. Another beautiful needle stick in the same
collection is mounted with silver. On some of the woodwork used for
similar purposes there are cleverly designed pictures, and these were
not always associated with private use, for the clothworkers in many
districts used quite fanciful tools, especially in the villages, where
time was of small moment, and the long winter evenings could be occupied
with cutting and carving the handles and framework of the tools which in
everyday practice served such a useful and often wage-earning purpose.
In the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a remarkable cloth-measure
made of walnut, bearing date 1745, three-sided, one being covered over
with letters of the alphabet cut in deep relief, thus serving a useful
purpose in the home or as an educational standard. On the second side
there are cleverly designed pastoral and hunting scenes, and on the
third the arms of the Swiss cantons. Other portions of the measure
illustrate the implements and tools used by clothworkers at that period.

Switzerland has long been famous for its wood carving, and many of the
curios found in this country have come from the Swiss mountain villages.
No doubt some of our readers have come across the old pin poppets which
boys and girls carried with them to the village school half a century or
more ago. The girls filled them with pins and needles, bodkin and
stiletto, and the boys with pencils and pens. In Fig. 75 two curious old
pin boxes are illustrated. The _pins_ shown on the same page are,
however, of much older date; they are, in fact, merely thorns; these
interesting and authentic relics of the "common objects of the home," or
perhaps more correctly described, of dress, are to be seen in the
National Collection of Wales at Cardiff, the measuring stick shown in
the photograph giving their size. The pin poppet, as its name denotes,
was, however, intended originally for the requirements of the early
needleworker who at the dames' school won renown in those great
achievements--the samplers of old. These, however, do not exhaust the
wood-carving curios of the workbox, but they may serve to remind
collectors of what they may hope to discover in their hunt for household
curios.

The Needlewoman.

The curiosities much prized to-day, the work of the needlewoman, or
those who plied the needle chiefly for purposes of amusement or to give
pleasure to those on whom they bestowed the products of their skill, are
met