Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1887 — Something About Dolls. [ARTICLE]

Something About Dolls.

Dolls are by no means a modern invention. Dolls of baked clay, of wood, and of other things, have been found in Egypt, in tombs, where they.have lain buried since before the time of Christ. Dolls are now much more carefully made than they were in former times, and a great deal of skill is needed in their manufacture. In the little town of Sonneberg, in Germany, hundreds of thousands of dolls are manufactured every year. Most of the dolls are made out of papier mache, but many fine ones are made with wax or china heads. All dolls of the same size which have like faces are made in one mold, and there have to be as maay molds as there are different kinds of faces. It takes thirty or forty persons to make a single doll, as each workman does only one thing. In Japan, children have every year what is called a “feast of dolls.” This is held only on one day of the year, at which time all the dolls that ha\o belonged to the family are brought out from the safe places where they are usually kept, and put upon tables with many k.nds of playthings. Sometimes there are more than a hundred dolls, some of which are dark with age, for often dolls two hundred years old are shown at this feast. They are dressed in all sorts of ways, some like, court ladies and gentlemen, and some like common ladies and gentlemen. Some of these dolls are very small, and some are as large as a little girl. Tbe feast of dolls lasts only one day, yet the toys are shown for many days, t Dolls used by East Indian children are very different from any in this country. 'they are made of wood painted with different colors. } aoh doll has a baby in its arms, and is fixed to a wooden block so that it can stand up. , The clothes are only painted ones, its arms are not jointed, and the only thing "that can be tak&a off is tbe bead, which is fastened intoHhe body with a peg. Common wooden jointed dolls are made mostly in Germany by poor people, who whittle them out by hand. —Young Folks’ Cyclopedia: