New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-12-30
HATS.


lecture of the hat. Great earnestness and elo-
quence pervaded the discussion, and the en-
lightened synod arrived at the decision that
the present hat was not the thing it ought to
be. There is no doubt that the family of
Christian nations will, without dissent, concur
in this professional verdict, though whether
the substitute proposed by the council will be
received and worn with international unanimity
is a question on which it would be rash to
hazard an opinion.
Hitherto, Germany, a1mirnble as she
is in scholarship, sausagcs beer, valor,
and poetry, has not achieved dlstln-
guisbed ominence in the hat line. The
head gear of her various peoples, although 1t
set some barren spectators to laugh, had like
wise a tendency to make the judiciOus grieyc.
1t seen ed melancholy that brains so luminous
and so copiousy sulluScd with irrelevant
learning should goethe and simmer beneath
civic helmets of such preposterous curve and
contour. 1t is time, doubtless, that reform
be instituted but whether the pOndcrOus con-
Glaze of Bayarans and Pomcranians, Wurtem-
bergers, Hollandcrs, and Berlncse, which re-
Gently assembled and sat, heavily ccn5orIous
and critical, each upon the hat OF his nelghbor,
be Just the organization 10 effect that reform
is question Of which the world anxiOusiy
awaits the solution.
The only plausible argument we have ever
heard in favor of the familiar cylindrical APP
purtenance with which custom impel5 us to
cover our heads is, that if brick or other
hard substance fell upon it the hat would he
hurt rather more than the head under It, But
this plea is trivial and Of no value. Except
in the region of earthquakes or Irishmen the
falling of bricks does not constitute an urgent
or uniform peril. 1t is not necessary, there
fore. to guard against confusion in so unpleas-
ant and burdensome a manner. 1t is true that
the impact of thick brick upon thin skull not
artiiicially protected would be likely to pso-
duce emotions calculated for the time being to
reconcile the man owning tho skull to almost
any style of hat you could mention Cor, indeed,
anything else; but as we before remarked, Oc-
currences of this character are not very fire.
quent, and in our opinion they furnish no JUS
tifcatiOn of the hat as ut present worn.
1t is % fact that that unpleasant object is
one which no right-mindcd person not engaged
in the hat trade will undertake to defend. 1t
does not protect the head from cold in the
Winter, while in the Summer it concentrates
upon that added organ the ardors of the sun,
causing the brains to ferment and the emo
tional bumps to perspre with freedom. We
never heard anybody, except perhaps q de-
mented halter, carecrinS through the strophes
and ant-strophes of double-leaded adver-
tiscment, say that it was handsome-and for
the best of reasons. 1t isn't. 1t is as ugly
as anything can be at the price. No in
Of frnD
reproach. StudiOus and ambitious artisans
may curl the surrounding brim in never so
intricate wave lines and vOlutions, and
medify never so artfully the simple eylin-
drical serenity of the crOwn-stin the fact
remains the thing is monstrous.
If our readers, whom custom may perhaps
have reconciled to the hat of the period,
think that we are Over-stating the case, We
request them to reflect for moment how
Cato would have looked in one of the new
Fall styles. Suppose Julius Caesar had gone
to the Capital in q brand new beaver with q
faring brim, and confronted the conspirators
with that dismal article cooked jauntily over
his right eyebrow. History and Poetry would
have been robbed of q very stately figure,
and we should have in its place merely the
middle-aged politician of the period-a Roman
muff Of elderly and tedious aspect an image
not unlike that of an inebriated alderman in
his night-gown striving to go to bed with
his hat on. Imagine exiled Themistocles get
ting away from Athens in white hat with a
weed on il, or Belisarius holding out battered
tilen 10 receive the charitable ObOlus II is
only 10y separating ourselves from the in
fuences of familiar association and reverting
to the primary principles of grace, symmetry,
and utility, that we become aware how sur
passingly ugly and inconvenient are the hats
which the late generations Of the worlds
hatters have imposed upon us.
We are not sanguine enough to hope that
the German sanhedrim will evolve from its
collective inner consciousness the ideal hat
the hat of the future, for which the ages,
bald and bareheaded anxiOusly wait. There
are things which that great land is divinely
appOnts to do, and other things which she
no genius for hats. She had better stick to her
metaphysics and her drill, leaving sartorial
devices to the land which she has humbled in
battle, but beside which she stands no chance
in dress making, or appointing fashions. Ii
her artisans were empowered to designate the
sort of hat which the world should hence
forward wear, it would probably bear "a modi-
fed resemblance to tho cOnical and sinister
bonnet of Mephistopheles, plumed with n
cocks feather and belted with u crimson rband,
the like of which we have occasionally seen
on the stage or in pictures. That is Il good
enough fantasy of costume for melodrama