" Fo. 453.
b. ed. 1611.
The use of gloves must be of very high antiquity. In the Middle Ages the
priest who celebrated mass always, I believe, wore them during that
ceremony; but it was just the contrary in courts of justice, where the
presiding judge, as well as the criminal, was not allowed to cover his
hands. It was anciently a popular saying, that three kingdoms must
contribute to the formation of a good glove:--Spain to prepare the
leather, France to cut them out, and England to sow them.
I think the etymology of the word _glove_ is in far from a satisfactory
state. It is a good subject for some of your learned philological
correspondents, to whom I beg leave to recommend its elucidation.
S.W. Singer.
Mickleham, July 26. 1850.
_Punishment of Death by Burning_ (Vol. ii., pp. 6, 50, 90.).--Your
correspondent E.S.S.W. gives an account of a woman burnt for the murder
of her husband in 1783, and asks whether there is any other instance of
the kind in the latter part of the last century. I cannot positively
answer this Query, but I will state a circumstance that occurred to
myself about the year 1788. Passing in a hackney-coach up the Old Bailey
to West Smithfield, I saw the unquenched embers of a fire opposite
Newgate; on my alighting I asked the coachman "What was that fire in the
Old Bailey, over which the wheel of your coach passed?" "Oh, sir," he
replied, "they have been burning a woman for murdering her husband.
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