he Germans) is but natural, and it is in this
transfer that we shall find the origin of the white gloves in question.
At a maiden assize no criminal has been called upon to plead, or to use
the words of Blackstone, "called upon by name to hold up his hand;" in
short, no guilty hand has been held up, and, therefore, after the rising
of the court our judges (instead of receiving, as they did in Germany,
an entertainment at which the bread, the glasses, the food, the
linen--every thing, in short--was white) have been accustomed to receive
a pair of white gloves. The Spaniards have a proverb, "_white hands
never offend_;" but in their gallantry they use it only in reference to
the softer sex; the Teutonic races, however, would seem to have embodied
the idea, and to have extended its application.

WILLIAM J. THOMS.

A LIMB OF THE LAW, to a portion of whose Query, in No. 2. (p. 29.), the
above is intended as a reply, may consult, on the symbolism of the Hand
and Glove, _Grimm Deutsches Rechtsaltherthuemer_, pp. 137. and 152, and
on the symbolical use of white in judicial proceedings, and the after
feastings consequent thereon, pp. 137. 381. and 869. of the same learned
work.

[On this subject we have received a communication from F.G.S., referring
to Brand's _Popular Antiquities_, vol. ii. p. 79, ed. 1841, for a
passage from Fuller's _Mixed Contemplations_, London, 1660, which proves
the existence of the practice at the time; and to another in Clavell's
_Recantation of an Ill-led Life_, London, 1634, to show that prisoners,
who received pardon after condemnation, were accustomed to present
gloves to the judges:--

"Those pardoned men who taste their prince's loves, (As married to
new life) do give you gloves."]

Mr. Editor,--"Anciently it was prohibited the Judges to wear gloves on
the bench; and at present in the stables of most princes it is not safe
going in without pulling off the gloves."--Chambers' _Cyclopaedia_, A.D.
MDCCXLI.

Was the presentation of the gloves a sign that the Judge was not
required to sit upon the Bench--their colour significant that there
would be no occasion for capital punishment? Embroidered gloves
were introduced about the year 1580 into England.

Or were gloves proscribed as the remembrances of the gauntlet cast down
as a challenge? "This is the form of a trial by battle; a trial which
the tenant or defendant in a writ of right has it in his election at
this day to demand, and