[Ads-l] Reflections/query on the term "glove compartment" (of a car)

[Christopher Philippo]

Prior to automobiles, would carriages have had glove boxes?

Or could the term be a reference not to what it was to be used for but more to its size, similar to that of a box for gloves and perhaps put to miscellaneous uses as a literal glove box might also be?

E.g.:
There was a little table there — a very little table — which served as a counter, three or four pasteboard boxes full of reams of writing paper, of different sizes, an old glove box in which steel pens, quill pens, and bad pencils were all jumbled pell-mell together, six ink jars and four rules.
Aunt Ess. (From the French). Daily Alta California. March 9, 1884: 9 col 1.
http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=DAC18840309.2.86 [appears to be a syndicated item]
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