GLOVE-MAKING PROCESSES. The term 'kid' is a mere technicality; as the quantity of leather bearing this name yearly consumed is largely in excess of what could be supplied from the skins of all the young goats that are annually slaugh tered. Gloves are largely made from lamb-skin. The finest gloves, however, are made from real kid, derived chiefly from Germany, Austria, Sweden, Brazil, Madagascar, and, lately, from France and Bavaria. The younger the kid, the thinner, finer, and softer the glove. Lamb-skin is tougher and harder to work than kid-skin, but it is said that none but an expert can tell the difference in their appearance. The so-called dog skin, buckskin, and doeskin gloves are made chiefly from sheepskin; some of the thickest kinds of leather gloves are made from calfskin. Suede gloves are those in which the inside of the skin is used as the outside of the glove, the name be ing derived from the Swedish manner of making up gloves. Glace gloves are made with the out side of the leather retained as the outside of the glove.
The leather, in all cases, undergoes a much lighter dressing than when used for boots and shoes. The skin having been freed from hair and cleaned, it is prepared for use by pne of the three processes of dressing—tanning, tawing, or shamoying—described under LEATHER. For light dress gloves the skins are usually tawed. The leather is next broken or 'staked' to render it pliable and even in texture. It is then colored, by painting lightly on the outside, two or three coats, with a brush, so that the inside will not be affected by the coloring. White gloves are simply undyed gloves. When the dye is thor oughly dried, the superfluous color is removed and the surface rubbed with a size. The gloves are now 'doled' on a marble slab, to remove the dirt and irregularities. After the leather has been properly prepared the gloves are cut out by means of dies. The die cuts•out all the parts, in cluding the gussets. A single glove consists of
from 16 to 19 pieces. The large skins are used for mousquetaire gloves, but one pair of which can be made from a single skin, though ordinarily two pairs of ordinary gloves can be made from one skin. The scraps that are left, unless the skin was tanned, are used for glue. The first and fourth fingers are completed by gussets or strips sewed only on the inner side, but the sec ond and third fingers require gussets on both sides to complete the finger. Besides these, small pieces of a diamond shape are sewed in at the base of the fingers, toward the palm of the hand. The stitching of the parts together, and also the ornamental stitching on the hack of the hand, is done by specially made sewing-machines. The putting on of the thumb-piece requires special skill and management, and badly made gloves commonly give way at this point.
In the American glove-factories there are two classes of cutters, the block and the table cut ters, the former of whom are engaged chiefly on the cheaper grades of gloves. The block cutter simply cuts out the glove with a die and ham mer, from a skin which is laid on a block of wood. The table cutter first dampens his skin, stretches it to the fullest possible extent, and cuts off the length of a glove. He then stretches it again cuts it to width, after which the fingers are cut to shape with a die. A table-cut glove is more elastic and hence fits better than one cut on the block. The table cutters employed in America are mostly foreigners from the glove-manufactur ing centres of Europe, and many of them come from families which for centuries have been en gaged in the glove-making industry. To be a good cutter requires not only great experience, but natural dexterity and rare judgment in selecting leather so as to cut out the greatest possible number of gloves and yet avoid flaws.