Among other practical uses of finger rings may be mentioned their use as money by the Gauls and other tribes of northern Europe. Women have had mirrors set in their rings, to give them constant glimpses of beauty—or a chance for quick repair. In eighteenth-century England and later—my grandfather wore one—were rings capped with a little hammer to press the tobacco down in pipes. And there were rings for fighting. Roman gladiators added iron rings to the power of their fists, sometimes even enlarging these with a bar across the entire back of the hand, held by a leather thong across the palm—predecessors of the infamous “brass knuckles.” _Poison Rings_ Even more sinister, though mainly obsolete except in spy stories, is the murderous poison ring. In some such rings, the poison could be ejected through a tiny aperture in a point of the design, as in the lion’s claw of a ring of Cesare Borgia’s. This point would normally be on the side of the ring at the back of the hand, but it would be slipped around to the palm outstretched to shake the hand of the unsuspecting victim. A firm pressure of greeting became at once goodbye. Another of the Borgias, Pope Alexander VI, would ask the man he destined to death to open a cabinet for him. He gave the man a key ring, and as the bar twisted in the massive lock, a prick injected the poison into the pressing hand. More frequent than these pressing devices, however, were rings with a secret compartment or concealed receptacle that could be opened, to pour out the poison, so that it might be mixed unnoticed when one was filling a glass of wine for an unwanted guest. This type of ring was also most useful for emergency suicides. When the great Carthaginian commander Hannibal was captured by the Romans in 183 B.C., he ended his life by biting into the soft metal cap of his ring which was filled with poison. In 1794 the French philosopher Condorcet, arrested in the Revolution, made his exodus from a world in turmoil through the aid of a poison ring. Numerous accounts of international espionage in recent wars make it seem that, as a release from torture and psychological brainwashing, the suicidal use of the poison ring is not outworn. But many a ring, originally constructed to conceal a poison, before it found rest in a museum was used as a conveyor of perfume. A more humdrum use of the ring has been not to end but to mark the passing hours. The first time-keeping ring was a miniature sundial. As soon as escapements were compact enough, watches were set as the crowns of rings; I have mentioned that two hundred years ago Mme. de Pompadour wore a watch in a gold ring encircled with diamonds. _Honorary Rings_