Tied up in bundles of a dozen, they are given to women, who do the ornamental work on the back of the gloves. Some of these women work on the premises, and others at home. Most of the tambouring, which is very popular, is done in cottage homes. Entering one of these cottages, you may see a woman rocking a cradle with one foot, and giving an occasional glance at the dinner cooking on the fire, while she bends over a frame on which the gloves are stretched, and with a crochet-hook, and apparently little more attention than a knitter gives to her stocking, she quickly adds those three times three rows of silk-work up what will be the back of the gloves. Carrying back the gloves to the factory, she will receive ninepence a dozen for her work. The gloves are next given out to other women, who also work at home, to be stitched—that is, to have the fingers completed and the thumbs put in. This is now nearly all done by a recently invented and cleverly adapted sewing-machine, the needle of which comes down on the tip of an upright iron finger. Gloves are not all stitched in the immediate neighbourhood of the factories, but are often sent long distances into remote country villages, where, work being scarce, labour is cheap. And to facilitate this, a class of middle men (or women) has grown up—people who come in from the country to the factories, and take away a hundred or a hundred and fifty dozen a week, which they distribute among the women of the village in which they live, collect again when finished, and bring back to the factory. These putters-out or bagmen are paid the usual price, some half-crown a dozen for the stitching, and make their own bargain with the actual workers. They are generally supposed to make a profit of about threepence a dozen; but, as a matter of fact, being shopkeepers, they commonly make two profits—one on the gloves, and another on the goods the sewers purchase at their shops. These people have a somewhat difficult part to play, as they stand between two fires; but they are a most useful class, and carry work and its rewards into many villages where, but for them, they would never come. They have done much to stay the exodus of the population from this part of the agricultural districts, enabling parents to keep their young people, and especially their young women, at home, instead of sending them to the great towns to seek for employment. Having come back from the stitchers, the gloves are sent out once more. If they are heavy winter gloves, they are sent out to be lined with warm soft cotton material. If they are lighter goods, they are at once despatched to be welted—that is, to have the binding put round the top and the opening at the wrist. The buttons or clasps, as the case may be, are next added; that done, they come back to the factory for the last time, and pass the final examination.