July, 1913 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



257 



agined, as the city is hung 

 with thousands upon thou- 

 sands, varying in size and 

 shape, hanging from the low 

 houses, the leafy trees, or 

 the bamboo poles. 



In the Holy Bible, lan- 

 terns are mentioned and 

 doubtless were in common 

 use among the Hebrews. It 

 is thought that they adopted 

 this form of light which was 

 used in Egypt, after their 

 period of servitude in that 

 country. The earliest rep- 

 resentation of a real lantern 

 was found in a fresco upon 

 the walls of an Egyptian 

 tomb. This shows a soldier 

 carrying, suspended from a 

 staff, a lantern of simple iron 

 framework, covered with a 

 cylinder of oiled paper re- 

 sembling the more primitive 

 Chinese lanterns. 



The Greek poets speak of 

 this kind of lighting and all 

 agree that Diogenes in his 

 search for an honest man in 

 the city of Athens, carried a 

 lantern, but of what design 

 we are not told. 



The best and most trans- 

 parent horn lanterns, accord- 

 ing to an ancient Roman 

 writer, were brought across 

 the Mediterranean from 

 Carthage. This writer fur- 

 thermore states that "when a wealthy man doth go abroad lanterns, which goes 

 by night, a slave who is called the lanternarius or servus his lifetime. Within 

 praelucens, doth walk before his master, bearing a lantern ten in 17 12, notes are 

 to light the way." The famous Latin poet, Martial, writ- all the way through 



Ship Lantern. Date, about 1 700 



ing in the year 80 A.D., tells 

 us that lanterns in that period 

 had slides which were made 

 from bladders as well as 

 from horn. 



A bronze lantern has been 

 found in the ruins of Pom- 

 peii, and another at Hercu- 

 laneum. Both of these are 

 of cylinder form, and are 

 supplied with bronze lamps, 

 with slides of transparent 

 horn. The handles are bar 

 shaped, attached by a chain, 

 while a sliding door gives ac- 

 cess to the lamp proper. 



Many of the old wood en- 

 gravings that depicted his- 

 torical events taking place in 

 the latter part of the sixteenth 

 century, show pictures of 

 lanterns, both those which 

 are used for lighting the 

 streets and those which were 

 commonly carried by hand. 

 There is no doubt, however, 

 that they had been in use in 

 England long before this, 

 for we read that the Lord 

 Mayor of London, in the 

 year 1416, issued an order 

 commanding "that lanterns 

 with lights bee hanged out 

 on Winter evenings betwixt 

 Hallontide and Candle- 

 masse." 



In his plays, here and 



there, Shakespeare refers to 



to show that they were used during 



the pages of a certain old diary, writ- 



also found showing that lanterns hung 



Hyde Park to the Queen's Palace. 



Hand Lantern, 1800 



Hall Lantern, 1770 



Ship Lantern, 1 720 



