Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1890 — Thimole-Rick. [ARTICLE]

Thimole-Rick.

We have Monewhere read of an Englishman who was knighted fox introducing wheelbarrows in army intrenchment work, and was known afterward as the “wheel-baronet." A thimble—as any other really useful article—would do credit to a coat-of-arms, though-we are not told There is a rich f imily of the name of Loftjng in England, the fortune of whose nouste waS OrigihflUy by such an apparently insignificant thing as the thimble. ■ > . The firat ever . seen ip Englftud was made in London less 'than two hundred years ago by a metal worker named John Lofting. The usefulness’ of the article commeuded it at once to-all who used the needle, and Lofting acquired a large fortune. The; was then called the thunabbefl, as.'it whs worn on the thumb when in use; and itsjahape suggested the rest of the name. Jtiis clumsy mode of utilizing it was soon changed, however, but the name, softening into "thimble,” remains.