_Gloves._--The question of F.E. (Vol. i., p. 366.), "Why are gloves not worn before royalty?" having hitherto received no answer, may probably be as difficult of solution as another custom in which a glove figures as a token of defiance. Perhaps, however, covered hands, as well as a covered head, may have been considered discourteous. Indeed, we learn frown Cobarruvias, in his _Tesoro_, that it was so considered in Spain:-- "ENGUANTADO. El que entra con Guantes adonde se le ha de tener a descortesia. El que sirve no los ha de tener delante de su Senor: ni Vasallo, sea quien fuere, delante de su Rey." Fo. 453. b. ed. 1611. The use of gloves must be of very high antiquity. In the Middle Ages the priest who celebrated mass always, I believe, wore them during that ceremony; but it was just the contrary in courts of justice, where the presiding judge, as well as the criminal, was not allowed to cover his hands. It was anciently a popular saying, that three kingdoms must contribute to the formation of a good glove:--Spain to prepare the leather, France to cut them out, and England to sow them. I think the etymology of the word _glove_ is in far from a satisfactory state. It is a good subject for some of your learned philological correspondents, to whom I beg leave to recommend its elucidation. S.W. Singer. Mickleham, July 26. 1850. _Punishment of Death by Burning_ (Vol. ii., pp. 6, 50, 90.).--Your correspondent E.S.S.W. gives an account of a woman burnt for the murder of her husband in 1783, and asks whether there is any other instance of the kind in the latter part of the last century. I cannot positively answer this Query, but I will state a circumstance that occurred to myself about the year 1788. Passing in a hackney-coach up the Old Bailey to West Smithfield, I saw the unquenched embers of a fire opposite Newgate; on my alighting I asked the coachman "What was that fire in the Old Bailey, over which the wheel of your coach passed?" "Oh, sir," he replied, "they have been burning a woman for murdering her husband." Whether he spoke the truth or not I do not know, but I received it at the time as truth, and remember the impression it made on me. It is, perhaps, as well to state that there were some fifteen to twenty persons standing around the smouldering embers at the time I passed. Senex. _India Rubber_ is now so cheap and common, that it seems worth while to make a note of the following passage in the _Monthly Review_ for Feb. 1772. It occurs at p. 71., in the article on "A familiar Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Perspective, by Joseph Priestly, LL.D. F.R.S., 8vo. 5s., boards. Johnson."