Bygone London Life; Pictures from a Vanished Past

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ...Canada has made us familiar with snow-shoes. Under the heading "Garments, vestures, etc.," there are some curious entries--such as " A hat-band of glasse spun into fine threads"; "A bracelet made of thighes of Indian flyes "; "A match-coat from Greenland of the intrails of fishes"; and "Russian stockens without heels." Some of the articles were of historical interest. The museum was said to contain Edward the Confessor's "knit gloves"; Henry VIII.'s " hawking-gloves, hawkeshoods, stirrups and dog's coller"; and Queen Anne Boleyn's "night-vayle embroidered with silver, and her silke-knit gloves." In the same section were " Choppenes for ladyes from Malta and Venice"; these were the very high pattens--almost stilts--upon which fashionable Venetian ladies walked, or rather tottered, when the seventeenth century was young. Some of these absurdities were worn eighteen inches high, the wearer's rank being indicated by the height of her "chopines." Walking was really impossible, and noble dames were to be seen supported on either side by attendants when they took their walks abroad. In his welcome to the players, Hamlet alludes to the absurd fashion: " By'r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by-the altitude of a chopine"; but the "chopine" did not obtain much foothold in this country, although high heels had long been fashionable. In the section of the museum devoted to natural history there were many strange things to be seen. Some of the entries are almost unintelligible. What, for example, was a "gulo's legge " or a...