News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1883-10-04

LFrom the AIilwanLnn Snn-l

TFrom the Milwaukee SUM-
'Have you ever been attacked will
the plug hat fever ?" asked an old gen
tleman the other evening, and, withou
waiting for reply, went on to relate
his own experience, and to tell the result
of his own observations. 81 ncyel
knew young man who, when he ha6
reached an age between eighteen an6
twenty-five, but what he had the plug
hat fever to a greater or less severity.
He will suffer a great denl, too, before
it fairly breaks out, and he gets a shiny
tile on his head. Then he suffers Sc
vereIy for several days after he gets the
hat, and he is conceited enough TO be-
lieve the eyes of the whole world are
upon him. He will wish for the first
day or two he hadn't got it, and then
again he'll pluck up grit enough to wear
it i'll spite Of everything. Next to the
mustache ambition, the plug hat fever
strikes to the very vitals. The first
symptoms of the fever makes its presence
known by the victims visiting some hat
store, and trying on half a dozen silk
hats, and looking admiringly at himself
i'll mirror. He will put it on square,
then cock it over to one side, then hang
it on his left ear, and smile with salts
faction at the image Of himself under the
hat in the mirror.
GA young calf under a new shed could
not feel prouder of itself, than the young
man with goose down on his upper lip,
when he first beholds his manly brow
in looking glass, supporting shiny
silk hat. It's too overcoming for any
thing, and in a great many instances it
is more overcoming than becoming.
But then they must have 'em, no matter
about the expense. Finally the hat is
purchased, put i'll a hat-box, and con-
veycd to the young mans room with the
greatest care and fond expectations of
the manliness it will give the wearer in
the near future. For a week, maybe,
he will exercise the hat by wearing it in
his room for few hours every evening.
Finally he gets his courage to the proper
pitch, and on an auspicious Sunday
evening starts for church with the hat
nicely setting on the top of his head
He knew he would attract attention and
the first street urchin he meets calls at
tention to it by shouting shoot the hat
"NOw, how did that young heather
come to notice anything new or novel in
the hat ? It is easily explained. When
a man wears plug hat on the street for
the1irst time he gives himself away by his
Im-on-drcss-p parade air. He will walk
as carefully as though trying to balance
a pail of water on his head and expect
ing every moment that it will trip off
and douse him. IT don't squeak alike
new shoe to attract attention, but it
stiffens up the spine in an unusual and
unnatural degree. 1t takes several pub
lie appearances i'll the new plug to again
timber up the spine to its normal con-
dition. Arriving at church the young
man hesitates for an instant about going
in, but remembering an appointment to
sec a young lady home, he braces up,
stiflly holds the detcrmined-to -to-ottract-
attention silk hat over his right fore
arm, he mentally swears vengeance
on the usher who prances him
up to the front pew in the center of the
church for no other purpose than to call
attention, in his mind, to the new plug
Eight out of ten rst-time-I-wore-a-p plug
hat young men will become so agitated
that instead of putting the hat on the
floor out of the way, will place it on the
seat and forget to remove it when the
usher shows some one else in for the sole
purpose, i'll his mind, of having them
sit on it and wreck it. It's good thing
to have the first plug wrecked i'll this
way, because the first hat has got to be
wrecked, but it is generally done by
some kind friend who sneaks up behind,
Jams it down over your ears, and is
away before you fairly understand
brick block hasn't tumbled onto you.
A plug hat is probably the most dressy
hat, but heavens how man suffers
when the fever first fully develops itself
to a head"
Just as the story was finished ayoung
man with skin-tight pants, tooth-pick
shoes, arms curved so as to make his
body look rs though it was in a paren-
thesis, with Il pipe-stem cane in the
fingers Of his right hand, while a shiny,
latest style of plug hat was on his head,
passed. "Poor fellow" remarked the
old man as he passed into the hotel, ''if
he only had brains enough to cover the
point of a cambric needle his hat would
be quite becoming. They all get the
fever though, regardless Of brains"