Gloves, Past and Present

by Willard M. Smith

The next process is to rid the skins of the lime with which they have been charged. Therefore, scraped and trimmed, they are submerged in a large, wooden vat, containing hot water mixed with an entirely new product, invented by Monsieur Louis Peyrache. This product is called “peroly” and is an enemy to lime. When the skins are lifted out of this solution they are found to be quite devoid of all traces of the latter.

Following the “peroly bath,” the skins are placed in another large tub full of hot water, above which passes a crank connected with an electric motor, from which crank four shafts terminating in wooden “stampers” hang down into the tub. The tub also revolves on a spindle connected with the motor. The object of this bath is to free the skins of every vestige of the peroly; and the effect of the hot water is to open the pores in the skins and render them more easily deprived of the animal matter they contain.

The skins have now been well washed and thoroughly cleaned. They appear almost transparent. But the series of “baths” is not over. However, before another is attempted, the skins are laid again across the wooden blocks and as much as possible of the fatty substance which still adheres to them is scraped off with the blunt knives already described. In this instance, as previously, the skins are scraped on the sides from which the hair was removed in the first place, known as the “fleur” side of the skin. Then comes the bran bath. In a mixture of luke warm water and bran they are gently stirred around by means of long, wooden props fitted with ferules of india-rubber. Once more the skins are lifted out and laid on the blocks; and this time the scraping is done on the “flesh” or inside. Another bran bath follows, and now the skins require careful watching. When the master dresser judges that they have stayed long enough in this second bran solution, they are again, one by one, laid over the blocks, when all the remains of the bran are scraped off.

Now the skins are put into a large, closed receptacle, containing a mixture of the yellows of eggs, meal and alum. This mixture “feeds” the skins; it is a kind of “wrinkled paste” in the beautifying process. It fills up the pores which have been impoverished through the loss of their natural fat and oil. The next day, the skins are taken out of this bath, and are strung up in a large room through which flows a current of dry, heated air. In stringing up the skins here, care always is taken to fold them with the “fleur” surface inside. After they have become thoroughly dried, they are tied up into packets of six dozen each, and left in a dry, normal atmosphere for fifteen days, or even a month. By this time the skins are quite hard and brittle.

To take out the stiffness, the skins now are dipped into clear, cold water for a few minutes. They are left in the air until the following day, when they are passed through a set of rollers which help to make them supple; after which they are sent immediately to the “palisson.” This process reinvigorates the dressed skins, rendering them plastic and easily stretched. By the old-fashioned method, it is performed by hand. The “palisson” consists, as formerly, of a large, rounded, blunted steel blade, pointing upwards, and fastened into a wooden block, over which the skin is drawn backwards and forwards, with its flesh side on the blade. After this operation, the skin is rubbed over another blade, similarly shaped, but slightly sharpened. By means of this, the remainder of the flesh is cut away from the surface of the skin, thus giving it the softness and whiteness which, by this time, it will have acquired.

In these days, the “palisson” process is also performed by girls at revolving wheels run by a motor, and the results obtained compare very well indeed with the old-fashioned method of palisson by hand.

The skins are now completely dressed. Lastly, they are sent to the classing room to be examined by experts and sorted according to their qualities. They are then forwarded to the manufacturers at Grenoble.

In the United States kid gloves manufactured out of skins from all over Europe, and even from northern Africa and China, are to be found on the counters of the glove shops. But the best kidskins come from France, and are invariably dressed in Annonay and manufactured into gloves at Grenoble. The American, then, who buys gloves of French origin, Annonay dressed, and made in Grenoble, may flatter himself that he is enjoying perfection itself in hand-wear.

Chapter IX.
THE GLOVES WE BUY

“There’s nothing like leather. Leather is a product of Nature. Take a piece of leather and observe the way the fibres are knit together. It is Nature’s work. It is so wonderful that man cannot hope to reproduce it. He cannot even re-create it. Boil a piece of hide or skin. It will turn to gelatine. No power known to man can turn that gelatine back into leather. Shred it. No machine can reweave the fibres into their former wonderful fabric. Take all the chemicals which go to make up a piece of leather, and mix them in all the ways that can be imagined, and man cannot make a single inch of leather. Synthetic leather seems farther away than the synthetic diamond.”