The cutter first stretches the skin carefully to ascertain or measure its elasticity. Then he applies his pattern to see how he can get the best results quantitatively. In other words, a cutter must exercise the utmost ingenuity to get as many gloves as possible out of the skins he is working on, and not let any of the leather go to waste. In many glove factories, the foreman “taxes” the skins as they are given out to the cutters; that is, he fixes the number of pairs of gloves the cutter must turn out for a certain quantity of skins. After the cutter has stretched, pulled, measured, and finally cut out his oblong piece of leather, he marks the size on it and lays it aside for the calibres, which will be shown in operation later on. The skilled cutter’s work is done, and the pieces of leather he has cut are called tranks. The cutter must know, of course, whether the tranks he is producing are for overseam, piqué or prick-seam gloves, as each requires a different pattern. The fragments of leather left from the skins after the tranks are cut are used as far as possible for cutting hems, bindings, fourchettes and “hearts,” which latter is the technical name for the little “stay” at the bottom of the wrist opening. And certainly there is very little of the skin which is not utilized after all these items are subtracted. One would hardly realize what a jig-saw puzzle, and in how many intricately fitting parts, a glove actually is, until he paused to examine one and to count the different sections which must be shaped and cut out to go into its making. Next, the calibres demand our attention. These are the knives which really cut the tranks into the shape of gloves and might, perhaps, be called dies. They run, of course, in sizes; and the process might be likened to the old-fashioned way of cutting cakes out of dough with a tin cover, except that in stamping out gloves the position is reversed. The calibre is locked into a heavy machine with the sharp steel knife-edges up, and the tranks laid on top. A lever is pulled, a heavy weight descends, and the cut gloves are then ready to sew. Calibres are by no means uniform. That is to say, all manufacturers do not use the same kind; and among the leading, large manufacturers, each has his own cut, or set of calibres, differing from all others in some one or more points. For example, one manufacturer will have the fingers of his gloves made longer or shorter than the average; another will have all the fingers gussetted, while another will have no gussets, not even at the gore of the thumb. Still another has a cut with a specially short little finger—and so on. This results in a very wide variety of “cuts” in gloves, and each manufacturer of standard make is satisfied, and thinks his own is the best. It is the discriminating woman who finds out what cut or make fits her particular hand, and then sticks to that manufacturer’s gloves.