The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-05-01
THE SILK Hat.
BY JUNIUs HENRI BROWNE.

uDCOmlOEJaDI0, anu bu0 WOESb 1OOhIHS
head covering that has been known to
civilization. Almost everybody admits
this and yet the capital monstrosity is
worn more and more every year. 1t
the prevalence of custom
and cow, ntionality over reason and
good taste; it evinces force without
foundation, strength without substan-
TALLY; and so involves and lterates
contradiction. In raiment it is an alb
surdity; in logic fallacy; in form a
transgTession.
Fashion is rarely squared with fit
ness; has often been gro!esque and RI
diculous /; but, when and where it has
been so, its reign has usually proved
brief. Folly is apt by excess to light
the underlying mine of good sense,
and blow itself to pieces, even though
it re-arise in new shape to continue its
imbecilities. With the silk hat It is
different. Already it has existed for
century has extended from France,
where If had its unfortunate and unbe-
coming origin, to every quarter of the
globe still pushes its way and insures
its prosperity, in spite of countless ar
guments, any one of Hhich is enough to
certify its extinction.
The reputation France has enjoyed of
being re-eminently the land of art and
grace, deserves to be impaired by its
invention and liberation of the cylin-
drical head-piece. Had it been guilty
of many such denominations, it would
certainly have lost its aesthetic fame.
From inexplicabe causes, the silk hat
has come to be regarded as a symbol,
in place of a perversion, of civilization.
It is the first thing a barbarian seizes
to deck himself with, thereby augment
ing his barbarity of semblance fivefold.
Our aboriginals as we'll as the natives
of Polynesia, all savages, indeed, de-
light to strut in what is vulgarly called
a stove-pipe-so called perhaps, be-
cause the stove is the best place for it.
A more ludic-ous object than a son of
the forest in moccasins, beads, war
paint, and blanket, surmounted by that
deformity, is hard to imagine. 1t is
beyond burlesque, since it includes the
highest elements of burlesque in its
amazing incongruity. A silk hat, I'M
der any circumstances, is an embodied
improperly, an emphasized awkward
ness. 1t is the irony of fashion, sar-
casm on taste. No human being, in any
age or of any nation, ever looked well
under it no human being ever will or
ever can. Crown a picture or a statue
with it, and the crown becomes a cross
that is unbearable. The most august
parsonage, the grandest hero, must be
rendered ridiculous by it. Conceive, if
you can, Pericles, Epaminondas, Caesar,
Pompey, Charlemagne, or Barbarossa,
wearing a silk hat With such an i'm
pediment, the Greek would not have
become a great leader; nor would the
Theban have won the lasting gratitude
of his countrymen. The first of Ro-
mans must have lost dignity in death,
and his illustrious rival would never
have been able to raise legions by the
stamping of his foot.
The sable cylinder destroys alike the
classic and romantic, the poetic and
picturesque. In this bold and practi-
cal age even, it m rs beauty and stiles
sentiment. 1t makes the dull man look
duller, the plain man palmer. He who
can endure it shows his capacity for
endurance, not it's possibility of orna-
ment. Its hideousness is illustrated by
every change in fashion. The spring
style escapes criticism until the autumn
style appears, when it at once becomes
absurd. The silk hat is bad enough
at any time ; but, out of season, it i'm
itates total depravity. The wearer of
an unreasonable hat should be either
humorist or a bankrupt. In the me-
tropolis, he is considered, if not mil
lionaire, a person who has lost both his
money and his credit. The sole claim
some men have to unenviable distinc
ton consists in their sustainment of
questionable hats. Relinquishing
silk, they might wear any skull-cover-
ing they like but, cleaving to the silk,
all latitude is denied. A silk hat, once
put on, is an acknowledgement of con-
ventionality is equivalent to entering
into bonds to follow the mode. He
who hopes for independence afterward,
unless he surrender the habit altogether,
reckons not the consequence of his first
act.
Civic professions in the country,
notably those of st. Patrick's Day,
evince the unsuitableness and grotesqe-
ness of this peculiar hat. 1t is pre-.
scented in infinite variety /; each variety
looking the W rse, the farther it is re-
moved from the prevailing style. There
are high crowns, low crowns, bell
crowns, straight crowns, sloping
crowns; broad rims, narrow rims,
curved rims, cured rims, dating
back for five, ten, or fifteen years, and
manifestly Withdrawn from their Sc
clusion only for special occasions. It
is as good as a farce to stand at street
corner, and watch the passing hats
every phase of humor is expressed In
them. Punch winks and grimaces in
the archaic shapes and Momus laughs
from the well-worn nap.
Americans, as rnle, have no rever-
ence for hats of by-gone era. They
respect them solely for their contempt
raneous character throwing them aside
when fashion has outlawed them, and
purchasing new ones, whatever their
unbecomingness. Not so the Europe
ans, who hold silk hat as something
sacred, to be treasured for a lifetime
perhaps to be handed down from sire
to son. Many of the head-coverings
displayed by the denizens of the Old
World are obviously heirlooms. They
must have been made for other genera
tons; and they are unconsciously pa
raded for the laughter of the present
day. In England, silk hat is regarded
as badge of respectability-that mo-
mentous and mysterious something
which every true Briton is fearful he
Aldg mol dtIdlu anu SAlh Ad0 AAOAA
which the silk has departed to give
place to grease, dents and decay, is
thought preferable to any other kind
of head piece, however presentable.
London is the only city in the world
where one consults his interest and
by wearing a silk hat
They who have spent any time there,
must remember how much annoyance
and pickering has been saved them by
the adoption of the approved cylinder.
porters, cab-drivers, shop
keepers, are convinced that any man,
without such surmourting, is a cad or
an underling, and that they are privi-
legged, therefore, to snub. insult, or
swindle him. Outside of London and
the unshapely thing has no
other advantage than that which fash
ion yields; but to many, even of our
sex, fashion is imperative.
The Pulsemeter.
A machine passing under this name
has been devised for the purpose of
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