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Show Pattens. Americans find it more difficult than the English to understand what Dickens Dick-ens means when he says in "David "Da-vid Copperfleld :" "Women went clicking along the pavement in pattens." pat-tens." Pattens were an abbreviated form of stilts. The word is also used by builders as the name of the base of a column or pillar, and so, architecturally, the pattern Is the support sup-port used by a woman to keep her out of the water and mud. From this architectural use has come the secondary second-ary application of the word, meaning nn nrrangement attached to the shoe, so that the walker Is raised three or four inches above the solid earth. If the mud and water did not exceed that depth, the shoes were thus kept -fairly dry. It appears that pattens were not worn solely by the rich, but were luxuries luxu-ries Indulged in by the very poor. In speaking of a person who was not especially speedy, Ben Jonson uses the comparison, "You make no more haste now than a beggar upon pattens." pat-tens." In the ballad of "Farmer's Old Wife" occurs this startling expression : "She up with her pattens, and beat out their brajns." |