The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1873-02-08
Onr Dlio.
The Hats of the Past.


10 its origin and progress to II present style,
shape and appearance, i wide and inviting.
Development in dress is as interesting al
most as development in species, and It is
highly entertaining to trace the gradual
progress of fashions through long ages.
just about the oldest and the quecrost Of
all the odd and queer articles which 90 to
make up the manly costume, is the hat.
Regard it in all its multifarious shapes
and styles, it is, if esthetically considered,
bound to provoke smile. 1t is to be pre-
sumed that Adam himself introduced the
first style, and that it was not long after he
first wrapped himself in fig leaves that he
donned the parent tile AT any rate the
earliest races Of which we have any au-
thentic information are known to have
worn some sort Of hcadgear The ancient
Egyptians and Assyrians are at times de-
pictcd with unmistakable hats on their
heads And 50 on, down through many
ages and in many nations, may the hat be
traced.
During the dark, and, indeed says IA
writer in Chambers journal ifthe phrase
may be used, even the twilight ages, hats
were suppressed throughout Europe. The
cap, the colt, the hood lorded it every
where. DO one wore a hat except the poor
jew, at the sight of whose detested gaber-
dine and the yellow cylinder which, as per
act of Parliament, he slank abroad in, the
boys set up hoot of scorning opprobrium.
The revival of learning was also the reyi-
val Of hats. Indeed, just as some scholar
ship and some acknowledge existed before
France kindly took Minerva and the MUSES.
under its splendid patronage, so had hats
begun to assert themselves before the first
French soldier found a grave in Italy. It
was hat around which Louis XI. wore
those tiny leaden cihgies of saints whom he
was apt to invoke before numbering or rob
bing somebody as a matter of state policy.
Germany favored absurd little hats that
could not easily be balanced on the head
they were supposed to shelter The Low
Countries had elected a more comfortable
breadth of brim. English ''men of wor.
ship had assumed hat, frequently with
an iron lining, as proper precaution in
the days of hand-blows and the wars Of the
roses. And presently the hat reigned SUI
preme, sending down the dcposed cap to
take subordinate place in the worlds es
teem, and abolishing the hood altogether
Among the hats Of the latter middle ages
two stand conspieuously forth. The car.
dinals red was known everywhere within
the compass of a legates journeyings, or q
nuncio's Jurisdiction. The hat of state Of
the archducal house Of Austria had merely
local interest but then it was as dear t.
Austrians as the iron crown to Lombardy
or the diadem of Stephen to the Hungari
ans, With them, the head of the Haps
burgs-Emperor of the Romans and kina
of the Germans as he might have been pro
claimed at Worms-was simply archdukC
their own archduke. He did not weal
crown when he appeared as their ruler
he wore hat And that glorifed hat t.
this very hour, is carefully guarded and
jealousy locked up in the innermost cham
Der of town-hall as strong as a fortress
and the nine keys of the chest that holds
the treasure are intrusted to nine council
los, who may never, without prodigiou.
fuss, publicity and ceremony, extract the
sacred beaver from its honorable durance
The hat which Geissler Austrian bailiifin
Swiss valley, is tabled to have set upon
a pole to receive homage from the sturdy
dalesmen, and which drew forth for us the
pretty story of Tell and the apple, must
have been pale reflex of the tremendous
hat Of Gcissler's archducal master. The
stceple crowned hat OF Queen Elizabeth's
time really has weird look. 1t has come
as an article offeminine attire, to be attrib.
uted to witches. The witch of the earlier
half of the seventeenth century might as
well have equipped herself to ride to some
midnight festival without her broomstick
and black cat, as without one Of the point
ed hats which had been in high fashion
when the Armada threatened the English
shores. Yet these hats fingered in use
among rustic females long after the court
had discarded and poets ridiculed them.
We see in the vignette of Tzaak Walton !
Angler-cxecuted in the reign Of James
H.--the deathless milkmaid and her quaint
mother in these portentous hats, with
long and broad strings hanging down.
Queen Anne beheld, not only as the schol-
astie rythmer declared
Newton high enthroned
Amongst the heavenly host
But also, what was perhaps more interest
ing to the Girl of the Period, the advent Of
hats for ladies' wear, not very dissimilar 60
the Dolly Warden hat of our own day, and
which held their ground pretty firmly
through the century, until they were ex-
tinguished by the gigantic bcnnets that
were worn when George III. was strug-
Cling against the obtrusive Corsican, and
Queen Charlotte yet but middle-aged
princess.
Steeple hats, as asrcgarded masculine wear,
came to be badge Of faction. The men
of buff iron, they of the falling bands and
sad-colored raiment, and terrible trcnchant
npiers, wore them in battle and in coun-
ell The members az the Uioh rourf n