Pins have become so very cheap in these days that we are rather careless with them, but the expression has continued to live although today when used, it means any allowance of money which a husband gives a wife for her personal expenses. Pins were known and used as long ago as 1347 A. D. They were introduced into England in 1540. In 1824 an American named Might invented a machine for making pins which enabled them to be manufactured cheaply. About 1,500 tons of iron and brass are made into pins every year in the United States. Why Do People Shake Hands With the Right Hand? In the days of very long ago when all men were prepared to fight at any and all times because one could not know whether another approaching was a friend or an enemy, all men went armed. This was before the day of guns when the sword was the great weapon of defense. Upon occasion when one man approached another, each had to decide whether the other came on a peaceful mission or not. People in those days were mostly right handed as they are now and when fighting carried their swords in their right hands. If, then, a man wished to speak with a stranger or, as might easily be necessary, to one who may even be known to be unfriendly, he put out his right hand upon approaching to show that he had no deadly or dangerous weapon in it. The other man could see this and knew from the extended open hand that no harm was intended and that the approach was peaceful. If, then, he was willing to meet the other, he also extended his right arm with the hand open to show him who was approaching that his fighting hand was empty also; and when they met each would grasp the hand of the other so that neither one could change his mind and assume a fighting attitude without the other having an equal warning. How Did the Custom of Clinking Glasses When Drinking Originate? In the days of the Roman gladiators, before a duel with swords, it became the custom of each of the participants to drink a glass of wine before fighting. Just before the fighting commenced two glasses of wine were brought and the gladiators drank. These two glasses of wine were provided by the friends of either one or the other of the gladiators. To guard against treachery, through some over zealous friend of the fighters furnishing poisoned wine was necessary. So before drinking and to show there was no treachery, the gladiators came close together and poured wine from one glass into the other back and forth until the wine in the glasses was thoroughly mixed. If the wine in one glass then had been poisoned, the poisoned wine would thus be in both glasses, and if there had been any treachery, both gladiators would be poisoned if they drank. The wine was poured from one glass to the other to show that there was no treachery.