/fig_68-71.jpg" width="400" height="595" alt="FIG. 68.—FINE ORIENTAL LACQUERED BOX." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 68.—FINE ORIENTAL LACQUERED BOX.<br />
FIG. 69.—SMALL LACQUER CABINET.<br />
FIG. 70.—A PAGODA-SHAPED CASKET.<br />
FIG. 71.—DECORATED JEWEL CASE.</span>
</div>
<p>There were articles of toilet use, too, worn at the
girdle. It is recorded that Queen Elizabeth carried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">{219}</a></span>
her earpick of gold ornamented with pearls and
diamonds. The little set, which was worn at a lady's
chatelaine in the eighteenth century, shown in Fig. <a href="#FIG_66">66</a>,
consists of toothpick, earpick, and tongue scraper of
silver, whereas the set illustrated in Fig. <a href="#FIG_67">67</a> includes
tweezers, a nail knife, and other instruments. There
are some charming manicure sets extant, as well as
isolated nail files of ivory and steel, and curious little
instruments for simple surgical operations, such as
strong-nerved ladies were not averse to perform in
the good old days.</p>
<h3>Locks of Hair.</h3>
<p>Although long since separated from toilet operations,
mention of locks of hair so carefully preserved
may not inappropriately be made here. Many of
these are associated with happy memories of childhood,
others of more saddened recollections. It has
been a common practice to preserve locks of hair of
departed friends and relatives. In former days these
locks of hair were often enclosed in lockets, some of
which were very large. The simple lock did not
always satisfy, for there are many artistic plaits and
beautifully formed sprays, imitating feathers and even
flowers, which were in years gone by cunningly interwoven
and artistically arranged on cardboard preserved
by glass, often in golden lockets and frames.
Some persons have made quite important collections,
one of the most noted being that of Menelik II, the
Abyssinian king, who possessed upwards of two thousand
locks, varying from light to dark, and from fine
to coarse, each lock being labelled with the date and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">{220}</a></span>
particulars of its acquisition. It would be well perhaps
not to enter too closely into the source of some
of these specimens, which had peculiar interest to the
dusky king. It is said that some of them were chiefly
admired for their settings, which included mounting
with rare emeralds. The collection of emeralds, of
which he had some of marvellous beauty and lustre,
was another of that monarch's hobbies.</p>
<h3>Jewel Cabinets.</h3>
<p>In association with the toilet table are the numerous
boxes which have been made as receptacles for jewels.
From the days when the dower chest contained a
small compartment for valuable trinkets the furniture
of the lady's boudoir has been incomplete without a
jewel box or some article of furniture where the
knick-knacks of the home could be kept, and more
especially the wearable jewellery. The Chinese and
Japanese have ever been clever in the fashioning of
small cabinets, and many delightful little boxes,
cabinets, and jewellery receptacles have been brought
over to this country.</p>
<p>Some of the old lacquer ware is exceptionally
interesting, the decorations upon such pieces being
doubly so when the legends they depict are fully
realized and understood. The accompanying illustrations
represent four Japanese jewel cases which are
exceptionally fine curios. Fig. <a href="#FIG_68_69_70_71">70</a> is decorated on the
outside of the doors with a view of Itsukushima; and
there are two peacocks on the top, and the two elders
of Takasago are depicted on the back. The bamboo
and the plum are designs symbolical of longevity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">{221}</a></span>
This truly exceptional piece was sold in the auction
rooms of Glendining & Co., who also disposed of the
remarkable jewel box shaped as a pagoda, illustrated
in Fig. <a href="#FIG_68_69_70_71">71</a>, a very beautiful piece elaborately decorated
with birds and landscapes, and the box illustrated in
Fig. <a href="#FIG_68_69_70_71">68</a> and small cabinet, Fig. <a href="#FIG_68_69_70_71">69</a>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">{223}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">X<br />
<br />
THE<br />
OLD<br />
WORKBOX</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">{225}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X<br />
<br />
THE OLD WORKBOX</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Spinning wheels—Materials and work—Little accessories—Cutlery—Quaint
woodwork—The needlewoman—Old samplers.</p></div>
<p>Under the generic term of "workbox" the curios of
the household associated with the industrial handiwork
of former days may well be reviewed. There
is no record of when receptacles for ladies' work were
first introduced, although, no doubt, in very early days
small oak boxes, carved, and bearing the owner's
initials, and other indications of ownership, would be
the chosen receptacles for the numerous oddments
which are required in the practice and pursuit
of every home handicraft, and especially those connected
with plying the needle. There was a time,
however, when the fabrics used in the making up
of clothing were home-made, when the seamstress
and the needleworker stitched and embroidered upon
cloths spun if not actually woven by the housewife
and her handmaidens. In the barrows containing
remains of people of the Stone Age, and the peoples
of the early Bronze Age, among the few ornaments
and personal adornments buried with them were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">{226}</a></span>
spinning whorls—the curiosities which remain to
us of the earliest known form of textile craftsmanship.</p>
<h3>Spinning Wheels.</h3>
<p>In old pictures and woodblock engravings some
curious illustrations are met with showing Englishwomen
using the distaff. St. Distaff's Day was
formerly the 7th of January, for it was then that the
women resumed work after the Christmas festivities
were over. The distaff and the spindle belonged to
an age little understood now, and the occupations of
the women of that date are almost forgotten. The
spinning wheel was the outcome of the simpler
distaff and spindle, and although the spinning wheels
we find among the most interesting of household relics
look primitive indeed compared with the complex
machinery seen in the spinning mills to-day, those
dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
must have been considered ingenious contrivances
when compared with the older models, just as the
latest types of sewing machines show a wonderful
advance from the early machines invented in the
beginning of the nineteenth century.</p>
<p>Very clever indeed were many women in manipulating
the spinning wheel, and there seems to have
been some competitive contests for notoriety among
country women, who found a pleasing though perhaps
at times tedious occupation in spinning the wool for
the local weaver who wove the home-made cloth.
It is recorded that in 1745 a woman at East Dereham
spun a single pound of wool into a thread of 84,000
yards. She was far outdistanced, however, a few
years later, when a young lady at Norwich out of
a pound of combed wool produced a thread computed
to measure 168,000 yards.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">{227}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_72" id="FIG_72"></a>
<img src="images/fig_72.jpg" width="400" height="520" alt="FIG. 72.—OLD SPINNING WHEEL.
(In the collection of Mr. Phillips, of the Manor House, Hitchin.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 72.—OLD SPINNING WHEEL.
<br />
(<i>In the collection of Mr. Phillips, of the Manor House, Hitchin.</i>)</span>
</div>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">{229}</a></span>To secure a fine spinning wheel is the ambition of
collectors, and many ladies point with pride to the
old relic placed in a position of honour on an oak
chest of drawers, or, perhaps, standing on a coffer
in the hall. An exceptionally fine wheel is shown
in Fig. <a href="#FIG_72">72</a>; it is one of many secured by Mr. Phillips,
of the Manor House, Hitchin. Another illustration
is taken from a sketch of a spinning wheel in the
Hull Museum (see Fig. <a href="#FIG_73">73</a>). It appears that early
in the nineteenth century Hull encouraged the training
of domestic spinners, and at that time supported
a spinning school. <i>Apropos</i> of that institution reference
may appropriately be made to Hadley's
"History of Hull," in which the historian, in reference
to Sunday Schools, which had then quite
recently been founded, says: "From the Sunday
School reports for this year [1788] it seems they
did not take. To whatever cause this may be attributed,
it by no means warrants the aspersions thrown
upon the town on that account, which has with equal
ardour and wisdom espoused that useful establishment
of Spinning Schools, in preference to a preposterous
institution replete with folly, intolerance,
fanaticism, and mischief." In explanation it has
been remarked that, "Evidently wheels were plentiful
in Hull and Sunday Schools a novelty." To-day
we can reverse the statement, for schools are plentiful
but spinning wheels are rare!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">{230}</a></span></p>
<p>Collectors eagerly secure anything in the way of a
genuine antique wheel, although the fastidious have
the choice of two distinct types—those worked by
hand and those operated by a treadle. Sometimes a
spinning wheel made for the foot could be worked
independently by the hand, just in the same way
as modern sewing machines are made for hand or
treadle, and sometimes a combination of both
methods. The very general use of the spinning
wheel is accounted for by the fact that this useful
machine was met with in every cottage in the days
when homespun yarns and wools were prepared by
hand, and they were also found in the mansion and
the palace, where they served to amuse the ladies
of the household.</p>
<p>There are many varieties of spinning wheels, among
them the old oak spinning wheels used in England in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the more
decorative used until quite late in the eighteenth
century, from their ornament and lightness, apparently
used more for preparing the material for fancy
work rather than for really utilitarian purposes.
Some highly decorative spinning wheels inlaid with
mother-o'-pearl and ivory have been brought over to
this country from Holland and other continental
countries, perhaps the most decorative being those
made by French workmen in the Chinese style, the
wood being lacquered blue and ornamented with
gilt.</p>
<p>Mr. John Suddaby, who presented the spinning
wheel we have illustrated to the Hull Wilberforce
Museum, named after William Wilberforce, paid a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">{231}</a></span>
high tribute to the famous philanthropist, who he
declared to be associated with the spinning schools
of the town. The old wheels of early date were
gradually improved until they were rendered obsolete
by the greater inventions of machines which could
be worked by steam engines, thus originating the
factory system of textile production.</p>
<p>Among the sundry curios associated with the spinning
wheel are handsomely carved wood distaffs of
boxwood, curiously turned spindles; and now and
then a pewter vessel of circular form, puzzling in
its identity, turns out to be the rim cup from the
distaff of an old spinning wheel.</p>
<h3>Materials and Work.</h3>
<p>Old workboxes appear to be very numerous. The
older ones were mostly of wood, but the external
decoration seems to have been a matter of taste, some
preferring inlays. In early days moulded plaster
ornament, richly gilded and coloured, was much
favoured, and in still earlier times deep relief carvings
in the oak of which the boxes were made. In the
Stuart and later periods ladies worked the exterior
ornament in silks and satins and embroidery. Among
the workboxes in the Victoria and Albert Museum
there is a painted box in distemper and gilding, the
subject chosen for the ornamentation of the lid being
the story of David and Bathsheba, round the sides
being floral devices. This decorative workbox has
drawers and compartments, a sliding front facilitating
their use.</p>
<p>In the same collection there are workboxes over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">{232}</a></span>laid
with straw work in geometrical patterns relieved
by colour. Straw-work decoration was much favoured
at the commencement of the nineteenth century, its
origin being traceable to the French military
prisoners in this country during the Napoleonic wars
between the years 1797 and 1814, when many officers
and men were detained at Porchester Castle, near
Portsmouth, and at Norman Cross, near Peterborough.
The grasses, of which the boxes were
covered, were collected and dried by the prisoners,
who obtained the different shades and tints which
render this class of work so effective by steeping
them in infusions of tea, according to a note by
Dr. Strong, who visited the barracks at Norman
Cross.</p>
<p>The workboxes, so rich in gilding and relief, came
from Italy, when, as early as the year 1400, caskets
were covered with a species of lime which was
moulded, the gesso, as it was called, on a gilt ground
of white compo, giving it a very rich effect. Leather
was used with good effect, too, for the ornamentation
of workboxes, red morocco being much favoured in
England early in the nineteenth century. Fig. <a href="#FIG_76">76</a>
illustrates three very beautiful little fitted boxes with
inlaid ornament and straw work.</p>
<h3>Little Accessories.</h3>
<p>The contents of an old workbox are many and
varied. Among the odds and ends it is no uncommon
thing to find relics of lace-making, by which
so many cottagers have been able to maintain themselves
for generations.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">{233}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_73" id="FIG_73"></a>
<img src="images/fig_73.jpg" width="400" height="553" alt="FIG. 73.—SPINNING WHEEL.
(In the Hull Museum.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 73.—SPINNING WHEEL.
<br />
(<i>In the Hull Museum.</i>)</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_74" id="FIG_74"></a>
<img src="images/fig_74.jpg" width="400" height="303" alt="FIG. 74.—OLD LACE BOBBINS.
(a, b, c, d, e, and f, reading from left to right.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 74.—OLD LACE BOBBINS.
<br />
(<i>a</i>, <i>b</i>, <i>c</i>, <i>d</i>, <i>e</i>, and <i>f</i>, reading from left to right.)</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">{235}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a></span></p>
<p>There is something very remarkable about the
manufacture of pillow lace, in that it is carried on in
the villages of Buckinghamshire just as it was two or
more centuries ago, and the pillow and the bobbins
are almost identical in form and design—indeed, the
patterns of the lace have changed little, for the
workers cling tenaciously to the old designs,
Flemish in their characteristics, just as they do to
the old bobbins.</p>
<p>Some of these little spools or bobbins have been
handed down from mother to daughter as heirlooms,
and many of them carry a romantic story, if it were
but known. Just as the Welsh lovespoons and the
Sunderland glass rolling-pins were given as love
tokens, many of these bobbins are the result of
patient labour, their decoration having often been the
work of days; ivory, bone, wood, and metal being
cut and shaped, gilded and stained, in order to
provide the favoured one with a bobbin unlike any
other and quite distinctive in design. In the making
of pillow lace, pins, cleverly placed so as to form the
pattern, were inserted into the cushion, and the
threads on a dozen or more bobbins deftly twisted in
and out and tied round the pins. The glass beads,
many of the older ones of odd shapes and colours,
hand-made, made the first distinction, and their
weight helped to keep the light turned wood bobbins
in place. It was the bobbins which were ornamental,
and some of the older ones—those made in the
eighteenth century—are very decorative, and now
much sought after by collectors. Those illustrated
in Fig. <a href="#FIG_74">74</a> have been selected from a large collection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">{236}</a></span>
for their representative types: (A) is the oldest; the
ornament is of pewter let into the wood, it has a
very small spool; (B) is ivory, the incised parts
stained green; (C) is bone, the incised pattern filled
in with gold beaten into a thin plate; (D) is also of
bone with a band of brass and coloured inlays; (E)
walnut wood, turned in the deep grooves are six
loose silver rings, some of the heads are of brass
gilt; (F) the most modern type, such as may be
seen in use in Buckinghamshire to-day, the present
revival of the hand-made lace industry being due
to the efforts of the North Bucks Lace Association.
Of such handwork Cowper wrote:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"Yon cottager who weaves at her own door,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Pillow and bobbins all her little store:<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Content, though mean, and cheerful, if not gay,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Shuffering her threads about the livelong day."<br /></span>
</div></div>
<p>The lace-maker, and the housewife who occupied
her leisure moments in lace-making, left behind
many collectable curios. The worker of samplers
and those advanced in the higher arts of needlecraft
had also their little work necessaries. Very clever
indeed were the workers of silk-embroidered pictures,
and the instruments they used were fine and
delicate, different indeed from the coarser needles of
the knitter and the meshes of the netter. In later
years the workbox became more substantial, and less
attention was given to the exterior, for the interior
fittings of the workbox became beautiful, and a
wealth of art was shown in the carving of the ivory
accessories, and the pearl tops of the thread and silk
reels and winders and the curious little wax holders.
There were cleverly contrived measuring tapes, and
beautiful little baskets of ivory and wood, some
filled with emery, others serving the purpose of
receptacles for pins and needles. From these
evolved the needlebooks and the more modern
companions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">{237}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_75" id="FIG_75"></a>
<img src="images/fig_75.jpg" width="400" height="647" alt="FIG. 75.—OLD PIN POPPETS AND ANCIENT PINS." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 75.—OLD PIN POPPETS AND ANCIENT PINS.</span>
</div>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">{239}</a></span>In Fig. <a href="#FIG_77">77</a> are shown several beautiful oddments
taken out of an old workbox; they are all
made of ivory, carved and fretted in such delicate
tracery that it is a wonder that they have survived
for a century or more without injury. Ivory work
holders, in which ladies rolled their needlework when
they went out to tea, were often beautifully carved;
they, too, are charming additions to ivory workbox
fittings.</p>
<h3>Cutlery.</h3>
<p>The cutler has contributed to the curios of the
workbox. The knives and scissors, bodkins, and
stilettos from an old workbox look strangely out of
date when compared with those bought in the shops
to-day. The chief thing that is so noticeable to the
critical observer is the cutting of the steel and
the hand ornamentation of those days. Some of
the embroidery scissors were engraved all over with
fancy patterns, and there are some remarkably quaint
button-hole scissors, on which the owner's name or
initials were often engraved.</p>
<p>Some time ago an old lady made a small collection
of thimbles. It was not a very expensive hobby,
but the variety she secured was truly remarkable.
There were thimbles of bone, ivory, steel, brass,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">{240}</a></span>
enamel, silver, and even gold. Some were chased
and engraved, some stamped and punched. There
were thimbles of huge size and others with open
ends, the same that sailors use.</p>
<p>It is said that the thimble dates back to 1684,
when one Nicholas Benschoten, of Amsterdam, sent
one as a present to a lady friend with the dedicatory
inscription: "To My frouw van Rensclear this little
object which I have invented and executed as a
protective covering for her industrious fingers." It
is said the name in this country was originally
"thumb-bell," so called because of the shape being of
bell-like form. Of the thimbles of the wealthy it is
recorded there are thimbles of onyx, mother-o'-pearl,
and of gold, encrusted with rubies and
diamonds—the seamstress has, however, to be content
with useful if less costly "baubles."</p>
<h3>Quaint Woodwork.</h3>
<p>By way of contrast the outfit of the worker often
includes wooden needles and occasionally utensils
made of wood, but covered with evidences of love
and tender regard for those who were destined to use
them. The knitter seems to have been peculiarly
fortunate, for knitting sticks and sheaths afforded the
amateur carver ample opportunities of showing his
skill; and, like the carved lovespoons, of which there
is such a famous collection in the Cardiff Museum,
the knitting sheaths and sticks seem to indicate that
in a similar way the amorous swain gave vent to his
feelings in the curious designs, mottoes, and names
which he carved upon knitting sticks and kindred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">{241}</a></span>
objects used by the lady of his choice. In the Victoria
and Albert Museum there are some beautiful
boxwood needle sticks; one example is cleverly
carved with emblems of Faith, Hope, and Charity.
Another beautiful needle stick in the same collection
is mounted with silver. On some of the woodwork
used for similar purposes there are cleverly designed
pictures, and these were not always associated with
private use, for the clothworkers in many districts
used quite fanciful tools, especially in the villages,
where time was of small moment, and the long
winter evenings could be occupied with cutting
and carving the handles and framework of the tools
which in everyday practice served such a useful and
often wage-earning purpose. In the Victoria and
Albert Museum there is a remarkable cloth-measure
made of walnut, bearing date 1745, three-sided, one
being covered over with letters of the alphabet cut
in deep relief, thus serving a useful purpose in the
home or as an educational standard. On the second
side there are cleverly designed pastoral and hunting
scenes, and on the third the arms of the Swiss
cantons. Other portions of the measure illustrate
the implements and tools used by clothworkers at
that period.</p>
<p>Switzerland has long been famous for its wood
carving, and many of the curios found in this
country have come from the Swiss mountain villages.
No doubt some of our readers have come across the
old pin poppets which boys and girls carried with
them to the village school half a century or more ago.
The girls filled them with pins and needles, bodkin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">{242}</a></span>
and stiletto, and the boys with pencils and pens. In
Fig. <a href="#FIG_75">75</a> two curious old pin boxes are illustrated.
The <i>pins</i> shown on the same page are, however, of
much older date; they are, in fact, merely thorns;
these interesting and authentic relics of the "common
objects of the home," or perhaps more correctly
described, of dress, are to be seen in the National
Collection of Wales at Cardiff, the measuring stick
shown in the photograph giving their size. The pin
poppet, as its name denotes, was, however, intended
originally for the requirements of the early needleworker
who at the dames' school won renown in
those great achievements—the samplers of old.
These, however, do not exhaust the wood-carving
curios of the workbox, but they may serve to remind
collectors of what they may hope to discover in their
hunt for household curios.</p>
<h3>The Needlewoman.</h3>
<p>The curiosities much prized to-day, the work of
the needlewoman, or those who plied the needle
chiefly for purposes of amusement or to give pleasure
to those on whom they bestowed the products of their
skill, are met with in many distinct forms. This is
not a work on needlework, or we might tell of the
various stitches which are indicative of certain periods.
It is, however, admissible to mention some of the
household curios, the product of such patient labour
applied to the skilful manipulation of silks and
threads and cottons and wools, of all colours and substances,
embroidered or worked on canvas or other
fabric.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">{243}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="FIG_76" id="FIG_76"></a>
<img src="images/fig_76.jpg" width="500" height="283" alt="FIG. 76.—THREE OLD WORKBOXES.
(In the collection of Mr. Phillips, of Hitchin.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 76.—THREE OLD WORKBOXES.
<br />
(<i>In the collection of Mr. Phillips, of Hitchin.</i>)</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">{245}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a></span></p>
<p>The mistresses of the old English homes were very
industrious. They worked crewel bed hangings and
cross-stitch and tent-stitch upholstery in the seventeenth
century, and in still earlier times richly ornamented
linens and other fabrics with flowers and
scriptural subjects. Writing in reference to Queen
Mary, the wife of William III, Sir Charles Sedley
said:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"When she rode in coach abroad<br /></span>
<span class="i0">She was always knotting thread."<br /></span>
</div></div>
<p>And her example was followed by many in humbler
circumstances. In later years women have wrought
needlework and beadwork pictures, and have even
threaded their needles with human hair when no silk
could be found fine enough.</p>
<p>Of the permanent ornaments of the home—now
valued curios—there are cases formerly used on a
lady's toilet table, embroidered with floss silk and frequently
dated. Some were made to hold devotional
books, others were portable boxes, the covers of
which were worked on white satin with coloured
silks and beads, oftentimes scriptural scenes being
depicted in silk; one very favourite scene in the
seventeenth century was the visit of the Queen of
Sheba to Solomon.</p>
<p>Many beautifully embroidered trinket boxes record
the patience with which they were worked, and were
undoubtedly a labour of love. Among the smaller
objects, gifts from friend to friend, were pincushions,
some of which bear dates in the seventeenth
century. These were worked in coloured
silks on canvas, the ornament often taking the form<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">{246}</a></span>
of a fruit or flower basket, birds and insects. The
favourite material and colour for the back of such
pincushions was yellow satin. A rather pleasing
variety consisted of bag and pincushion worked to
match, the two being united by a cord of plaited silk.
Of purses there were many varieties, chiefly made of
coarse canvas worked in cross and tent stitches with
coloured silks and silver threads, couched or laid
over silver thread, and then stitched to the canvas
concealing it. There are also miniature pincushions
worked in silk like the old samplers and brocade
pocket books, some of which were woven in France
in the seventeenth century. There are also holdalls
and needle cases in embroidery and cross stitch. The
favourite colours worked by English ladies in the
eighteenth century were pink, orange, and light
green. On these were often worked mottoes and
rhyme. One will serve as a sample:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"When Judah's daughters captive led<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Behold their mighty kings subdued."<br /></span>
</div></div>
<p>Loyal mottoes were frequently worked, especially
during the days when the Pretenders were carrying
on their hopeless campaign. There is a subtle reminder
of the desire to make known loyal feelings,
intermixed with prudence in concealing them, in the
quaint embroidered garter in the British Museum
which is inscribed "<span class="smcap lowercase">GOD BLESS P.C.</span>"</p>
<p>To smokers were given embroidered tobacco
pouches in green, pink, and silver; one charming old
beadwork tobacco pouch in Taunton Castle is embroidered
"<span class="smcap lowercase">LOVE ME FOR I AM THINE</span>, 1631." There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">{247}</a></span>
were necklaces and bracelets of needlework, and
some of coloured glass beads, as well as the long
watchguards worn round the neck, chiefly of the
nineteenth century.</p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="FIG_77" id="FIG_77"></a>
<img src="images/fig_77.jpg" width="500" height="319" alt="FIG. 77.—OLD WORKBOX FITTINGS.
(In the Author's collection.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 77.—OLD WORKBOX FITTINGS.
<br />
(<i>In the Author's collection.</i>)</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">{249}</a></span>
</div>
<h3>Old Samplers.</h3>
<p>Old samplers may well be regarded as educational,
belonging to the schoolroom as well as to the workbox.
They were intended to teach needlework, and
served as reminders of alphabets, sums, and mapping.
Many worked in silk on yellow linen in the
eighteenth century were quite elaborate pieces of
needlework. Those of the seventeenth century,
chiefly of linen, were much cruder and simpler in
design. During the latter half of the eighteenth
century samplers were mostly worked on canvas or
sampler cloth, a material which was used almost as
long as samplers were in fashion. Different stitches
were employed; there was the early drawn and cut
work, and then the silk embroidery showing the
girl's acquirement of the darning stitch.</p>
<p>Some early tapestry maps are numbered among
the educational curios in which samplers are so
prominent. The Yorkshire Philosophical Society
own two unique specimens of sixteenth-century
tapestry, formerly in the possession of Horace
Walpole. They measure about 16 ft. by 12 ft.,
the sections including Herefordshire, Shropshire,
Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, and a part of Berkshire.
These remarkable maps are vividly coloured and
show excellent pictorial scenes indicating villages,
parks, and country seats. Such maps are rare, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">{250}</a></span>
now and then really interesting examples of needlework
mapping are met with.</p>
<p>Collectors keep an eye on preservation, but they
are keen on dated specimens, and those with ornate
and quaintly picturesque borders. The condition
adds to the beauty, but not always to the value, for
many of the older and less well-preserved samplers
are now becoming scarce. They have been retained
by those who have no interest in antiques because
they bore the name of some fair ancestress who lived
and worked on her sampler more than a century ago,
leaving it behind as a memorial of her skill in the use
of a needle for future generations to admire. How
many ladies of the twentieth century are preparing
permanent records of their skill in needlework for
those who are to come to hand on to generations
unborn? is a question some may like to ponder.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">{251}</a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">XI<br />
<br />
THE<br />
LIBRARY</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">{253}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI<br />
<br />
THE LIBRARY</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>From cover to cover—Old scrap books—Almanacs—The writing
table.</p></div>
<p>The library is usually where the master of the house
conducts his business correspondence and, if a student,
spends much of his time among his favourite
books, or, perchance, engages in literary work. In
days gone by, when there were fewer opportunities of
visiting public libraries, and when circulating libraries
were few and far between, the man of letters accumulated
around him standard works and ancient tomes,
possibly seldom read. When such a library, perhaps
scarcely examined for a century or more, comes to
be dispersed, it often happens that curiosities are
brought to light.</p>
<p>The furniture of the library is full of interest, for a
quaint writing table, bureau, or desk full of oddments
is an exceedingly prolific field of research. In the
following paragraphs a few of these curiosities are
referred to; there are others, however, that the
collector will discover, possibly one of the scarcer
curios of the library, some of which realize unex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">{254}</a></span>pectedly
high prices when they are brought under
the hammer.</p>
<h3>From Cover to Cover.</h3>
<p>The books which constitute the library are often
curious, and there is much that receives its monetary
value on account of its antiquity and rarity. An old
library will frequently include black-letter printing
and old volumes illustrated with wood blocks, and,
perchance, illuminated initial letters. Some of the
volumes may be printed on vellum, and there may
be some in manuscript. The bindings of presentation
books may be of rich calf and tooled in gold;
some may even have edge paintings and choice hand-painted
illuminations. The subject-matter of the
volumes often gives rise to specialistic collections.
Some will find amusement in tracing the progress of
a great industry through published information, like
those curious old time tables in the early days of
railways, and the pamphlets which are classed by the
collector as "Railroadia," and from them learn the
story of the "iron horse." There are others who
collect books and prints relating to ballooning, the
microscope, and many of the earlier sciences. There
are topographical curiosities and historical marvels.
Some books will be valued because of their illustrations,
for the work of a master hand may be
recognized by the expert searcher after valuables.
The rare mezzotints, stipples, and delicate line
engravings, to say nothing of the more valuable
colour prints, often realize far more than the
books themselves. Ancient art is more valued than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">{255}</a></span>
the literary efforts of past masters of wielding
the pen!</p>
<p>It is thus that the books are often thrown away
after the pictures or even superadded illustrations or
mere name-plates have been removed. The collector
of bookplates searches for his treasures. Some talk
of the vandalism of the collector of ex-libris, but they
must remember that it is quite easy to remove a
bookplate without injuring the volume, and there are
many worthless books. The name labels or bookplates
found in English libraries range from the early
dated plates of the close of the seventeenth century
to the present day. The different styles of ornament
in vogue in the respective periods of their engraving
were with few exceptions adhered to by the printers
of such plates. Thus the collector classifies his
albums and rejoices in the variations and details of
the engraver's fancy, while he separates them into
such well-defined groups as early armorial, Jacobean,
Chippendale, ribbon and wreath, urn, pictorial,
armorial, and simple shield. To other than the
enthusiastic collector, bookplates may possess merit
in that they have belonged to famous men, and are
souvenirs taken from the volumes which were once
handled by distinguished statesmen, divines, and men
of letters.</p>
<h3>Old Scrap Books.</h3>
<p>The making of scrap books or the filling of portfolios
was not always an amusement for children,
neither did older folk make those quaint scrap
books with such assortments of literary and pictorial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">{256}</a></span>
odds and ends solely for the amusement of their
visitors. Many enthusiastic collectors stored their
treasures in such books, the binding of which was
often very costly and quite gorgeously ornamented.
Some pointed with pride to collections of prints,
others to albums of frontispieces, printers' marks,
and tailpieces, some of which were beautiful little
pictures.</p>
<p>In modern times collectors rescue from the flames
old tickets, pictorial benefit tickets, theatre passes,
and quaint pictures which tell us of great events
which happened in days gone by at Ranelagh,
Vauxhall, and other places.</p>
<p>Ranelagh, where the entertainments of which relics
in the shape of beautifully engraved tickets are to be
found, was at Chelsea, and the gardens visited by
Walpole, Johnson, and Goldsmith were famous for
their promenades and for the music and singing
which might be enjoyed, among the evening pleasures
being displays of fireworks and masked dances. In
the summer tea and coffee were sipped under the
trees, and there were water carnivals on the river.
There were also masquerade balls and dances, for
which tickets engraved by Bartolozzi and other
famous artists were issued. It is these tickets which
are preserved and collected now.</p>
<p>The autograph hunter extends his hobby by
adding old parchments and deeds with seals, for
among the odd bundles of parchments in old libraries
are many documents attested with thumb-marks and
seals—"His mark," of days when many of the
landed proprietors could not write their own names.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">{257}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"><a name="FIG_78" id="FIG_78"></a>
<img src="images/fig_78.jpg" width="300" height="524" alt="FIG. 78.—ANCIENT CLOG ALMANAC." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 78.—ANCIENT CLOG ALMANAC.</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">{259}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a></span></p>
<p>The joys of St. Valentine's Day, remembered by
older people still, are unknown to the present generation,
but collectors perpetuate February 14th as it
was kept in the past by filling albums with such old
valentines as they may be able to secure.</p>
<h3>Watch Papers.</h3>
<p>Another comparatively small collection can be
made up of pictorial watch papers, those rare little
pictorial views which once reposed in the interior of
the cases of old watches. Watches are by no means
common curios of the household, but now and then
an old silver verge or a decorated watch case thought
little of is found to contain one of those pretty pictures
which were chiefly engraved and printed in
the eighteenth century. Many of the designs were
printed on satin; some were devices in needlework;
again others were cut out in the most lace-like
designs. Theatrical celebrities were often pictured;
thus the theatrical amateur would buy his
watch paper representing the celebrated Miss
Gunning, or possibly Mr. Garrick. The pictures
were really gems, too, for great artists such as
Angelica Kaufmann, Cipriani, and Bartolozzi did
not disdain to engrave watch papers.</p>
<h3>Old Almanacs.</h3>
<p>Some of the best finds when libraries have been
overhauled have been the curious old almanacs published
when superstition was rife. The oldest, perhaps,
were the clog almanacs, although some were
common in Staffordshire until about 1820. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">{260}</a></span>
accompanying illustration (see Fig. <a href="#FIG_78">78</a>) was engraved
in an old book referring to that county published
more than a century ago. In Camden's <i>Britannia</i>
some information is given in reference to these early
clog almanacs, in which it is said holidays were distinguished
by hieroglyphics; in some the Massacre
of the Innocents was denoted by a drawn sword;
SS. Simon and Jude's Day by a ship, because they
were fishers; and St. George's Day by a horse. In
the Norway clog almanacs St. Martin's Day is
marked with a goose, the custom of eating a goose
now being transferred to Michaelmas. In the illustration
given in Fig. <a href="#FIG_78">78</a> the first section embraces
January, February, and March; the second, April,
May, and June; the third, July, August, and September;
and the fourth, October, November, and
December. Conspicuously inscribed on the clog will
be noticed the ring for New Year's Day; the star
denoting the Epiphany; the axe for St. Paul;
February 14th is indicated by a lover's knot; a spear
denotes St. George's Day in April; and May Day by
a tree branch. The keys of St. Peter are noticed as
indicating the 29th of June; the scales of St. Michael
are seen at the end of September. St. Catherine's
wheel figures in the middle of November, immediately
under it being the somewhat large cross of
St. Andrew. Other symbols will doubtless be recognized
on this interesting relic.</p>
<p>The study of the almanac is not now one of the
chief diversions of the fair sex. At one time,
however, when ladies had fewer amusements than
they have now, they spent much time poring over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">{261}</a></span>
almanacs, and placed implicit trust in what they
found recorded there, especially in the forecasts and
prognostications for the future of those born on
certain days and under so-called lucky or unlucky
stars. One of the most popular calendars of olden
time was "The Ladies' Diary or the Woman's
Almanac," containing many delightful and entertaining
particulars for the fair sex. Let us take,
for example, a copy of that popular almanac for
the year of grace 1749. On the cover there is a
picture of the Queen. Alluding to the peace then
prevailing are the lines:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"Perch'd o'er this Realm, the ancient seat of Kings,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Now dove-like peace the sprig of laurel brings;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">And British fair ones happy days shall see,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">While George shall reign, and Britons still are free."<br /></span>
</div></div>
<p>Another George is on the throne, and his consort
Queen Mary is an ideal woman, and what to many
is of the highest importance, Peace reigns in this
country and Britons are still free!</p>
<p>Among the contents of that curious almanac are
Latin and French enigmas, mathematical questions
and paradoxes. The concluding paragraph for the
dedication of that day is entitled "Truth's Moral
Euclid"; the proposition given being:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"Virtue promotes happiness, private and public.<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Vice is destructive of happiness, private and public.<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Honour is the reward of virtue."<br /></span>
</div></div>
<p>One of the finest collections of old almanacs is in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford—chiefly seventeenth-century
productions. A still older almanac was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">{262}</a></span>
"Poor Robin" of 1664; another seventeenth-century
almanac being the "Vox Stellarum" of Francis Moore,
a quack doctor. In 1733 Benjamin Franklin published
in Philadelphia his "Poor Richard's Almanac,"
noted for its verses, jests, and sayings. The monopoly
once possessed by the Stationers' Company has long
been broken down, and of later almanacs and
calendars there is no end. Among the miniature
books, the collection of which is much favoured now,
are some very tiny almanacs, like the beautiful
specimens of such a calendar given in Fig. <a href="#FIG_80">80</a>, produced
actual size, shown open and closed. This
miniature almanac is printed on satin and is full of
pleasing little pictures. It is the work of a French
artist early in the nineteenth century, the pictures
and their descriptions and the monthly calendars
occupying alternate pages. The binding is of mother-o'-pearl,
bound in ormolu and richly gilt and engraved.
Some similar calendars in tiny leather
bindings, beautifully tooled and ornamented in gold,
are also collectable.</p>
<h3>The Writing Table.</h3>
<p>The writing table usually occupies an honoured
place in the library. It may be a massive table of
oak or a simple writing desk venerated on account
of the great literary works which have been written
upon it. It is no uncommon thing to read of large
sums paid for a writing desk on which the manuscript
of a famous book has been penned, and some of the
writing tables upon which deeds of historical fame
have been signed have gained a reputation and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">{263}</a></span>
money value out of all proportion to their curio or
antiquarian merits. Not long ago the late King
Edward presented to the Commonwealth of Australia
the table on which the great Charter was signed,
together with the inkstand and pen used on that
occasion. Those will be relics for future generations
to value.</p>
<p>The table appointments are among the collectable
curios of the library, and prominent among these is
the inkstand. Inkstands find their prototypes in the
inkhorns of the scribe; and throughout the generations
which have provided curios for twentieth-century
collectors there have been fresh supplies in
silver, pewter, Sheffield plate, copper, bronze, iron,
wood, china, and brass. Very beautiful indeed are
some of the old inkstands in their separate vase-like
attachments. The ink-well was formerly accompanied
by a sand box or a pounce caster, in modern
days superseded by a second ink-well. The sand
casters for sprinkling pounce or sand upon newly
written pages were a necessity before the days of
blotting paper. Perhaps some day blotters, blotting
pads, and the like, may become collectable curios!</p>
<p>Collectors of old china are familiar with the rare
boxes, egg-cup-like in form, made by Richard
Chaffers, of Liverpool, the blue and white decoration,
the name of the potter in the narrowed portion of
the box being characteristic of what was for a long
time known as "Dick's Pepperbox." It was, however,
intended for a pounce box, the pounce or
pumice being a fine powder of the cuttle-fish bone,
afterwards giving the name to the pounce paper or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">{264}</a></span>
transparent tracing material. Of the inkstands to be
seen in our museums there are many dating from
almost prehistoric times; their variety may be instanced
by mention of one in the Berlin Museum,
an Egyptian curio said to be 3,400 years old, below
the ink compartments being a case for holding
reed pens.</p>
<p>In early days before even well-to-do people could
read and write the scribe found a ready occupation.
The materials he used were carried about in a writing
case of metal, and among such curios are writing
cases which were used in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. They were often the work of the craftsmen
of Mesopotamia, who were clever artists in
metal, and the work they performed came to Europe
through Syria. The example shown in Fig. <a href="#FIG_81">81</a> is
the work of Mahmud, the son of Sonkor, of Baghdad,
and is dated 1281. This beautiful specimen may
be seen in the British Museum.</p>
<p>The implements the scribe used changed as time
went on, for parchment was used quite early in the
East. Writing was introduced into Spain by the
Moors in the tenth century, although writing paper
was not made in England until the fifteenth century.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">{265}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_79" id="FIG_79"></a>
<img src="images/fig_79.jpg" width="400" height="182" alt="FIG. 79.—OLD COIN TESTER." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 79.—OLD COIN TESTER.</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_80" id="FIG_80"></a>
<img src="images/fig_80.jpg" width="400" height="208" alt="FIG. 80.—MINIATURE SOUVENIR ALMANAC." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 80.—MINIATURE SOUVENIR ALMANAC.</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="FIG_81" id="FIG_81"></a>
<img src="images/fig_81.jpg" width="500" height="177" alt="FIG. 81.—ANCIENT WRITING SET." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 81.—ANCIENT WRITING SET.</span>
</div>
<p>The evolution of the pen has been slow, for the
use of quills continues still in some Government
offices, and quills are still supplied to readers in the
British Museum Reading Room. The old-fashioned
quill pens were in days gone by shaped with a small
knife made specially for that purpose. Indeed, it is
to the quill pen that we are indebted for our "pen"
knives, which have long been put to other uses. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">{267}</a></span>
was not every one who was expert in cutting a pen
neatly and making it write well. Consequently an
instrument was made for that purpose, known as the
quill-pen cutter. These cutters are now and then
met with in old desks, where they have lain unused
for many years.</p>
<p>Quill-pen making was an important industry until
the invention of the steel pen, and the quality of the
quill was a matter of importance to the scribe. In
a trader's circular dated 1820 there is notice of
the Royal Appointment of a Liverpool maker, who
was authorized to exercise and enjoy all the rights,
profits, privileges, and advantages of his appointment
of Pen Cutter and Quill Dresser to His Majesty
King George IV. In the same circular it is stated
that the quill pens supplied were of varying qualities,
secured from the swan, raven, goose, turkey, crow,
and duck.</p>
<p>Sealing correspondence was a necessity before
gummed envelopes were invented. Then sealing-wax
was in daily use on the writing table, and the
signet ring or seal was requisitioned. The outfit of a
library table would scarcely be complete without wax,
wafer irons, and seals. One of the curios found now
and then in old desks is a little cutting instrument
useful in removing seals or opening letters which
had been sealed. In the days before penny postage
letters were sent carriage forward, and the postage
which had to be paid on the receipt of letters from
a distance was a heavy tax on those who had many
friends and much correspondence.</p>
<p>The penalty of being the recipient of much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">{268}</a></span>
correspondence may, perhaps, have been lightened
by the wording of the seal; for many old letter seals
conveyed sentimental messages which to the receiver
from that particular sender might have meant much.
The following is a selection of the characteristic
sentiments of the day: "Break the seal, read the
letter, and keep the secret"; "You have a loyal
friend"; and "Life is naught without a friend." We
cannot tell what was the result of sending a letter
bearing such a seal legend as:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"Mine is a heart that loveth thee;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">So, ladylove, do thou love me."<br /></span>
</div></div>
<p>Collectors' hobbies now and then are increased by
the introduction of something entirely new, something
never known before, and the world rejoices
over a genuine novelty. The cynic declares that
there is nothing new under the sun, but the introduction
of the penny postage in 1840, at the instigation
of Rowland Hill, laid the foundation to stamp
collecting, which has become the most popular of all
collectors' hobbies. The philatelist is found in every
civilized country, and the collection of postage
stamps, used and unused, grows apace. A bundle
of old letters in entire envelopes, posted forty or
fifty years ago from one of the British Colonies,
discovered when ransacking an old library, will
probably prove the most valuable relic of the past
found in it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">{269}</a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">XII<br />
<br />
THE SMOKER'S<br />
CABINET</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">{271}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII<br />
<br />
THE SMOKER'S CABINET</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Old pipes—Pipe racks—Tobacco boxes—Smokers' tongs and stoppers—Snuff
boxes and rasps.</p></div>
<p>The slave of the pipe and the moderate smoker
of years gone by have left behind them relics in
nearly every home. Such curios are found when
pulling down old houses, and clearing out rubbish
heaps; and even when making excavations in the
vicinity of once occupied ground remains left behind
by smokers of olden times are discovered.</p>
<p>Many are marked as curios on account of their
curious forms; others have been regarded as such
because their uses have become obsolete, and some
because of their great beauty and the costliness of
the materials of which they are made.</p>
<p>The collectable curios of the smoker's cabinet
consist of clay pipes, varying from the earliest form
known to the later types not far removed from the
modern clays still smoked by workmen; of pipes
of curious forms and quaintly carved bowls; and the
Eastern pipes, which look more like show pieces in
their size and forms than any pipe made for actual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">{272}</a></span>
use. The curios include tobacco jars, spill cups, and
ash trays; and there are also brass and copper
spittoons and pipe racks. An old smoker's desk often
contains odd curios, such as the one-time common
pipe-stoppers, so many of which were made by Birmingham
"toy-makers" in the eighteenth century.</p>
<h3>Old Pipes.</h3>
<p>When tobacco was first introduced into this
country, and smoking was taught to those whose
descendants in countless numbers were destined to
worship at the shrine of my Lady Nicotine on
British soil, the pipe was brought over too; for
tobacco and the tobacco pipe are inseparable,
although the pipe shares its popularity with cigars
and cigarettes.</p>
<p>There are few records of early experiments in the
modelling and baking of local clays by pipe makers;
it was, however, soon discovered that Broseley clay
was most suitable for the tobacco pipe, and there are
pipes known to have been made at Broseley in the
seventeenth century. The flat heels of the early
pipes were useful in that pipes could then be laid
down on the table. Then in the reign of James II
an advance was made by the spur-like projection of
the bowl, which was found to be convenient for the
purpose of branding with the initials of the maker
or his trade mark, and there are many examples of
old marks, some of which are very curious, a
not uncommon form being a punning rebus on the
maker's name; thus we have a gauntlet, used by a
man named Gauntlet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">{273}</a></span></p>
<p>The earlier forms of clay pipes gradually gave way
to the long-stemmed "churchwardens," which in
course of time were again superseded by pipes
with short stems. The meerschaum in its day had
many followers, and some of the curiosities of the
smoker's cabinet (the term "cabinet" is used here in
a figurative rather than a realistic sense) are those
elaborately carved specimens of meerschaum, that
remarkably light material that lends itself so well
to the carver's art.</p>
<h3>Pipe Racks.</h3>
<p>There appear to have been two distinct forms of
racks—those used for cleaning or rebaking clay pipes,
and the racks on which they were stored. The pipe
rack was originally a wrought-iron frame upon which
dirty clay pipes were stoved in a brick oven and
restored to their original freshness. The stoving of
pipes was a common practice not only in taverns and
public clubs but in private houses in the days when
long clay pipes were served to the guests, and a
bowl of punch was placed before them—it was thus
that convivial spirits enjoyed themselves in time
gone by.</p>
<p>Now and then these old pipe racks are met with in
some outhouse or attic, but they are getting very
scarce, for most of them appear to have found their
way into the scrap heap of the old-metal dealer.
Some of the racks intended for the storage of pipes
and not for baking them were exceedingly decorative,
the ornamental sides terminating with acorn
knobs made of cast lead.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">{274}</a></span></p>
<h3>Tobacco Boxes.</h3>
<p>It seems natural to suppose that the need of a
suitable receptacle for tobacco would early be felt.
Many of the old tobacco boxes—those for storage
purposes—were made of lead or pewter. Lead was
found to be cool and was also used as an appropriate
lining for boxes made of other materials. Jars soon
came into vogue, and there are quite ancient
specimens, especially the old japanned boxes, ornamented
with figures in gilt.</p>
<p>There is, of course, a vast difference between the
storage jar and the smaller box carried about by the
smoker much in the same way as the pouch is now
used. Many still prefer metal to other materials,
and it is no uncommon thing to see brass and steel
boxes in use in industrial districts. Few, however,
excepting modern replicas of the antique, are
decorated in the way the old Dutch tobacco boxes
of brass were in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. It is not very clear why so many of
them were engraved with scriptural subjects, for
there does not appear to be much connection
between biblical history and the pipe! Engravings
of scenes depicting Noah and the Flood are common,
the incongruity of the clothing shown being often
commented upon; one writer upon the subject
referred to the engravings on one of these tobacco
boxes as being ornamented with Jewish characters
wearing knee breeches of English type, talking to
Dutch frauen. Historical portraits are not uncommonly
met with on these quaint boxes, and quite a
number of battle scenes have been engraved. Such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">{275}</a></span>
metal work has been gathered together in several
museums, and in the British Museum there is a
fine collection of various shapes, some oval, others
long and narrow, and some almost square. The
brass tobacco box illustrated in Fig. <a href="#FIG_83">83</a> has a
medallion portrait of Frederick the Great in the
centre, such embossed subjects being very popular
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, both
in England and in Holland, although Dutch artists
gave preference to scriptural subjects, many fine
examples of which are to be seen in our museums.
Fortunately there are many really curious specimens
obtainable at a moderate cost.</p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_82" id="FIG_82"></a>
<img src="images/fig_82.jpg" width="400" height="409" alt="FIG. 82.—THREE CURIOUS PIPE-STOPPERS." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 82.—THREE CURIOUS PIPE-STOPPERS.</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="FIG_83" id="FIG_83"></a>
<img src="images/fig_83.jpg" width="500" height="198" alt="FIG. 83.—BRASS TOBACCO BOX.
(In the British Museum.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 83.—BRASS TOBACCO BOX.
<br />
(<i>In the British Museum.</i>)</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">{277}</a></span>
</div>
<h3>Smokers' Tongs and Stoppers.</h3>
<p>Curious little ember tongs were formerly used by
smokers for taking up hot embers or ashes with
which to light their pipes. Of these there are several
varieties, most of them of polished steel, cut and
chased. In the eighteenth century similar tongs
were used for holding cigars; some were fitted
with small knives, and a few of the earlier examples
included tinder boxes. Not infrequently one end of
the handle terminated in a tobacco stopper.</p>
<p>Stoppers, were, however, destined soon to become
an independent and important smokers' accessory.
They were made of different materials, including
brass, steel, bone, and ivory, to some being added a
pick for clearing out the bowl of a pipe. Many
curious handles were modelled, among the varieties
being some representing soldiers in armour of the
time of James I. There is one favourite type repre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">{278}</a></span>senting
Charles I, crowned, and wearing the collar of
the Garter, and another a bust of Oliver Cromwell.
In one example a farm labourer works a flail, in
another a milkmaid goes a-milking with her pail.
There are many varieties of a hand holding a pipe,
of jockeys and prize-fighters, and of St. George
and the Dragon.</p>
<p>The three stoppers illustrated in Fig. <a href="#FIG_82">82</a> are quite
exceptional specimens, illustrating, however, the kind
of stopper which collectors should keep a keen look
out for. These examples are in the British Museum
along with a few others of seventeenth and eighteenth-century
manufacture, having striking characteristics.
One is described as having a human figure at the
butt, and at the other end a crowned head. The
third example is an historic souvenir, having been
made, as the inscription on the stopper indicates,
from the royal oak which sheltered Charles II, by
Mr. George Plaxton, at one time "parson of the
parish."</p>
<p>In the Taunton Castle Museum there is an exceptionally
beautiful stopper made of ivory inscribed:—</p>
<p>
<span class="smcap lowercase" style="margin-left: 2em;">"NOW . MAN . WITH . MAN . IS . SO . VNJVST .<br /></span>
<span class="smcap lowercase" style="margin-left: 2em;">THAT . ONE . CAN . SCARCE . TELL . WHO . TO . TRVST</span>."<br />
</p>
<p>There are similar stoppers in private collections.
The inscription on one at South Petherton reads:—</p>
<p>
<span class="smcap lowercase" style="margin-left: 2em;">"THE . FAYREST . MAYD . THAT . DID . BAYR . LIFE .<br /></span>
<span class="smcap lowercase" style="margin-left: 2em;">FOR . LOVE . TO . MAN . BECAME . A . WIFE."</span><br />
<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">{279}</a></span></p>
<h3>Snuff Boxes and Rasps.</h3>
<p>Snuff-taking has been a habit associated with
smoking tobacco from quite early days. The
preparation of snuff was formerly achieved at home,
and consequently there sprang up the need of rasps,
which were frequently carried about in the pocket,
many of the cases being very ornamental. They
varied in size, but the rasp cases usually held a plug
or twist of tobacco from which the snuff was made.</p>
<p>There are several fine old snuff rasps in the Victoria
and Albert Museum, one large rasp measuring 15 in.
in length; its case, which is of walnut and extremely
decorative, is attributed to a Dutch carver
who executed it in the second half of the seventeenth
century. There is also a small iron rasp in a case of
teak wood, which is inlaid with rosewood, ivory, and
tortoiseshell, the rasp measuring about 8 in. in
length. An eighteenth-century French rasp of boxwood
is carved in low relief; on one side a pair of
doves is represented, under the picture being the
legend, "<i>Unis jusqu'a la mort</i>." On the other side
there is a man blowing a horn with the legend, "<i>La
fidelite est perdue</i>," around which is a rope-like frame
supporting two cornucopiæ. Another curious variety
of snuff rasp is made to run on wheels. When snuff-making
became an established trade, and the need
for snuff rasps to be carried was not so great, the
decoration of snuff boxes became more ornate.</p>
<p>It was in the days of Queen Anne that the height
of the glory of the snuffer was reached; it was, however,
during the reigns of the Georges that so many
beautiful boxes were made. There were boxes carved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">{280}</a></span>
out of a piece of wood, others of bone, papier-maché,
and metal; indeed, all the metals seem to have been
used, for among the curiosities of old snuff boxes are
those made of iron, copper, brass, silver, and gold.
Some of the more costly were enriched with diamonds
and precious stones, and with tiny miniature paintings
and beautiful Wedgwood cameos.</p>
<p>In the days when snuff-taking was a commoner
practice than it is now, the ornamental snuff box
was the chosen gift to men of fame. Kings, princes,
and the nobility received gold and jewelled snuff
boxes on occasions when in more modern days
they would have been given a scroll of vellum in
a golden casket.</p>
<p>Many provincial museums contain excellent collections
of smokers' requisites. In the handbook of
Welsh antiquities published in connection with the
National Museum of Wales, in Cardiff, there are
allusions to several interesting specimens, the writer
of the guide quoting some lines penned by a sixteenth-century
poet, who extolled tobacco thus:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"Tobacco engages<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Both sexes, all ages—<br /></span>
<span class="i0">The poor as well as the wealthy;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">From the Court to the cottage,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">From childhood to dotage,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Both those that are sick and the healthy."<br /></span>
<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">{281}</a></span></div></div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">XIII<br />
<br />
LOVE TOKENS<br />
AND<br />
LUCKY EMBLEMS</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">{283}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII<br />
<br />
LOVE TOKENS AND LUCKY EMBLEMS</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Amulets—Horse trappings—Emblems of luck—Lovespoons—Glass
curios.</p></div>
<p>The collector rarely troubles about attempting to
solve matters of dispute, and cares little to enter into
argumentative discussions in reference to the supposed
purposes of the curios he collects, or the
different uses with which they have been associated.
He does not inquire too deeply into the faiths and
beliefs which may have been held and revered by his
ancestors when he puts in his cabinet some curiosity
which may have been regarded almost with reverential
feelings and handled with superstitious regard by its
original possessor. The more thoughtful man does,
however, pay some tribute to their early associations.
Our museums are filled with such relics, with delightfully
carved reliquaries, triptychs, and marvellously
carved beads which in their religious use as rosaries
have been looked upon as something more than mere
specimens of the carver's art. There are mysteries
in beliefs which have been held dear in the past
which are not understood by succeeding generations.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">{284}</a></span></p>
<p>It is difficult to understand in the present day
the deep-seated faith in amulets and charms, which
were thought to have brought about what would
now be regarded as curious coincidences, or to
place reliance upon the babbling utterances of some
old crone who posed as a witch or a fortune-teller.
Yet among such old-world stories there are germs
of truth although misapplied. The emblems, amulets,
and charms so implicitly believed in a few
centuries ago are objects numbered among collectable
curios, valued even in this prosaic age not
only for their intrinsic worth and antiquarian interest,
but for the so-called magic influences they were
supposed to possess.</p>
<p>There is something more understandable about
love tokens, for we can tell their purpose, and indeed
to-day, stripped of the charm which was often supposed
to go with them, love tokens are given, received,
and valued just as much as they were in the past.</p>
<h3>Amulets.</h3>
<p>The amulet, which in its realistic form is regarded
as an antiquity to be preserved with care, was usually
regarded either as a charm against disease, accident,
or misfortune, or as something the possession of which
would bring good luck. The efficacy of amulets was
believed in by the most cultured and scientific peoples
in the past, for it was an article of belief in Egypt
and Chaldea. The Jews had regard for their phylacteries,
and the Greeks and Romans had their amulets.
The image of Thor was an amulet peculiar to the old
Norsemen; and in Britain we have had many examples.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">{285}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_84" id="FIG_84"></a>
<img src="images/fig_84.jpg" width="400" height="625" alt="FIG. 84.—COLLECTION OF HARNESS AMULETS AND TEAM BELLS.
(In the possession of Mr. Charles Wayte, of Edenbridge.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 84.—COLLECTION OF HARNESS AMULETS AND TEAM BELLS.
<br />
(<i>In the possession of Mr. Charles Wayte, of Edenbridge.</i>)</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">{287}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286"></a></span></p>
<p>Although not necessarily objects to be worn, no
doubt charms usually took the form of something
which could be suspended, for the origin of the word
coming to us through the Latin has been traced to
an Arabic word, signifying a pendant. In the early
Christian Church the fish was worn as a symbol or
charm, and in many parts of rural England to-day
amulets are kept, and even charms, as preventives
against disease. Men and women buy so-called
amulets from the jewellers' shops at the present time,
and wear them on their watch chains or bangles, and
round their necks; but the faith reposed in such
charms by the educated classes in this country may
be dismissed as a myth, for few really understand
their true significance, or place any real reliance
upon such fanciful relics of a former age—an age
of superstition, when people blindly clutched at any
mysterious protective power or emblem.</p>
<h3>Horse Trappings.</h3>
<p>Among the commoner emblems of good luck
handed down from the far-off past, are the brass
amulets worn on horse trappings even to-day. A
set of brasses consists of a face brass, taking chief
place of prominence on the horse's forehead; two
ear brasses, which are seen behind the ears; ten
martingale brasses, worn on the breast; and three
brasses suspended from straps on each of the
shoulders. These amulets were primarily worn to
keep off the "evil eye," and thus protect the horse
and its rider or its owner from calamity and harm.
The brasses were varied in design, some of the more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">{288}</a></span>
important being developments of the crescent moon.
Some were made to imitate the sun with its pointed
rays, others the Catherine wheel; the Kentish horse,
too, a relic of Saxon days, has been frequently used,
and there is the lotus flower of Egyptian origin.
There are Moorish and Buddhist symbols, and many
curious developments which have gone far astray
from their original types. The agriculturist is still
superstitious, and does not like to lessen the number
of these somewhat weighty brasses suspended
from his horse trappings. For purposes of utility
they are useless; they remain, however, a connecting
link with the superstitions of the past, and a collection
of such curious objects is of extreme interest.
In Fig. <a href="#FIG_84">84</a> is shown an exceptionally fine collection
got together by Mr. Wayte, of Edenbridge, who
collects many such things.</p>
<h3>Emblems of Luck.</h3>
<p>There seems to be a distinctive difference between
the amulets which were protectors against harm and
those which are emblems of good fortune. Perhaps
hovering between the two may be classed such
curios as those which tradition has held to be a
preservative of luck, like "the Luck of Eden Hall,"
that wonderful goblet preserved with such great
care in its charming case of <i>cour boulli</i>. In this
category are the numerous gifts from friend to
friend having no special emblematic value, but which
were frequently handed over with such sayings as:
"I give you this for luck," and "May good luck go
with you." The wish and implied virtue in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">{289}</a></span>
charm has about as much value in it as the wish
playfully and unbelievingly uttered by the twentieth-century
maiden at the wishing well to-day.</p>
<p>There is still, however, an undeniable lingering
belief in the mysterious value in the possession of an
emblem of luck, one of the best known and commonly
used to-day being the horseshoe, preferably,
according to old tradition, a cast shoe found and
nailed up over the doorway or in some prominent
place. It is generally believed that the horseshoe
carries with it good luck on account of its form,
which resembles the crescent moon, a notorious
symbol in the days of the Crusaders, already
referred to as being an important feature in the
amulets or charms on horse trappings—such is the
curious mixture of scepticism and superstitious faith
met with to-day!</p>
<h3>Lovespoons.</h3>
<p>The collection of Welsh lovespoons in the
National Museum of Wales, several of which are
illustrated in Fig. <a href="#FIG_85">85</a>, is quite unique. Dr. Hoyle,
the Director of the Museum, in his admirable description
of the case in which these pretty little objects
are shown, explains that they are arranged to show
the evolution of the lovespoon from the normal
spoon. Such lovespoons might, a few years ago,
have been seen in many Welsh homes, where they
hung as things of ornament and sentiment, for it is
said they were given in "spooning" days to the girl of
his choice by the lover. The handle is of course the
appropriate field of decoration, the double bowl being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">{290}</a></span>
symbolic of "We two are one." The dated spoons
were mostly made in the middle of the eighteenth
century.</p>
<h3>Glass Curios.</h3>
<p>Some of the most pleasing love tokens are those
made at Nailsea in Somerset, and in Sunderland.
The commoner kinds, chiefly made at the latter place,
were known as sailors' love tokens. They took the
form of rolling-pins, which were evidently intended
for ornament and not for use. A bow of ribbon was
tied round the end of the pin by which the roller
could be hung up. These glass rolling-pins were
covered over with sentimental mottoes, generally
accompanied by a ship, a typical feature of the
decorations commonly used. Some of these little
mementoes given away by sailors were of white
semi-opaque glass, others were brilliantly coloured.</p>
<p>Nailsea glass works were noted for the Italian
influence shown in the colour effects produced in
them. Among other objects made at those famous
glass works were flasks and bottles for wines and
spirits in greens, browns, and blues, to which were
added in smaller quantities red and yellow. Other
trinkets of an ornamental character were glass
tobacco pipes, bells, and coach horns. There were
also Nailsea walking sticks made of twisted glass,
and many curious cups. Most of these were given
for luck, especially as love tokens when sailors were
about to set out on a voyage, the superstition
attached to the gift being that if the glass pin were
broken it was a sign that the vessel in which the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">{291}</a></span>
giver had sailed had been wrecked. Hence it was
that a ribbon was securely attached, and the gift
hung up out of harm's reach.</p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"><a name="FIG_85" id="FIG_85"></a>
<img src="images/fig_85.jpg" width="300" height="611" alt="FIG. 85.—OLD WELSH LOVE SPOONS.
(In the National Museum of Wales.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 85.—OLD WELSH LOVE SPOONS.
<br />
(<i>In the National Museum of Wales.</i>)</span>
</div>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">{293}</a></span>In association with glass rolling-pins and other
love tokens there are many sundry curios which from
the mottoes upon them were evidently given with a
similar purpose. Even objects of metal and brass
were frequently inscribed with loving reminders of the
donor. The pleasing little trinket and patch boxes
of enamels and glass, referred to in another chapter,
were given from sentimental motives as evidenced
by their inscriptions. Covers of pocket books and
tobacco pouches were covered over with similar
legends, like a delightful beadwork tobacco pouch in
the Taunton Castle Museum, on which is the motto
or sentiment, "<span class="smcap lowercase">LOVE ME FOR I AM THINE</span>, 1631,"
wrought by a seventeenth-century needleworker.</p>
<p>Similar mottoes are found on the little pincushions
formerly carried in the capacious pockets of women
of olden time, sometimes wrought in needlework
and at others in beads.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">{295}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">XIV<br />
<br />
THE<br />
MARKING<br />
OF<br />
TIME</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">{297}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV<br />
<br />
THE MARKING OF TIME</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Clocks—Watches—Watch keys—Watch stands.</p></div>
<p>The early marking of time was simple enough, for
we are told that the Arabs, by driving a spear or
a staff into the sand of the desert, told the time of
day. The shadow of the sun roughly gave those
who were familiar with astronomy the lay of the
land and the time, approximately. When the dial
and the gnomon were understood, dialling became
a popular science, and ere long the sundial on the
church tower, in a public place, or in a private garden,
told the time. Then came the marking of time by
pocket dials—an advance which foreshadowed the
watch which was to come.</p>
<p>The pocket dial was soon followed by mechanical
clocks, the clock watch, and the more delicate
work of the watchmaker. The watch has become
more accurate in its marking of time by the introduction
of machinery in its manufacture; and it is
cheapened by competition, so that now every one
for a mere trifle can carry in his pocket a watch
by means of which he can tell accurately the hour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">{298}</a></span>
of day, as Shakespeare has it in "As You Like
It":—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"And then he drew a dial from his poke;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">And looking on it with lack-lustre eye,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Says, very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags.'"<br /></span>
</div></div>
<p>Some further references to the sundial will be found
in Chapter <a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII</a>, the sundial being one of the
accompaniments of the old-world garden.</p>
<h3>Clocks.</h3>
<p>In "Chats on Old Copper and Brass" some mention
is made of old clocks, and of the watch which
grew in beauty and fineness of workmanship as it
evolved from the watch-clock and the still earlier
lantern and other old clocks, which were gradually
introduced to supersede or supplement the earlier
sundials. Very remarkable indeed are some of these
household curios. The very movement of the
clock, with its pendulum swinging to and fro and
the loud tick which can be heard all over the room,
gives a sort of venerated respect for the "grandfather,"
with its massive and often richly carved
or inlaid oaken or mahogany case, making it an
important piece of furniture in the room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">{299}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_86" id="FIG_86"></a>
<img src="images/fig_86.jpg" width="400" height="579" alt="FIG. 86.—FINE GOTHIC FRENCH CLOCK.
(In the collection of W. Egan & Sons, Ltd., Cork.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 86.—FINE GOTHIC FRENCH CLOCK.
<br />
(<i>In the collection of W. Egan & Sons, Ltd., Cork.</i>)</span>
</div>
<p>The Cromwellian lantern clock was beautiful in
its way, and it may be regarded as the earliest
type of commonly used domestic clocks, most of
which were made at a later period than is denoted
by the name of Cromwellian. They are, however,
of a good respectable age, and are now really valuable
household antiquities. The lantern clock may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">{301}</a></span>
be regarded as the ancestor of the "grandfather," the
works of which were protected by a wooden case.
The evolution from the earlier type is quite easy
to follow, for the wooden hood to protect the clock
on the bracket shelf was added; then came the
framed head, which was glazed, and eventually the
lower case covering the weights.</p>
<p>Much has been written about "grandfathers" and
the smaller variety commonly designated "grandmothers."
The dials of the earlier specimens are
of brass and have only the hour hand, an onward
step being marked when the minute finger was
added. The mechanical arrangement by which the
days of the week and the month were indicated was
a happy addition, although some would, doubtless,
regard them as somewhat unnecessary. The collector
of antiques is likely to be imposed upon unless
he is acquainted with the technical construction of
both works and frame or case, for it is not an
uncommon thing to fit in a modern antique case a
set of old works.</p>
<p>The timepiece is an innovation of comparatively
recent days. From the first it became the central
ornament on the mantelpiece, and many artists were
employed in providing suitable designs and combining
various materials to produce clocks in keeping
with prevailing styles of furniture and decoration.
The French clockmakers became experts as designers
of the smaller and more varied cases of
mantelpiece clocks, many fine examples of the
Empire period ranking as art treasures as well as
curios.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">{302}</a></span></p>
<p>Fig. <a href="#FIG_86">86</a> represents an exceptionally fine example
of a Gothic French clock, beautifully modelled, and
in excellent condition. Some of the gilt clocks and
side vases to match were bought as mantelpiece
ornaments, rather than for their merit as timekeepers,
although the best makers always put in
reliable works—there were no such works as those
made by machinery and sold so cheaply to-day!</p>
<p>The timepieces of early Victorian days are scarcely
antiques, and few of them are treasured as such,
although undoubtedly curious.</p>
<h3>Watches.</h3>
<p>The first step towards watches as we understand
them was the manufacture of pocket clocks (many
of which show Dutch influence in design), some of
the cases of which were very beautiful. The watches
which followed in due course were at first without
glasses, and for the better protection of the works
and of the delicate engravings and ornamentation
of the backs and dials loose cases of metal or
shagreen were made. Some of them were highly
ornamental, little studs of gold or silver being
arranged in geometrical and floral patterns on the
exteriors. Two very pretty examples of such cases
are shown in Fig. <a href="#FIG_88">88</a>.</p>
<p>Many of the watch backs were chased and perforated
and beautifully enamelled; the dials were
covered with painted miniatures, and gold watches
were enriched with jewels. From Switzerland and
Nuremberg come many choice examples; but there
were clever watchmakers in England too, among<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">{303}</a></span>
them John Stevens, of Colchester, a sixteenth-century
watchmaker noted for his pierced and engraved
brass-gilt cases.</p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_87" id="FIG_87"></a>
<img src="images/fig_87.jpg" width="400" height="301" alt="FIG. 87—SPECIMENS OF OLD WATCH KEYS." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 87—SPECIMENS OF OLD WATCH KEYS.</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_88" id="FIG_88"></a>
<img src="images/fig_88.jpg" width="400" height="251" alt="FIG. 88.—TWO ANTIQUE WATCH CASES." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 88.—TWO ANTIQUE WATCH CASES.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">{305}</a></span>
</div>
<p>Classical figures and designs showing Dutch influence
became popular late in the seventeenth century;
then fashions changed, and the Court of the Emperors
of France exercised an influence over art in this and
other countries, and watch cases and other lesser
objects were made more or less in harmony. At
one time curiously shaped cases were the fashion;
at another octagonal watches, such as were made
in the seventeenth century by Edmund Bull, of
Fleet Street, who is said to have made an elliptic
silver watch engraved all over with minute scriptural
subjects.</p>
<p>The collection of watches is a hobby indulged in
by but few; there are, however, many single examples
included in household curios, and not
infrequently several handsomely engraved old watch
cases are seen exhibited in the modern glass-topped
curio tables so fashionable in twentieth-century drawing-rooms—now
and then the interest in them being
increased by the musical bells of the repeaters, many
of which were made a century or more ago.</p>
<h3>Watch Keys.</h3>
<p>Keyless watches have been invented within the
memory of most of us; it is obvious, therefore,
that old watches were supplied with old keys, many
of which were curious in form. The collector in
search of a small group of collectable curios finds
the watch key an excellent variety on which to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">{306}</a></span>
specialize. When larger clocks were supplemented
by the pocket watch, the loose key with which to
wind it up naturally took the form of the larger
clock keys. Such keys soon became more ornamental,
for they were either carried in the pocket
or attached to a chatelaine or bunch of keys; many
of the bows were modelled on the pattern of other
keys on the bunch.</p>
<p>In the accompanying illustration, Fig. <a href="#FIG_87">87</a>, some
little idea may be formed of the early developments.
The three keys in the upper row are of the clock-winder
type, showing the gradual improvement in
their formation. Then came a development of the
metal keys, mostly of brass, the engraving and
modelling of the key itself being improved, the ornamentation
being supplemented by enamelling. The
watch key ultimately became very ornate, for the
more precious metals were gradually introduced, and
rich enamels, rare gems and stones, and Wedgwood
cameos were added.</p>
<p>Pinchbeck metal was very much used for watch
keys, the fob seals remaining in fashion until knee
breeches went out. Some of the French keys are
extremely decorative, and many cut and polished
steel keys are worth collecting. It is said that
Switzerland is one of the happy hunting-grounds
of the watch-key collector, but there are many
curio shops, both on the Continent and in this
country, where fancy keys can be bought still at
reasonable prices. In some localities special designs
and metal have been made. Thus it is said that
in Holland the silver keys of large size were long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">{307}</a></span>
favoured, and many of these are still on sale.
Another special feature about these curios is that
makers at one time specialized on trade emblems,
and it is quite possible to get together an interesting
collection representing the attributes of musicians,
butchers, bakers, and horticulturists, one signifying
the latter industry being shown in Fig. <a href="#FIG_87">87</a>, that on
the left-hand corner of the lower row being fashioned
in the form of a spade and a rake.</p>
<h3>Watch Stands.</h3>
<p>There are some very quaint old wood watch stands
used chiefly as the temporary home of the watch at
night, although some seem to have been permanently
used by those who possessed a second watch. Some
of the wood carvings were covered with old gilt;
others were relieved in colours. Some were classic
in design; others were like the little French clocks
of the Empire period. Some were shaped like
musical instruments, and others of more elaborate
forms of decoration represent Mercury and Hercules
supporting the watch stand. Some of the most
beautiful are made of French lacquer and ornamented
in the Vernis Martin style. To these may
be added watch stands of marble, and curious inlays,
of papier-maché and japanned wares, and some of
brass and bronze.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">{309}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">XV<br />
<br />
MUSICAL<br />
INSTRUMENTS</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">{311}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV<br />
<br />
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Early examples—Whistles and pipes—Violins and harps.</p></div>
<p>There are few homes without some old musical
instruments, indicating that at one time or other
one or more members of the family have been
musical. There is a sadness about the discovery
of a long-neglected instrument, telling of the
breaking up of the old home or of an absent one
whose instrument has been cherished in memory
of happy moments when harmonious sounds and
beautiful music were drawn from the now long-neglected
piano, harp, or violin. To its owner a
simple flute or bugle is probably of as much value
as an old piano, although the more important instrument
may be more valuable as a curio and antique.
There are some old instruments which increase in
value, such, for instance, as violins made years ago
by masters of constructional art, for they have
become mellow with age, and, like the bells of
some old parish church, now give out rich and yet
soft notes when handled by a master hand. The
story of the development of the piano from the very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">{312}</a></span>
early prototypes is an enchanting theme to the lover
of music, for there is a far remove from the modern
pianoforte, and still newer player piano to the virginal,
harpsichord, and spinet which may occasionally
be found among the curios of the household.</p>
<h3>Early Examples.</h3>
<p>In the eleventh century, when musical notation
came into being, a monochord was used to teach
singing. The clavichord followed in due course,
and by a rapid process of development regals,
organs, and virginals evolved. The virginal, although
distinct, was associated with the spinet,
which with the later harpsichord may be found in
houses which have been but little disturbed since
the middle of the eighteenth century. It was in
that century that the piano came, but not until it
was well advanced, for in an old playbill of Covent
Garden Theatre, published in 1767, it was announced
that "Miss Brickler will sing a favourite song from
<i>Judith</i>, accompanied by Mr. Dibdin on a new instrument
called the piano forte." Of such instruments
and of earlier types there are many fine examples in
the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington,
in the Royal Scottish Museum, and in the Crosby-Brown
Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art in New York City. In Fig. <a href="#FIG_89">89</a> is seen a beautiful
spinet in excellent condition.</p>
<h3>Whistles and Pipes.</h3>
<p>It is said by the exponents of artistic furnishing
and decoration that no home can be complete with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">{313}</a></span>out
music, for it gives an atmosphere of art which
nothing else can impart; and certainly a collection
of household curios cannot be complete without some
musical instrument, although but a humble example.
It may be a moot point among collectors whether
the insignificant whistle or primitive call can be
regarded as sufficiently musical to rank in this
category. It is certain, however, that it is one of
the commonest of sound producers; if there is a boy
in the home there is almost sure to be a whistle in
the house. Few trouble about the scientific explanation
of the sound produced by this common instrument,
but experts tell us that the sound comes
because condensations occur by the collision of air
against the cutting edge placed in its path. Of
antique whistles there are many types, those shown
in Fig. <a href="#FIG_90">90</a> being the most frequently met with.
The one marked "D" is said to be an attempt
to increase the volume of sound by the extension
of a cutting edge. A double sound is produced
by that marked "F," whereas "A" is of the more
familiar type, the example illustrated being an ivory
whistle used upwards of a hundred years ago.</p>
<p>From the whistle came the tin pipe capable of
producing tunes in the hands of a skilful player.
The whistle and pipe were in olden times associated
with coaching days and inns. At one time it was
customary for a whistle to be attached to the handles
of spoons used on inn tables. Thirsty travellers blew
the whistle when refreshment was required, and from
that custom we get the common expression, "You
may whistle for it." The horn, too, was a favourite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">{314}</a></span>
instrument, and very necessary in days gone by,
when it served many useful purposes.</p>
<p>The horn is probably the most ancient of all wind
instruments. It was used at the Jewish feast of the
Atonement, and the Romans used it for signalling
purposes, their infantry carrying circular bronze
horns. There is an interesting popular fable that
horns were first introduced into Western Europe
by the Crusaders; but that is incorrect, in that
bronze horns have been found in prehistoric barrows.
The horn was commonly used for summoning the
folk mote in Saxon times, and in quite early days
horns sounded in English homes on the arrival of
guests. The hunting horn was found in every house
of importance in mediæval times, and in the sixteenth
century it had become semicircular. Great
composers testify to the value of the horn in instrumental
music, Handel and Mozart writing pieces
specially adapted for its use.</p>
<p>Some very quaint old flutes are found among
household instruments, the origin of the primitive
pipe or flute being lost in the mists of antiquity.
Among household curios old flutes beautifully inlaid
stowed away in antique leather cases are interesting
relics of former days.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316"></a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">{315}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="FIG_89" id="FIG_89"></a>
<img src="images/fig_89.jpg" width="500" height="351" alt="FIG. 89. OLD SPINET.
(In the collection of Mr. Phillips, of Hitchin.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 89. OLD SPINET.
<br />
(<i>In the collection of Mr. Phillips, of Hitchin.</i>)</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">{317}</a></span>
</div>
<h3>Violins and Harps.</h3>
<p>To many the chief charm of old instruments is
found in the delicious tones and notes produced by
an old violin, which, if the work of a well-known
maker, commands a fancy price; among the most
valuable being an authentic Stradivarius. Many
old English violins were made in Soho in the
eighteenth century, for that was the centre of the
trade, although in still earlier days violin makers
worked in Piccadilly. In Soho, too, horns, trumpets,
drums, and guitars were made. The guitar, but in
slightly altered form, was the popular home instrument
played upon by Greek and Roman maidens.
Many of the earlier European lutes were in reality
guitars. Some beautifully inlaid specimens are
occasionally met with. Of these there are many
varieties in the Victoria and Albert Museum; among
them there is a guitar lyre, on which is a mask of
Apollo, an exact imitation of the lyre of the Ancients,
which was formerly used by a member of the Prince
Regent's Band at the Royal Aquarium, Brighton.</p>
<p>There is one other instrument which ranks high
among the musical instruments of olden time found
in British homes. It is the harp, heard to perfection
in the drawing-room and the concert hall—an instrument
upon which such beautiful melodies can be produced.
There are many pretty legends about the
harp heard with such delight and yet superstitious
awe by the Vikings, who, on their return from
Britain, told of the mysterious shores where mermaids
of great beauty were said to rise from the
seas, and, sitting upon the foam-lashed rocks, played
upon their harps music of sweetest sound. American
collectors to-day pay large sums for genuine Irish
harps, which differ somewhat in size and form from
those upon which Welsh maidens played. There
are still a few such ancient instruments to be met
with in Ireland and Wales.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">{318}</a></span></p>
<p>Of minor instruments there is not much to say—all
are intensely interesting when they carry with
them memories of former owners, for they are
veritable mementoes of home amusements, pleasures,
and delights.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">{319}</a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">XVI<br />
<br />
PLAY<br />
AND<br />
SPORT</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">{321}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI<br />
<br />
PLAY AND SPORT</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Dolls—Toys—Old games—Outdoor amusements—Relics of sport.</p></div>
<p>It would appear that there have been amusements
at all periods of the world's history, and that everywhere
work and play have gone hand in hand
together. The occupations of the nursery have been
an intermixture of lessons and play; amusements,
although not always of an elevating or educative
character, have for the most part tended to develop
and form the mind, as well as strengthen the body.
Recreation has played an important part in the
upbringing of child and man, and when absent the
advance has been retarded. The youth of all ages
has found time for games and sports, which have
enlivened the duties of manhood and womanhood by
physical and mental pleasures. Even as age creeps
on, men and women lessen the monotony of daily
toil by indulging in indoor games and outside sports,
suitable to their age and inclinations. As few games
can be played or sport engaged in without accessories,
it is not surprising that many relics of the play and
sport of past generations are to be met with.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">{322}</a></span></p>
<p>Some of the appliances and apparatus which were
acquired in the pursuit of these pleasures have become
of antiquarian value, for many of them are
curious and represent amusements almost forgotten.
Others tell of the steady survival of the oldest games
and amusements, but show the developments and
alterations which have gone on in the methods of
playing or in the appliances which have been invented
to enhance the interest in those delights.
These changes are seen more especially in sports
and games of skill. As an instance, we may take
one of the great manly sports, that of hunting game,
a custom surviving from days when this England of
ours was a wild and uncultivated forest and swamp,
full of strange birds and many wild animals roamed
therein. The flint-pointed arrow of primitive man
was but the beginning in the evolution of arms.
In the relics of these former plays and sports there
is much to admire, and many objects to collect.</p>
<p>There is something very pathetic about the household
relics of the playroom and the nursery. Many
little articles of clothing and valueless toys and
trinkets are retained by a fond mother years after
her offspring has grown up. They remind her of
her early married life, and very often of children
who have played in the nursery but who never lived
to grow up. These pathetic relics have been carefully
preserved for at least one generation. Then
their associations have been forgotten, and those
into whose hands they fall probably know nothing
of their origin; to them they are merely curios. A
sympathetic feeling may have induced a new owner
to retain them for a little while longer, although
of no great intrinsic value; but oftener than not
they have been kept as connecting links between
the old and the new, and thus they have been
handed on until their age alone would make them
collectable curios in this day of reverence for all
things old!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">{323}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_90" id="FIG_90"></a>
<img src="images/fig_90.jpg" width="400" height="203" alt="FIG. 90.—CURIOUS TYPES OF WHISTLES." title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 90.—CURIOUS TYPES OF WHISTLES.</span>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_91" id="FIG_91"></a>
<img src="images/fig_91.jpg" width="400" height="353" alt="FIG. 91.—QUAINT OLD TOY.
(In the possession of Mr. Phillips, of Hitchin.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 91.—QUAINT OLD TOY.
<br />
(<i>In the possession of Mr. Phillips, of Hitchin.</i>)</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">{325}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324"></a></span>
</div>
<p>There has been a remarkable sequence in the
toys of children of all generations, and of races
far apart. The same games have been played, and
the same toys used. Now and then a child more
careful than usual preserves his or her toys when
grown to man's or woman's estate; but such collections
are rare. There are some noted collections,
however, which have passed into the range of
museum curios, grouped together as representative
of the period when they were played with—authentic
records of the playthings of that day. In Fig. <a href="#FIG_91">91</a>
there is a remarkable old toy now in the diversified
collection of household curios and antique furniture
of Mr. Phillips, of the Manor House, Hitchin.</p>
<h3>Dolls.</h3>
<p>Probably the commonest toy is the doll, which
children have ever regarded as the ideal plaything.
The maternal instinct is strong in the youngest girl,
and dolls are often looked upon as something more
than mere toys. They are talked to, played with,
and treated as if they were human beings. Their
realism, at first imagined, seems to have grown up
with their long use until a personality surrounds
each one of the dolls in the nursery. Now and then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">{326}</a></span>
a quaint doll is treasured as having been the plaything
of more than one generation, especially so the
old wooden Dutch dolls, strong and lasting, which
have in some instances been handed on as playthings,
almost as family heirlooms.</p>
<p>The most famous collection of dolls played with
by one child, and yet dressed to cover almost every
period of English history—a veritable history of
costume—is that famous collection in the London
Museum, consisting of dolls dressed by and for the
late Queen Victoria, who, doubtless, had unique
opportunities of copying correctly the costumes of
the Court, and of others less high in social status,
during the reigns of the English sovereigns who had
preceded her.</p>
<p>Few, if any, can hope to possess such a representative
collection; there are many who can find,
however, curiously dressed dolls which are very
helpful in learning something of local costumes and
useful instructors in research after the habits and
occupations of people who may have lived in places
and districts little known to the present generation.</p>
<p>Some children's toys are much older than they
appear at first sight to be, for many very similar
playthings were found in the playrooms of boys
and girls who lived two thousand years ago.
There are the dolls and quaint little figures played
with by Greek and Roman children. Among the
more familiar objects were little wooden tortoises,
ducks, and pigs. Some were cleverly carved out of
wood, and the arms and legs of dolls moved, much
the same as the Dutch dolls of later days. Those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">{327}</a></span>
children had chariots and horses of metal much the
same as children have leaden soldiers now. They
trundled hoops of bronze, in some of them bells being
placed in the centre, ringing as they ran along.
Some of the toys of these little Roman and Greek
maidens and youths were very elaborate, and must
have belonged to the children of the wealthy, who,
like modern parents, gave presents to them on
"name" days.</p>
<p>Toys have always served the double purpose of
amusement and education. Years before kindergarten
methods were adopted—although unknown,
probably, to parents—scientific and philosophic toys
were doing good work, and driving home elementary
truths. There were curious cylindrical mirrors, the inevitable
kaleidoscope, and the water imps, an amusing
toy, for the imps, inserted in a bowl or bottle of
water, bobbed about in a curious way when the india-rubber
cap which covered the neck was pressed and
manipulated by the fingers. The modern picture
theatre, with all its attractions to grown-up folks, was
foreshadowed in the very primitive magic lantern,
which threw a cloudy disc and an almost undiscernible
picture, by the aid of an evil-smelling oil
lamp, on an old sheet hung up in the nursery.</p>
<h3>Old Games.</h3>
<p>There are many curios reminding us of indoor
games and winter amusements now obsolete, and
of the change which has gone on in games still
played. When we recall the number of new games
which have been introduced during the last quarter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">{328}</a></span>
of a century, it is surprising how few have survived.
New games come and go, and their accessories are
discarded as but toys of the moment. Most of the
popular games are those which have been handed
down throughout the ages, many of them of great
antiquity, especially scientific games and games of
skill. Among these games, or rather the apparatus
for playing them, are often curios, for they are quite
different to and often more decorative than those used
in playing similar games to-day. We are accustomed
to plain leather or wood chess and draught boards
and the regulation patterns of the men nowadays,
but formerly much time was expended in decorating
and enriching chess boards and men. The boards
often served other purposes too, many being beautifully
inlaid and reversible; thus the older game
boards were fitted with slides for backgammon,
provision being made for chess, merelles, and fox
and geese, the oak of which they were often made
being relieved with rich marqueterie (<i>tarsia</i>) of
ebony, ivory, and silver.</p>
<p>It is not often that a collection of old chessmen
is found among household curios, although it was
not uncommon to discover among sundry ivory
carvings a few odd pieces which had been secured
on account of their beautiful carving. In India and
China some very remarkable chessmen have been
produced. The origin of the game is lost in antiquity,
although it was played in the East at a
very early period. It is said to have been introduced
into Spain from Arabia, and to have been
played by the Hindus more than a thousand years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">{329}</a></span>
ago. It was certainly known in this country before
the Norman Conquest. Some few years ago a very
remarkable collection of chessmen, such as may be
seen in isolated sets or still more frequently represented
by single pieces in cabinets of old ivories,
was dispersed under the hammer in a London saleroom.
There were Chinese sets in red and white,
wonderful figures standing upon concentric balls;
antique Persian sets in cream-coloured ivory
decorated in colours and gold, kings and queens
on elephants, knights on horses, and bishops on
camels; Burmese sets with royal personages seated
on chairs of state; and some very remarkable
English porcelain, Wedgwood ware, and Minton
pottery sets.</p>
<p>Several finds of Scandinavian chessmen, made,
probably, in the twelfth century, have been made
in the island of Lewis. From these and other sets
met with in other places much has been learned
about the evolution in the game.</p>
<p>The queen does not appear to have been introduced
into the game until the eleventh century.
The castle has undergone many changes; its older
name of "rook" was derived from the Persian word
<i>rokh</i>, a hero. No doubt all the pieces were then
carved personalities, well understood from king
to pawn. In the modern forms of Staunton and
London Club patterns the knight alone retains its
semblance in the horse's head—a poor substitute
for the beautifully carved warrior on horseback
seen in some of the older sets.</p>
<p>Draughts, or dames, is also a game of antiquity;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">{330}</a></span>
and in the British Museum there is a set said to
date back to the Saxon period. Some of the old
boards are interesting relics, and the sets of carved
draughtsmen, now scarce, are beautiful works of art.</p>
<p>Backgammon is one of the older kindred games,
frequently played on the interior of the chess board
which was for that purpose marked with twelve
points or flèches in alternate colours. In this game
dice were used, and some of the old dice cups are
very prettily decorated.</p>
<p>Cribbage played with cards and a board is said to
be essentially an English game. Some very remarkable
cribbage boards were made many years ago,
many of metal, others of wood and ivory; one
exceptionally interesting piece, a brass cribbage
board, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is
engraved: "<span class="smcap lowercase">MR. CHRISTR ELLIOTT AT WINBORROW
GREEN, SUSSEX</span> 1768."</p>
<p>Cards, of which there are so many curious types
among the old examples found in many homes, were
introduced into the West of Europe from the East
about the fourteenth century. At first they were
hand drawn and coloured, then printed from wood
blocks, being subsequently printed from blocks and
plates engraved on the types which were gradually
standardized. Some very interesting collections of old
cards have been made, one of the most complete being
that of Lady Charlotte Schreiber, now in the Department
of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum.</p>
<p>In the days when card playing was at its height
many fine brass counter trays and curious card trays
were fashioned in brass and copper. Some of these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">{331}</a></span>
may very well be collected, and are suitable receptacles
for old metal counters, of which there are
many varieties. Some of these counters were made
by the diesinkers who helped tradesmen to provide
themselves with token change, and they bear a
striking resemblance to the contemporary metallic
currency. Others were chiefly hand engraved, and
often sold in small metal and silver boxes, those
dating from the time of Queen Anne being the most
interesting. The most popular card counters in the
early days of the nineteenth century were brass
copies of the spade-ace gold guinea, which they
closely resembled, and it is feared, when gilt, were
not infrequently palmed off as genuine gold.</p>
<h3>Outdoor Amusements.</h3>
<p>The outdoor games practised when household curios
were being fashioned necessitated fewer accessories
than such games do to-day, and many of them were
crude and obviously the work of amateurs. Yet the
same games were being played and possibly enjoyed
as much, although the sport was rougher!</p>
<p>When we think of winter amusements in the past
somehow we conjure up pictures of hard frosts and
crisp snow, although rain, damp, and fog were probably
frequent visitors in Old England. Some of the
games can be traced back to very early days—such,
for instance, as skating, many ancient skates having
been found. There is a remarkable contrast between
the beautifully made skates now used on the comparatively
rare occasions when the ice bears and the
roller skates used all the year round, to those curious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">{332}</a></span>
bone skates, so very primitive in their construction,
examples of which are to be found in several local
museums. In the Hull Museum, among the Market
Weighton antiquities, there is a choice collection
from East Yorkshire; one, made from the cannon
bone of a horse, is smooth and well polished, having
seen some active use, evidently belonging to some
skater in the fifteenth or sixteenth century.</p>
<p>The bone skates were fastened on to the feet much
the same as metal skates, but they had no cutting
edges, and consequently the skater carried a stick
shod with an iron point, and by its aid propelled
himself forward. Fitzstephen, writing in the time of
Edward II, describes the ponds at Moorfields where
the citizens of London skated. The ponds have long
been dried up and built over; it is there, however,
where, during excavations, some very fine examples
of the old bone skates have been found.</p>
<h3>Relics of Old Sport.</h3>
<p>Among the relics of old sport met with are the
curious and often beautifully embroidered hoods of
white leather used in the days of hawking. These
pretty little hoods, which were placed over the head
of the hawk when carried on the wrist to the hunting
field, were often embroidered in panels and furnished
with braces for tying round the hawk's head. In
the British Museum there is a curious silver lock-ring
for a hawk engraved with arms and owner's name,
apparently of seventeenth-century workmanship.
No doubt the real purport of such curios is often
overlooked, for not infrequently hawks' hoods have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">{333}</a></span>
been found amongst old dolls' clothing, having been
given to children in later years as playthings.</p>
<h3>Guns, Pistols, and Flasks.</h3>
<p>Eastern weapons have been brought over to this
country in large numbers, some of them very ancient.
It is said that among some of the Arab tribes it is no
uncommon thing to meet with swords and daggers
of antique form, richly damascened, and sometimes
with jewelled hilts, made a thousand years or more
ago, and a few years ago Crusaders' relics could be
met with in the East. Many of these knives have
silica blades, some of the handles being of jade.
Those of grey jade are often piqué with gold, others,
of ivory, being inlaid with jewels.</p>
<p>There is not very much to interest in old guns of
English make, for few found in houses date back
beyond the commencement of the nineteenth century.
Among them, however, are flint-locks and here and
there an old wheel-lock. The pistols met with
among household curios are often handsome and
have been preserved in leather cases, carefully
stowed away. Some of them record the days of
duelling, others the dangers of the road, when
highway robbers lurked in every wood, and many
a family coach was waylaid and its occupants
robbed of their jewels and their purses of gold. To
those interested in sporting, and familiar with the
breech-loading guns of the present day, much
interest attaches to the old powder flasks which
were once necessary accompaniments of sportsmen.
There are many beautifully engraved, embossed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">{334}</a></span>
and decorated flasks in museums, some of the early
seventeenth-century specimens being made of boxwood,
others of ivory, frequently ornamented with
hunting scenes. In Fig. <a href="#FIG_92_93">92</a> is shown a curious flint-lock
powder tester, then also regarded as one of the
essential accessories of the sportsman's outfit. The
copper powder flask illustrated in Fig. <a href="#FIG_92_93">93</a> is now in
the Hull Museum. It is specially interesting in that
the plain copper work is engraved in the centre with
its original owner's monogram—"<span class="smcap lowercase">W R</span>" in script.
This flask, made about the year 1750, was evidently
a keepsake, for engraved round the circular disc is
the legend "Keep this for Joseph's sake."</p>
<p>In the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington
there are some more elaborate specimens, two
of which are illustrated in Fig. <a href="#FIG_94">94</a>. They are magnificent
examples of metal repoussé work—a favourite
decoration in the eighteenth century, copied in more
inexpensive forms in the nineteenth century by makers
of sporting accessories, who stamped them from dies
and reproduced some of the old hunting scenes.</p>
<p>A review of the outdoor sports and relics of former
days would scarcely be complete without some
mention of swords and rapiers, which were once
commonly worn, along with pistols, alas! too frequently
in use when a hasty word called forth a
challenge to a duel. Many of these old swords are
rusty, but they frequently show marks of former
use. They are needed no longer by civilians in
this country, and take their places in trophies of
arms, forming important features in the decorative
curios of the household.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">{335}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="FIG_92_93" id="FIG_92_93"></a>
<img src="images/fig_92-93.jpg" width="400" height="588" alt="FIG. 92.—A POWDER TESTER.
FIG. 93.—A PRIMING FLASK.
(In the Municipal Museum, Hull.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 92.—A POWDER TESTER.
<br />
FIG. 93.—A PRIMING FLASK.
<br />
(<i>In the Municipal Museum, Hull.</i>)</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">{337}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">XVII<br />
<br />
MISCELLANEOUS</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">{339}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338"></a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII<br />
<br />
MISCELLANEOUS</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Dower chests—Medicine chests—Old lacquer—The tool chest—Egyptian
curios—Ancient spectacles—Curious chinaware—Garden
curios—The mounting of curios—Obsolete household
names.</p></div>
<p>There are many household curios which cannot be
classified under the headings of the foregoing
chapters. They represent well-known features in
every home, and yet each little group has an
individuality of its own. Some may say that the
main features of house-furnishing have been left out
of consideration, and that they are the most
interesting household curios when age and disuse
have come upon them. Household furniture, however,
has been fully dealt with in the "Chats" series
in the two volumes entitled "Chats on Old English
Furniture," and "Chats on Cottage and Farmhouse
Furniture," to which books those interested in the
curiosities of cabinet-making and village carpentry
are referred. Yet notwithstanding the completeness
of those works there are a few objects which have so
entirely passed into the range of household curios,
and their uses were so entirely apart from present-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">{340}</a></span>day
furniture, that some of them are specially noted
in the following paragraphs, together with a few
other isolated antiques.</p>
<h3>Dower Chests.</h3>
<p>If there is one piece of furniture above another
that is surrounded with a halo of romance, surely it
is the dower chest! We can picture the incoming
of the coffer in all the newness of hand polish, fresh
from the hands of the village carpenter or the
retainer who had wrought the gnarled old oak
grown on the estate for a favourite daughter of his
lord—that chest which was to be packed full of
fragrant linen, between which was laid sweet
lavender, and richly embroidered garments for the
bride, who, with her personal belongings stowed
away therein, was to pass from the parental home to
her newly wedded and unknown life. There are
ancient chests full of historic memories, such as those
in which the wealth of monarchs has been stored,
like that in Knaresborough Castle, which, according
to legend and some reference in old deeds, came over
with William the Conqueror. In the Castle Museum
there is another chest made for Queen Philippa in
1333—a veritable dower chest.</p>
<p>Some of the older chests have had loops for poles
by which they could be carried about; but such were
more correctly treasure chests. The dower chests
usually remained in the home of the bride, and in time
became her receptacle for bedding and other household
stores, the little tray or corner box for jewels
and trinkets being disused and eventually done away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">{341}</a></span>
with altogether. The evolution of the chest until it
became a cabinet or a chest of drawers is a story for
the lover of old furniture to tell, but the dower chest
in its earlier forms is a curio rich in legend and folklore.
It may interest American readers to record
that many of the oldest specimens in the States were
first used as packing cases of unusual strength, gifts
from the old folks at home, when colonists in
Jacobean days crossed the Atlantic. Curiously
enough, American craftsmen copied them and
maintained the purity of the old English style long
after the makers of English dower chests had
been influenced by Dutch and French design and
inlay.</p>
<h3>Medicine Chests.</h3>
<p>Some of the early English medicine chests, the
foundation of which is of wood, are covered with
tapestry, others with green satin, sometimes ornamented
with floral devices made of puffed satin,
overlaid and outlined with gold thread. Medicine
chests varied in size, but few households were
"furnished" without a fitting receptacle for home-made
recipes for simple ailments, such as were much
resorted to in the past. The chests were usually well
fitted with bottles and phials, and with glass stoppers
or silver or pewter tops. Many of the medicines had
been prescribed by local practitioners, and were
regarded as sovereign remedies to be used on all
occasions; others were family recipes held in high
repute. In such chests there was often a drawer or
compartment containing bleeding cups and lancet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">{342}</a></span>—a
remedy often resorted to when an illness could
not be diagnosed.</p>
<h3>Old Lacquer.</h3>
<p>The beautiful red lacquer work is getting scarce,
although it has had a long run, for it is more than
twelve hundred years since the Japanese learned the
secret of making it from the Coreans, who in their
turn had it from the Chinese. The secret of producing
in China and Japan lacquer which cannot
be imitated in other countries lies in the <i>rhus
vernificifera</i> which flourishes in those localities. It
is the gum of that tree commonly called the lacquer-tree,
which when taken fresh and applied to the
object it is intended to lacquer turns jet-black on
exposure to the sun, drying with great hardness. It
will thus be seen that although French and English
lacquers have been very popular, the imitation lacquer
applied can have neither the effect nor the durability
of the natural gum which sets so hard, and in the
larger and more important objects can be applied
again and again until quite a depth of lacquer is
obtained, sometimes encrusted over with jewels and
other materials embedded in it.</p>
<p>The best English lacquer was made in this country
between the years 1670 and 1710, and was a very
successful imitation of the Oriental. At that time and
during the following century very many tea caddies,
trays, screens, trinket boxes, and even furniture, were
imported; and it was those which English workmen
copied, gradually increasing the variety of household
goods for which that material was so suitable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">{343}</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="FIG_94" id="FIG_94"></a>
<img src="images/fig_94.jpg" width="500" height="396" alt="FIG. 94.—OLD POWDER FLASKS.
(In the Victoria and Albert Museum.)" title="" />
<span class="caption">FIG. 94.—OLD POWDER FLASKS.
<br />
(<i>In the Victoria and Albert Museum.</i>)</span>
</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">{345}</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344"></a></span></p>
<p>Old English lacquer differed from the more
modern papier-maché in that instead of the pulp
being composed entirely of paper, glued together
and pressed, it was composed of a basis of wood,
covered over with a black lacquer, on which the
design was painted in colours. It was made under
considerable difficulties, in that it had to compete
with the imported Oriental wares which were made
in China and Japan under more favourable natural
conditions.</p>
<p>The art of japanning was revived in England late
in the eighteenth century, and some remarkable
pieces appear to have been the work of amateurs
who painted and gilded so-called lacquer work,
tea caddies, and jewelled caskets. It must be
remembered that the art of japanning was looked
upon at one time as an accomplishment, for about
the year 1700 many gentlewomen were taught the
art.</p>
<p>French artists took up the Oriental style, and
produced some very successful lacquer work, striking
out in an entirely distinct style, which, as Vernis
Martin decoration, became famous. The varnish
or lacquer forming the foundation for those delightful
little pictures was not unlike in effect the Oriental
lacquer which to some extent it was intended to
imitate.</p>
<p>In the early nineteenth century lacquering as an
art fell into disrepute, and such decorations were
largely associated with the commoner metal wares,
stoved and lacquered by the so-called japanning
process carried out in Birmingham and other places,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">{346}</a></span>
although there is now some admiration shown by
collectors for small trays, bread baskets, candle
boxes, and snuffer trays of metal, japanned and
decorated by hand in colours and much fine gold
pencilling.</p>
<h3>The Tool Chest.</h3>
<p>There have been amateur mechanics in all ages,
and among the household curios are many old tools
suggestive of having been made when the carpenter
had plenty of time on his hands to decorate his tools
with carvings, and frequently to make up his own
kit. Thus old planes and braces were evidently
the work of men who possessed some humour and
skill, too, for some of the carved decoration is
quite grotesque. There is a fine collection of old
tools made and used in the seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries on view in one of our
museums. There is a carpenter's plough, dated
1750, moulding planes and skew-mouthed fillisters
of beechwood, and a router plane of carved hornbeam.
The modern hand brace becomes more
realistic, and its origin understood at a glance
when we examine the old hand brace of turned
and carved boxwood, dated 1642, in that collection.
The part where the bit is fitted is literally a
hand, carved out of solid wood, and the curious
crank indicates an imaginary twist in the arm,
perhaps suggested by some carpenter who was able
to manipulate his tools in a way not commonly
understood, thus giving to future carpenters a
most useful tool.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">{347}</a></span></p>
<h3>Egyptian Curios.</h3>
<p>Among the collectable curios of old households
are many antiquities from foreign lands. Perhaps
the most interesting, in that they afford us
examples of the prototypes of household antiques
as they were known to a nation possessing an
early civilization, polish, and refinement, are those
which have been discovered recently in Egyptian
tombs. Some representative examples may be
seen in the British Museum. There are toilet
requisites including mirrors, combs, and even wigs
and wig boxes, as well as a glass tube for stibium
or eye paint. There are ivory pillows or head
rests, models of the ghostly boats of the
underworld, and a vast variety of children's toys,
including wooden dolls with strings of mud beads
to represent hair, porcelain elephants, and wooden
cats; and there are children's balls made of blue
glazed porcelain, and of leather stuffed with
chopped straw. There are many games and
amusements, such as stone draught boards, and
draughtsmen in porcelain and wood. There are
bells of bronze and some remarkable musical
instruments like a harp, the body of which is in
the form of a woman; and there are reed flutes
and whistles and cymbals such as were carried by
priestesses. There are curious ivory amulets,
quaintly carved spoons, ivory boxes, and even
theatre tickets. Necklaces and pendants and other
articles of adornment are plentiful, for the Egyptian
maidens possessed much jewellery—bracelets, rings,
and necklaces. One very exceptionally fine relic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">{348}</a></span>
of this far-off age is a toilet box complete with
vases of unguents, eye paint, comb, and bronze
shell on which to mix unguents, and other trinkets.
Many such antiquities find their way into museums
and private collections of household curios, and
are useful and interesting for purposes of comparison,
telling of customs which change not, and
of the many connecting links which exist between
the past and the present.</p>
<h3>Ancient Spectacles.</h3>
<p>It is truly astonishing how many ancient spectacles,
which to collectors of such things would be veritable
treasures, lie neglected and allowed to "knock
about" until broken or otherwise damaged. Those
mostly discovered are the heavy brass and silver-rimmed
spectacles of about one hundred years ago,
some very interesting specimens of which are to be
seen in several of the larger local museums.</p>
<p>Spectacles are of very respectable age, although
they cannot be traced back to the ancient peoples,
for the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, notwithstanding
that they polished glass and rock crystal
and possessed much scientific lore, were ignorant
of their use as aids to sight.</p>
<p>It is said that the credit of the discovery of how to
make use of artificial aids to defective sight must be
accorded to Roger Bacon, who in his book <i>Opus
Majus</i>, published in the thirteenth century, mentioned
magnifying glasses as being useful to old people to
make them see better. True spectacles are said to
have been fashioned in 1317 by Salvino degli Armati,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">{349}</a></span>
a Florentine nobleman. At first they were convex;
indeed, no mention of concave glasses for shortsighted
persons was made until towards the middle of the
sixteenth century. From that time onward there
were developments, and among the household curios
are to be found silver, brass, and tortoiseshell rims,
and glasses of more or less utility.</p>
<h3>Curious China Ware.</h3>
<p>Old china and pottery have been fully dealt with
by many specialist writers, but there are some
household curios made of porcelain, china, and
earthenware which cannot be omitted from this
survey of household curios. Foremost among these
are the now scarce Toby jugs, made at so many of
the famous potteries. In a large collection the
variations are at once recognized; yet the same idea
seems to have run through the minds of the artists in
fashioning these jugs, so essentially typical of the age
in which they were made and used. Among the
Sunderland jugs are many variations both in size and
colouring; they were rich in colours, too, and look
exceedingly well on an old cabinet.</p>
<p>The posset cups of silver were supplemented by
tygs and posset cups and many-handled drinking
cups of early Staffordshire make. The brown and
yellow slip decoration of this ware is a striking
characteristic. All the early seventeenth-century ale
drinking cups like the tygs had handles, and in those
days of conviviality the double or multiplied handle
served a useful purpose, for the vessels were in use
when it was the custom of the ale-house for several<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">{350}</a></span>
friends to drink out of one vessel, just as in more
polite society and on public occasions the loving cup
was passed round.</p>
<p>Some of the so-called portrait busts and statuettes
of the eighteenth century are especially interesting
to collectors. There are figures to suit all; musicians
may delight in that of Handel; others in the busts
of Wesley and Whitfield; explorers in the statue of
Benjamin Franklin made about 1770, and some in
that of John Wilks seated near an old column of a
still earlier date. There is also a cleverly modelled
figure of Geoffrey Chaucer. One of the best known
groups is that of the "Vicar and Moses," made by
Wood, of Burslem.</p>
<h3>Garden Curios.</h3>
<p>It is said that garden craft, like most other forms
of art, came from the East; that the cultivation of
gardens commenced in Egypt, Persia, and Assyria,
travelling westward through Greece and Rome; and
in some of the early English gardens which horticulturists
are so fond of copying to-day there are traces
of Eastern influence still remaining.</p>
<p>Although the garden is the place where we expect
to find flowers, foliage, and perhaps fruit and
vegetables, it has always been associated with
home life, and some of the charms of domestic
comradeship owe their greatness to the garden and
pleasance.</p>
<p>It has always been the aim of the professional and
the amateur gardener to furnish the lawn and flower-beds
with appropriate settings, some of which have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">{351}</a></span>
become very quaint in the eyes of twentieth-century
horticulturists.</p>
<p>The Egyptians had their trellised bowers, and
their tiny pools of clear water. The Greeks, however,
were fortunate in having undulated and even
hilly ground to cultivate, and their gardens were
much more picturesque than the level ground of
Egypt, although the Orientals built terraces, and by
artificial means enhanced the beauty of their gardens.
The adornment of gardens with statuary comes to
us from Greece, and many modern reproductions of
ancient Greek statues are regarded as the curios
of the modern garden. Delightful, indeed, are some
of the statuettes in stone and lead representing
Aphrodite and the Graces. The Roman gardens
were magnificent in their miniature temples, replicas
of which are found in the old Georgian summer-houses,
such as may be seen at Kew, and in many
private grounds, dating from that period. The
Romans were lovers of roses, and had many
charming rose bowers, curiously and cunningly
formed.</p>
<p>The dawn of gardening on some approved plan,
and then ornamenting the portions not covered with
greenery, began in monastic days. The oldest of
the occupations of civilized man, it was long held in
high repute, and many worthy men have posed as
amateurs. Indeed, there have been Royal gardeners,
among the most familiar being Edward I and Queen
Elizabeth. From Tudor times onward the once
waste land in the immediate vicinity of castles and
palaces was cultivated, and the gardens of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">{352}</a></span>
nobility along the Strand in London were full of
beautiful stonework and statuettes. A writer in
the sixteenth century, describing an English garden
of his day, wrote: "Every garden of account hath its
fish pond, its maze, and its sundials."</p>
<p>Many fine old fountains or miniature fishponds
remain, and sundials are among the curios associated
with the outdoor life of the home. The garden
houses of the eighteenth century included a bowling
green or court, viewed from the terrace; and towards
the end of that period many leaden figures were
cast, the favourite being replicas of Roman statuary
dedicated to such deities as Bacchus, Venus, Neptune,
and Minerva. These lead statues have been collected
by dealers during the last few years. Some of them
are really very beautifully formed, although in many
instances the wear and tear of a couple of centuries
has covered them over with scratches and indentations.
A few years ago lead statues received little
consideration from their owners, and the children
made them targets for stone-throwing. They are
thought more of now, and at several recent sales lead
statuettes and vases have sold for considerable sums.</p>
<p>Sometimes ancient lead cisterns are seen outside
old houses; many of these and even rain-water spout
heads, beautifully moulded and cast, are among the
household curios for which there is some call among
collectors.</p>
<h3>The Mounting of Curios.</h3>
<p>A miscellaneous assortment of curios displayed
without any regard to their proper setting has just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">{353}</a></span>
the same effect as a badly framed picture, or a painting
with an inappropriate frame. Sundry curios may
be made to look charming when properly shown in a
glass-topped table or a suitable case, their value as
home ornaments being materially increased. Indeed,
there are many beautiful objects which look nothing
unless properly framed. The Wedgwood cameo
gems so varied and so very minutely tooled require
proper display; according to their colours so should
they be arranged on a velvet or cloth background
with an ample margin to separate them. A group
of miniatures looks nothing unless in suitable setting
or mount. Much of the beauty of old china is lost
because it is simply laid out without a colour scheme.
A cup and saucer look very much better when
shown on a stand, so that the saucer can be seen and
every detail of the cup examined, the richness of the
colouring inside or out, as the case may be, being
thrown up by the ebonized stand on which it is
placed. Carved ivories should certainly be shown
with a dark setting. In a similar way Oriental
plaques and even smaller plates with light backgrounds
are set off to the best advantage when shown
in dark ebony frames. The Orientals know the value
of framework perhaps more than any other people,
and among the curios they have sent over to this
country are appropriately carved frames and stands.
The almost priceless ginger jars when placed upon
carved-wood stands, for which the Chinese are so
famous, are beautiful indeed, the contrast of the black
and blue against the black base being very striking.
Indeed, much of the carved furniture of the Orientals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">{354}</a></span>
has been specially designed as a framework for
mother-o'-pearl and gem ornaments. The rare jade
carvings in black ebony screens, and the marvellous
carving of the larger screens are but appropriate
settings to the painted and needlework pictures so
rich in colours and gold. In Fig. <a href="#FIG_57">57</a> we illustrate a
very remarkable piece in which the artist has
expended his wonderful skill in providing a suitable
stand or frame for a very beautiful early porcelain
plate. Every detail of the carving is worthy of close
inspection. This beautiful piece was included in a
collection of jade, cloisonné enamels, and carved
furniture gathered together in Java some years ago
by a well-known collector of Chinese and Oriental
curios. Now and then such pieces are to be seen
in the shops of West End dealers. But it would be
difficult indeed to find one so characteristic of the
Chinese carver's art as the one shown.</p>
<h3>Obsolete Household Names.</h3>
<p>Most household goods and both useful and ornamental
home appointments used at the present time
are the outcome of progress and development, and
their names have changed but little. The change
has been in style, material, and manufacture rather
than in newness of purpose. It is true that in modern
household economy some of the present-day household
utensils are the outcome of modern invention,
having no similarity in form to the simpler primitive
contrivances which they have superseded. Thus, for
instance, the vacuum cleaner has little in its appearance
to associate it with the old-fashioned carpet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">{355}</a></span>
brush, neither has the modern knife cleaner much in
common with the old knife board. There are some
articles, however, which have become quite obsolete,
and their names are fast disappearing from inventories
of household goods, and, like the older antiquarian
relics, are likely soon to be forgotten. In
the foregoing chapters mention has been made of the
collectable objects of household use, dating from the
period of bronze to modern times, and no doubt there
are many other articles which have entirely disappeared
on account of their perishable nature, or
from their very character, there being nothing to
suggest their retention. It may be useful for purposes
of reference to note the following articles of
furniture, kitchen utensils, and mechanical contrivances,
which were mentioned in a book published
about one hundred years ago—house furnishings,
about the ancient uses of which we hear nothing at
the present time.</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p><b>Ample</b>—An ointment box, formerly carried by a medical man.</p>
<p><b>Apple-grate</b>—A sixteenth-century cradle of iron in which to roast
apples.</p>
<p><b>Bombard</b>—A large leathern bottle for carrying beer; a term also
applied to ancient ale-barrels.</p>
<p><b>Canister</b>—The ancient canister was a pannier or basket, the name
being appropriated to its modern use when tea came into the
market.</p>
<p><b>Chafing-dish</b>—The name appropriated to modern cooking vessels
was originally applied to a dish upon which perfumes were
burnt, and in Roman times was an ensign of honour.</p>
<p><b>Comfit boxes</b>—Boxes divided into compartments in which were rare
spices, handed round with dessert.</p>
<p><b>Finger-guard</b>—Horn finger-guards were formerly used by writing
masters to protect their nails when nibbing pens.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">{356}</a></span></p>
<p><b>Fire-screen</b>—Fire-screens are noted as early as the fourteenth century,
long before they were filled with needlework; they were
made of wicker, described by a sixteenth-century writer as "a
little wicker skrene sett in a frame of walnut tree."</p>
<p><b>Scrip</b>—Scrips were hung from girdles, and differed, among the chief
varieties being the shepherd's scrip, the pilgrim's scrip, and
the traveller's scrip, a kind of purse or wallet.</p>
<p><b>Standish</b>—The old name for an ink horn or vessel, afterwards applied
to the stand or dish, or, as we call it now, inkstand, which
contained the box or vessel for ink, and another for blotting
powder.</p>
<p><b>Trencher</b>—A wooden platter, a term more particularly applied to the
beautiful hand-painted circular boards for sweetmeats or cakes.</p></div>
<p>In conclusion, in the foregoing pages most of the
best-known household curios—regarded as such by
the collector—have been passed in review. The
list is, however, by no means exhausted, for as
search is made among the relics of former days
many little-known objects come to light, and as
isolated examples find their way into public and
private collections.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">{357}</a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Ale tubes, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li>
<li>Almanacs, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>-<a href="#Page_262">262</a></li>
<li>American museums, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
<li>Ample, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li>
<li>Andirons, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li>
<li>Apple-grate, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li>
<li>Apple-scoops, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
<li>Arms of Cutlers' Company, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Banner screens, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li>
<li>Basting spoons, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
<li>Battersea enamels, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li>
<li>Beakers, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li>
<li>Bellows, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
<li>Bellows blower, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
<li>Bells, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li>
<li>Bilston enamel, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li>
<li>Bodkins, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li>
<li>Bohemian glass, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li>
<li>Boilers, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
<li>Bombards, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li>
<li>Boule, Charles, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
<li>Bow cupids, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li>
<li>Bristol glass, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>
<li>British glass, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
<li>British Museum exhibits, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></li>
<li>Bronze pots, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
<li>Buhl work, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Caddies, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
<li>Candle boxes, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li>
<li>Candle moulds, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li>
<li>Candles, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>-<a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
<li>Candlesticks, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
<li>Canisters, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li>
<li>Carving-knives, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li>
<li>Caskets, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
<li>Caudle cups, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
<li>Chafing dishes, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li>
<li>Chantilly porcelain, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li>
<li>Chatelaines, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li>
<li>Chelsea cupids, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li>
<li>Chessmen, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li>
<li>Chestnut roasters, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
<li>Chests, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
<li>Chimney ornaments, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li>
<li>China, <a href="#Page_349">349</a></li>
<li>Chinese influence, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
<li>Chinese lacquer, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
<li>Chippendale influence, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
<li>Clocks, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li>
<li>Clog almanacs, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li>
<li>Cloisonné enamel, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li>
<li>Coaching horns, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
<li>Cocoanut cups, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
<li>Cocoanut flagons, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
<li>Coffers, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
<li>Combs, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>-<a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>
<li>Comfit boxes, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li>
<li>Continental gridirons, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li>
<li>Cooking vessels, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
<li>Copper urns, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
<li>Cordova leather, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>
<li>Couvre de feu, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>
<li>Cream jugs, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
<li>Cribbage boards, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
<li>Cruet stands, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
<li>Cuir boulli work, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
<li>Cupids, Chelsea and Bow, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li>
<li>Cups, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
<li>Curio hunting, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
<li>Cutlers' Company, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
<li>Cutlery, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>-<a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Damascened steel, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li>
<li>Derbyshire spar, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li>
<li>Dolls, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li>
<li>Domesday Book, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
<li>Dower chests, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li>
<li>Draughts, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a></li>
<li>Dressing cases, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li>
<li>Dutch influence on art, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
<li>Dutch ovens, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Egyptian curios, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></li>
<li>Egyptian influence, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
<li>Enamelled wares, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li>
<li>Enamels, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>-<a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Fenders, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li>
<li>Finger guards, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li>
<li>Fire-dogs, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li>
<li>Fire drills, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>
<li>Fireirons, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>
<li>Fire-making appliances, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>-<a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>
<li>Fireplace, the, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>-<a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
<li>Fireploughs, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>
<li>Fire screens, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></li>
<li>Flesh hooks, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
<li>Floor candlesticks, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
<li>Fluor spar, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li>
<li>Flutes, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li>
<li>Food-boxes, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
<li>Forks, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li>
<li>French art, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li>
<li>French influence, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Gallybawk, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
<li>Games, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>-<a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
<li>Garden curios, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a></li>
<li>German wall warming stove, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li>
<li>Glass and enamels, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>-<a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>
<li>Glass beads, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li>
<li>Glass curios, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>-<a href="#Page_293">293</a></li>
<li>Glass ornaments, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li>
<li>Glass pictures, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li>
<li>Glass rolling pins, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li>
<li>Gourd cups, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li>
<li>Grandfather clocks, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li>
<li>Gridirons, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
<li>Grills, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
<li>Guildhall Museum exhibits, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li>
<li>Guns, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Hair ornaments, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
<li>Hampton Court fireplaces, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
<li>Hawk hoods, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></li>
<li>Home ornaments, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>-<a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
<li>Horn books, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
<li>Horners, Worshipful Company, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
<li>Horns, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li>
<li>Horn work, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
<li>Hull Museum exhibits, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Inkstands, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li>
<li>Irish curios, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
<li>Ivories, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Jack knives, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>
<li>Jade, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
<li>Japanned trays, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li>
<li>Jewel caskets, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Kentish ironmasters, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li>
<li>Kettles and stands, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
<li>Kettles, miniature, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li>
<li>Kitchen grates, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>-<a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
<li>Kitchen, the, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>-<a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
<li>Knife-boxes, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Lace bobbins, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li>
<li>Lantern clocks, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li>
<li>Lanterns, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>-<a href="#Page_75">75</a></li>
<li>Leather and horn, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>-<a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
<li>Leather bottles, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>-<a href="#Page_194">194</a></li>
<li>Leather flasks, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li>
<li>Leather pictures, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li>
<li>Leather ships, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li>
<li>Lights of former days, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>-<a href="#Page_75">75</a></li>
<li>Lille enamels, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li>
<li>Limoges enamels, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>-<a href="#Page_183">183</a></li>
<li>Links extinguishers, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li>
<li>Locks of hair, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li>
<li>London Cutlers' Company, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li>
<li>Love spoons, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li>
<li>Love tokens, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>-<a href="#Page_293">293</a></li>
<li>Lucky cups, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li>
<li>Lucky emblems, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>-<a href="#Page_293">293</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Mantelpieces, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li>
<li>Marking of time, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>-<a href="#Page_307">307</a></li>
<li>Marqueterie designs, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
<li>Matches, early types, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li>
<li>Medicine chests, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li>
<li>Meissen porcelain, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li>
<li>Met-soex or eating knives, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>
<li>Miniature curios, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li>
<li>Monochord, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li>
<li>Mosaics, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li>
<li>Mother-o'-pearl, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>
<li>Mounting curios, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></li>
<li>Musical instruments, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>-<a href="#Page_317">317</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Nailsea glass, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
<li>National Museum of Wales, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li>
<li>National Museum of Naples, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
<li>Needles of wood, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li>
<li>Needlework, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li>
<li>Nutcrackers, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Oak settles, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
<li>Obsolete names, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></li>
<li>Oil lamps, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
<li>Old gilt, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li>
<li>Old lacquer, <a href="#Page_342">342</a></li>
<li>Ormolu, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Pastrycooks' knives, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
<li>Pastry wheels, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
<li>Patch boxes, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li>
<li>Peg tankards, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
<li>Pens, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
<li>Perfume boxes, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li>
<li>Pianofortes, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li>
<li>Piggins, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
<li>Pipe racks, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li>
<li>Pipes, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li>
<li>Pistol tinder boxes, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li>
<li>Pistols, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></li>
<li>Play and sport, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>-<a href="#Page_334">334</a></li>
<li>Playing cards, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
<li>Pomander boxes, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
<li>Pontypool wares, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>
<li>Porridge bowls, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
<li>Porringers, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
<li>Pounce boxes, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li>
<li>Priming flasks, <a href="#Page_334">334</a></li>
<li>Punch bowls, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li>
<li>Punch ladles, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
<li>Puzzle cups, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Queen Anne style, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Roasting cages, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
<li>Roasting jacks, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
<li>Rolling pins, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
<li>Roman influence, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
<li>Rushlights, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>-<a href="#Page_65">65</a></li>
<li>Russian customs, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Salt cellars, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
<li>Sand boxes, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li>
<li>Saucepans, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li>
<li>Scrap books, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li>
<li>Scratchbacks, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li>
<li>Sheraton influence, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
<li>Ships of glass, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li>
<li>Shoes, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
<li>Shovels, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>
<li>Skates, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></li>
<li>Skimmers, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
<li>Smokers' cabinet, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>-<a href="#Page_280">280</a></li>
<li>Smokers' tongs, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li>
<li>Snuff boxes, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li>
<li>Snuffer extinguishers, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li>
<li>Snuffers, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>-<a href="#Page_71">71</a></li>
<li>Snuff rasps, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li>
<li>Spectacles, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></li>
<li>Spice boxes, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li>
<li>Spinning wheels, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>-<a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>
<li>Spits, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
<li>Spleen stone, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li>
<li>Spoons, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
<li>Staffordshire figures, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li>
<li>Staffordshire wares, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
<li>Stained glass, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li>
<li>Standishes, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></li>
<li>Straw-work, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li>
<li>Style, influence of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li>
<li>Sugar nippers, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
<li>Sugar tongs, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
<li>Sussex backs, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li>
<li>Sussex foundries, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Table appointments, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>-<a href="#Page_118">118</a></li>
<li>Tapestry, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
<li>Tapestry factories, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li>
<li>Taunton Castle Museum exhibits, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li>
<li>Teapots, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>
<li>Teatable, the, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li>
<li>Thimbles, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li>
<li>Tickets, benefit, ball, etc., <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li>
<li>Tinder boxes, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>-<a href="#Page_41">41</a></li>
<li>Tobacco boxes, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li>
<li>Tobacco pipes, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li>
<li>Tobacco pipes (glass), <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
<li>Tobacco stoppers, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li>
<li>Toddy ladles, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
<li>Toilet table, the, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>-<a href="#Page_221">221</a></li>
<li>Tools, ancient, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></li>
<li>Tower of London exhibits, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li>
<li>Trays, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>-<a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>
<li>Trenchers, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></li>
<li>Trencher salts, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
<li>Trivets, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>-<a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
<li>Turnspits, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Vases, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li>
<li>Venetian glass, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li>
<li>Vernis Martin varnishes, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
<li>Victoria and Albert Museum exhibits, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a></li>
<li>Vinaigrettes, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
<li>Violins, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li>
<li>Virginals, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="IX">
<li>Walking sticks (glass), <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
<li>Wallace collection, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
<li>Wallets, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
<li>Warming pans, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
<li>Watches, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li>
<li>Watch keys, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li>
<li>Watch papers, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li>
<li>Watch stands, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li>
<li>Waterford glass, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>
<li>Wedgwood cameos, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li>
<li>Whistles, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li>
<li>Wood carvings, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>-<a href="#Page_165">165</a></li>
<li>Wooden cups, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li>
<li>Woodware, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
<li>Work boxes, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>-<a href="#Page_250">250</a></li>
<li>Writing cases, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li>
<li>Writing tables, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li>
</ul>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p class='center'>UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON</p>
<pre>
End of Project Gutenberg's Chats on Household Curios, by Fred W. Burgess
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHATS ON HOUSEHOLD CURIOS ***
***** This file should be named 25294-h.htm or 25294-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/2/9/25294/
Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at http://pglaf.org
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
gbnewby@pglaf.org
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit http://pglaf.org
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
http://www.gutenberg.org
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
</pre>
</body>
</html>
|
