Doll

Doll. The use of dolls as toys goes back to a very early period of human history. In Assyria, in ancient Egypt, in Greece and Rome, dolls were common playthings. They offer a natural stimulus to the maternal instinct in girls; but as boys frequently play with them until they are laughed out of the practice, it is clear that this is an inadequate explanation of their use. They are probably played with rather as an imitation of the familiar actions of the mother or nurse than for any more recondite reason. The immense development of the doll trade in modern times is due chiefly to Parisian taste. Wooden dolls (jointed), indeed, are made as a village industry in parts of Germany and Austria, notably at St. Ulrich, near Botzen, in the Tyrol, where the trade is highly specialised. Indiarubber dolls date from about 1845. China dolls and the rag doll of our ancestresses have been largely supplanted by the handsome wax and composition dolls which are chiefly made in France. As an illustration of the elaboration of the doll's wardrobe it may be mentioned that (according to a Pall Mall Gazette interview) the trade price of dolls' kid gloves is 3s. 6d. a pair; while court dresses, ball dresses, walking dresses, and toilet appliances of the most elaborate kind - not to mention embroidered underclothing - have replaced the simpler attire of the dolls of past centuries, greatly to the detriment of childish imagination and ingenuity. The question arises who buys all these things e It was stated a few years ago that the finest dolls and the most elaborate dresses find a large sale among grown-up young ladies in Spain, South America, and other Latin countries. The higher education has touched them but little as yet, and they find in dressing their dolls a stimulus and satisfaction to their interest in costume. It is also stated that the best dolls' toilettes are made in Paris, the requisite taste being hitherto unavailable elsewhere. Walking dolls (which are not as yet graceful in their movements) and speaking-dolls are American inventions, while a proposal has been patented for dolls with small phonographs in their chests, so that they will be able to repeat poetry or sing. Notoriously, however, these elaborate dolls which leave nothing to the imagination are not regarded with the human affection which attaches to the simpler dolls of childhood.