GLOVE, an article of dress; a cover ing for the hand. Its use reaches back to a remote antiquity, for we are told in the Odyssey that Laertes, the farmer-king, wore gloves to protect his hands from the thorns. Xenophon also sneers at the Per sians for wearing gloves for keeping their hands warm. In their more robust days the Greeks and Romans scorned the use of gloves; but in later times they were used in Rome. The glove appears to have become a well-known article of dress in England about the 14th century, and corporations of glovers were in exist ence in the 15th century.
Modern gloves are of two distinct classes, woven and knitted gloves, and those made of leather; and the making of these constitute entirely separate branches of manufacture. The manu facture of knitted or woven gloves is an industry allied to the hosiery trade, and the materials comprise all the ordinary fibers, the most important being silk and wool. In some cases these gloves are en tirely made and finished by knitting; but in others the pieces are separately fashioned and sewed together as in mak ing leather gloves. The manufacture is widespread, but the headquarters of the thread and cloth glove trade are now Berlin and Saxony. The materials used for making leather gloves is principally the skins of deer, sheep and lambs, goats and kids, the latter being the most impor tant, though far more "kid" gloves are made of sheep than of kid leather. The
skins for military and other heavy gloves—doe or buck leather—are pre pared by the ordinary process of tanning.
Kid gloves are of two principal kinds, glace and suede, according to the manner of dressing and finishing the leather used. Glace gloves are those which are dressed, dyed, and polished on the hair or outer side of the skin, while suede gloves are carefully pared, smoothed, and dyed on the inner side of the skin for their purpose, and thus have the appearance of fine chamois. Paris and Grenoble are the chief seats of the French kid glove trade. Military gloves are made at Niort and Vendome. Brussels and Copenhagen are also important glove-making centers. In England, Worcester is the principal seat of the glove industry; and in a specialty, the so-called English dogskin gloves made from the skins of Cape sheep, the Eng lish manufacturers are without rivals. In feudal times the challenge to single combat was given by the casting down of the glove; and an ancient and more pleasing ceremonial still observed con sists in the presentation of white gloves to a judge presiding over an assize at which no cases come up for trial.