Shoes
Among sundry Eastern curios quaintly shaped and sometimes beautifully embroidered shoes are met with, such as those which have been brought over to this country from China and Eastern lands. Most of the shoes worn in the East are slipped off easily, and, like Persian and Turkish slippers, are made of red leather beautifully embroidered, silk, satin, and velvet being overlaid and embroidered with silver and sequins. The old practice of compressing the feet of young girls in China is dying out, but some of the curious little shoes which gave such pain to their wearers are seen as museum curios on account of their curious decoration. Indian shoes are met with at times, especially those embroidered with silver thread, and with green and other coloured silks. A curious ceremony is associated with the marriage of a Turkish bride, who wears a pair of clogs carved all over, sometimes with symbolical significance, on her way to her prescribed ceremonial visit to the bath. At one time it was customary for a Jewish bridegroom to present his bride with a shoe at the conclusion of the wedding ceremony, this custom being not far removed from that of throwing an old shoe after a newly married couple for luck.