During the first century after the invention of the stocking-loom, few improvements were made upon it, and two men were usually employed to work one frame. But in the course of last century the machine was very greatly improved. The late ingenious Mr. Jedediah Strut, of Belper, Derbyshire, was the first individual who succeeded in adapting it to the manufacture of ribbed stockings. Estimating the population of Great Britain, say sixteen millions, and the average annual expenditure of each individual upon stockings and knit gloves at five shillings, the total value of the manufacture will be £4,000,000, and we consider this rather to be under than over the mark.
The effect of this invention was very late in making its appearance in Scotland. Till far on in the eighteenth century, the use of knitted stockings was universal. Mittens, or woollen gloves for the hands, and boot-hose, for drawing over the legs in riding, were also quite common, and all were wrought by the hand. The manufacture was carried on solely by women, the wives and daughters of farmers, generally, and the produce was sold as the means of bringing in a small revenue. The introduction of the stocking-loom to Hawick, in 1771, and the change of manners which took place about this period, soon put an end to this traffic; but still the greater part of the stockings worn by the country people on ordinary occasions are knitted at home. The art is also still in use in Shetland, where knitting forms the only amusement to relieve the tedium of a long winter, and where the articles produced are exceedingly fine in the texture: the Shetland hose bring the highest price of any woollen stocking.
COACHES.
Coach is said to be derived from caroche, Italian; a term first used in the eleventh century, and invented to designate a military machine, so called.
We intend the word coaches to stand for the generic name of all those machines used for the carriage of persons, on business or pleasure, (except, indeed, those for the conveyance of the dead,) from the state carriage of the sovereign down to the humble gig. The original inventor of this species of carriage is said to have been an Athenian monarch, 1489 years before Christ, who being afflicted with lameness in his feet, first invented a coach for his convenience, and with a view to conceal his debility. This may be regarded as the first original, of the kind, of Grecian invention.
The ancient historian, Diodorus Siculus, makes mention of a carriage in which Sesostris was wont to be drawn; and also, he says when he entered the city, or went out to the sacrifice, had four of his captive kings yoked to his chariot; but it is conjectured this carriage, to which that historian alludes, was a warrior’s car. There is, most assuredly, ample room to believe that this was the first species of carriage which was introduced; if so, those existed long before the Athenian king above-named; because all the Homeric heroes, Greeks as well as Trojans, and their auxiliaries, rode in these machines, called chariots, or warriors’ cars, which are also known to have existed long antecedent to that period. We remain assured that war chariots were used in the first ages of the world, by all the great monarchs who possessed dominion.
That species of carriage before said to have been invented by the Athenian monarch, we therefore presume, was a covered carriage, similar to that species designated in the twelve tables of the Roman law, and by them called arcera, which was said to be a carriage of the last presumed description, and mentioned as being intended for the conveyance of the infirm. To this species of carriage succeeded the soft lectica. But we will leave this part of our subject, and proceed towards our own times.
After the subversion of the Roman power, the northern sovereigns, who had become the barbarous and ignorant oppressors of our species, introduced and established, among other political regulations, the feudal system, as it was called, by which all property in land was held by certain fiefs, whereby the king, or, as termed, lord of the soil, let certain portions of the land to his nobles, military officers, and other great persons, generally often on condition of certain services required to be performed, called knights’ service, and other military tenures; by which custom those tenants of the sovereign had to provide certain men and horses to serve him in his wars.—These first tenants, or vassals, afterwards underlet those lands to villains, so named, in contradistinction to the present recognised term, from their living in villages or hamlets, and other tenants, from whom, in their turn, similar services and certain provisions were required.—Thus the European world, which had become the prey of effeminacy and luxury, had, by this single important circumstance, their character so radically changed, that, like the mysterious power of the Cadmæan wand of Harlequin, wrought so uncommon a change in the morals of European society, that those who had formerly kept carriages, and wallowed in all the soft luxurious delicacy of Asiatic effeminacy, suddenly, or, at least, progressively, became a society of hardy equestrian veterans. Insomuch, that masters and servants, husbands and wives, clergy and laity, all rode upon horses, mules, or asses, which latter animals were chiefly used by women, monks, and other religious professors. The minister rode to court; the horse, without a conductor, returned to the stable, till a servant, regulated by the horologe, took him back to the court for his master. In this manner, we are assured, the magistrates of the imperial cities rode to council, till as late as the beginning of the sixteenth century; so that in the year 1502, steps to assist in mounting were erected by the Roman gate at Frankfort. The members of the council who, at the diet and other occasions, were employed as ambassadors, were, on this account, called rittmeister in the language of the country; at present the expression riding-servant is preserved in some of the imperial cities. The entry of great lords in public into any place, or their departure from it, was never in a carriage, but always on horseback; in all the pontifical records, speaking of ceremonials, no mention is made either of a state coach, or body coachman, but of state horses and state mules. In the following regulation, it is found that the horse which his Holiness rode “was necessary to be of an iron-grey colour; not mettlesome, but a quiet, tractable nag. That a stool of three steps should be provided for the assistance of his Holiness in mounting: that the emperor, or kings, if present, were obliged to hold his stirrup, and lead the horse.”
Bishops made their public entry, on induction, on horses or asses richly caparisoned. At the coronation of the emperor, the electors and principal officers of the empire were ordered to make their entry on horseback.—It was formerly requisite, that those who received a fief, or other investiture, should make their appearance on horseback. The vassal was obliged to ride with two attendants to the court of his lord, where, after he had dismounted his horse, he received his fief.