The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1877-03-22
The Hat In Church.

Or all the various expedients by which
ingenious church goes have endeAvored
to safely dispose of their hats, there is not
one that has not been proved to be falla-
cious. To hold ones hat continually in
ones lap is practicable only in Quaker
meeting house, where the wOrshipers re-
main seated during the entire service,
and never use any devotional implements,
such as prayer-books and hymn books. No
man could successfully balance hat in
one hand and find the epistle for the
twenty second Sunday after Trinity with
the other hand while to stand up in order
to repeat the creed or to sing o hymn,
with hat under the left arm, would be
the height of absurdity. The hat, then,
must be laid entirely aside durAng divine
service, and our churches, being con-
structed with exclusive reference to souls
instead of hats, afford no resting places for
the latter.
The extreme danger of placing q hat
in the aisle Immediately outside The pew
is universally known. The first lady that
sweeps up the aisle carries with her con-
fused mass of defenseless hats, which are
deposited in the shape of q terminal mo.
ralne in front of the pew which is her
final goal. OF course the hats which have
been subjected to this process are reduced
by attritiOn to rounded form and are
covered with scratches, reminding one of
the marks of glacial action on granite
boulders. However interesting they may
he to the geologist, they are of no further
value as hats, and can rarely be bent into
shape that will allow their owners to
wear them home. Next to the aisle the
pew seat is the most dangerous position
in which hat can be placed: Statistics
show that out of every one hundred hats
thus situated sixty are sat upon by their
owners, thirty-five are sat upon by other
people, and only five escape uninjured. 1t
is curious fact that more men sit down
upon their hats after repeating the creed
than after reading the Psalms or perform
ing any other perpendicular part of the
service. And another curious fact is the
attraction which hat thus exposed upon
seat exerts upon fat person. Neither
of these facts has ever been satisfactorily
explained, although they are matters of
general notoriety.
A man may enter remote pew in a
strange church and place his hat on a seat
in position where il is impossible for q
fat man to perceive it on entering the
church. Nevertheless, experience has
SlOWu lI0I III SIA CdScS OuG I'll lCu Tic Sex.
ton will show fat man into that precise
pew within ten minutes after the hat is in
position, while other and further fat men
will, from time to time, hover about the
locality, with the evident desire of ascer.
tanning if the hat is still susceptible of
further smashing. There is clearly law
of nature at work here which needs to be
definitely formulated, and it is discredita.
bic to science that this has not yet been
done.
AS to putting ones hat on the floor un-
derneath the seat, no one who follows
this reckless course can expect anything
but disaster. If there is a small boy in
the pew he will infallibly discover the
hat, and kick it to the further end of the
pew within the first thirty minutes of the
service. If there is lady in the pew, a
surgical operation will be required to re-.
move her boot from the interior of the
hat; while, in any event, the hat is GER
tain to absorb every particle Of dust with.
in radius Of eight feet, and to fasten it.
self to the floor with the aid of forgotten
Sunday-School gum drops. Neither under
the seat, on the seat nor in the aisle can
the worried hat find rest, and the plan of
establishing at-pound in the vestibule,
where hats could be ticketed and kept
during the service, would simply result
in converting church into a hat ex-
change, where the sinners would secure
all the good hats, and the saints would be
compelled to content themselves with
worn out and worthless Ones.-Boston
Transcript.