Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1874 — The Glass-Eye Trade in the United States. [ARTICLE]

The Glass-Eye Trade in the United States.

It is not generally known that the entire glass-eye business of the United States is in the hands of one firm, and but few people have any idea of the immensity of their business. There is in (he United States a deficit of some 60,000 eyes. Of this number about 25,000 make use of glass eyes. To supply these “ bully boys with glass-eyes” at least 100 specimens of optics are manufactured. Some rich; aristocratic old gentlemen have their eyes made to order. These are manufactured by hand with great care and nicety, a certain fire and vigor being thrown into them more than realistic. We know a Mr. Johnson who is greatly improved by wearing one of these glass eyes. The young ladies dote on him, and say he looks like a poet, “ his eye with sugh fine frenzy rolling.” Suchnre some of the advantages of a glass eye. The cheapest kind of eves are the light blue. These are sold in large quantities. The poor people who cannot afford luxuries usually wear these, whatever the’ color of their natural optics. When a man has a genuine black eye supplemented by one of dim, dismal blue it produces a weird effect. This strange, appearance is still more heightened when

the black eye gives evidence of a glass or so too much of whisky; its contrast with the sleepy soberness <)f the blue eye is apt to astonish a stranger. Several years ago this sole glass-eye estalbishment was burned out in the big fire in Pittsburgh. The sorrow, the ruin, the misery thiß caused can only be appreciated by a one-eyed man. Almost all had to content themselves with secondhand eyes, dim, and considerably the worse for wear and tear. A well-known merchant of New York, who was wanting in optics, dissected a doll of his daughter to procure an eye, so that he might appear in society decently, and man in this very city, in a similar strait, made use of those large variegated crystals of which children are so fond. ,His eye of many colors produced quite a sensation, and the manufacturers threw a quantity of Dolly Varden eves on the market, but somehow they did not take and become the fashion, and the cargo was an entire loss. The United States firm have almost entirely banished the French glass eye from this continent; the English eye never took well here, was never popular. They are now engaged in supplying the Chinese market, and have invented a new patented aquiline eye just suited for the Mongolians. They are also patentees of the strabismic glass eye, suitable for cross or cock-eyed people. With each dozen glass eyes a copy of directions how to wear glass eyes is sent. It is to be hoped that this book will be studied, as some of our best citizens display a disgraceful carelessness in the manner in which they wear their eyes. To be glared at with an eye upside down is apt to disturb a man; indeed, it is extremely disagreeable.— Hew Orleans Picayune.