The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-04-03
The History of Eats.


The Paris correspondent of the Lon
don Morning Standard thus summaries
some French gossip on hats An in
| genious arch@ologist supplies tht
Debats with an interesting paper, from
which may be inferred that the history
of revolutions is also the history
of hats. According to this learned pei.
son the " chimney pot, which, though
universally worn, is as generally abused
as the most inconvenient of all head
coverings, is an institution venerable
for its antiquity. Chimney-pot hats
were commonly worn in Thibet long
before the days of Magma Charta. There
were. however, distinctions. A native
of Thibet in those days could tell who
and what the wearer was from the color
of his hat. It was white for civilians,
black for officials, yellow for monks and
the Grand Lama alone had-and the
Debaus assures us still rctains-the
privilege of wearing ''chapeau " of the
finest red. The Debats regrets to find
tAa5 the Hebrews have not in any way
contributed to hatology ;" but the
writer surely goes a little too far il in
fering from the fact that he has been
unable to discover any Hebrew name
for hat, that the Jews entirely discarded
that useful article of dress. The Spar
tans wore felt hats, not that they par
ticularly affected any covering for their
heads, but as a distinguishing mark.
The felt hat was the outward sign which
distinguished the freeman from the
helot. The natives of Egina wore hats
of a peculiar character they were so
thick that they might serve for a shield,
and so heavy that they formed dan
gerous offensive weapon. When DrscO
went to Crete, he went to the theater to
read out his code of laws. The Cretans
determined that he should be summari-
l. extinguished, and forthwith they
threw their hats at him. Draco did not
recover. The hats had proved too much
for him. I was not myself aware of
this curious episode, but if it be
founded on fact, it is / believe the only
instance on record. The Romans-sen-
sible people-only wore hats for use
not for ornament-broad-b brimmed straw
hats, to keep off the sun and rain. In
France hats appear to have been worn
toward the close of the Hundred
Years War" The first king that is
represented with this civilian head gear
is Charles VII. When he went to
Rome he wore on his solemn entry a
chimney-pot hat with a piece of gold
braiding round it, not unlike the hats
now occasionally worn by fOotmen. Louis
XI.-a sensible man-disnarded hats.
and resumed the convenient and pictur-
esque cap of maintenance which had
been the favOrite head-dress of most of
his forefathers. 1t was not, however,
until the days of the League and the
religious war that the hat rose into
political Importance. The Huguenots
wore tall felt hats, not unlike those now
worn by tourists, Ornamented with q
single feather the Catholics wore short
felt hats, adorned by the double cross
adopted by the House of Lorraine. |
Under Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. the |
nat become once more a social symbol. |
The hat in general use was a three cor |
lered affair, like that worn by London |
,oachmen on levee and draWing-room |
lays. But doctors wore chimney-pOts
about two feet high; priests wore, on
he contrary, shovel hats of the same
pattern as that of Don BaSiii0 in the
Barbiere. Under Louis XIV. the hat
vas an article for ornament, not use
people used to wear it not on their
heads, but under their arms. The revo-
ution came, and made very short work
IF hats and the heads that wore them
When Napoleon fell, and "Louis Ie
Desire" returned to "the throne of his
the hat again became a pohti-
al emblem. The partisans of Napo-
con wore huge machines with a broad
urned up brim, weighing over pound
be Legitimates donned light tall silk
lats tapering to a point, with a very
harrow brim. Duels-fatal duels-too,
Eere then very frequent, and it was
to bring about a deadly rem
,ontre for the wearer of a narrow brim
o ask the 1gearer of the broad brim,
Who is your hatter?"
When our enc 9stors wanted a hot
UNI punch, they said so without eva
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