Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1883-12-28
ABOUT HATS.


al
who amounts to anything usually wears
a shocking bad hat, with dents and dis
hgurements enough to give ii character.
and he has great respect for that kind
of hat, and can easily distinguish il
from the battered and diSrcputable sort
that has been out over night with a
brick in it. And the boy is right.
A new hat has nothing to commend it.
There IS no individuality in it; it is SIM
ply piece of merchandise; it has no
idloSyneraSies; no magnetism. Let q
party OF gentlemen go out of Il public
hall or dining room and ask for their
hats; Smith gets Browns hat. They
are both 4 size; both look the same out
F.! wardly; Brown puts his on; his head al
once becomes rs uneasy as the one that
wore crown; he slants it down over
his bump of benevolencc; he tips ii over
on combatiyeneSS. then he tears il OF
and says: This isn't my hat" lust as
Smith offers his solo: This isn't NV
hat. They exchange. and the two hats
that are as much alike as two peas fit
/ their respective heads rs if they had
been nodded into them.
The hat is so much q part of n man
/ that 1t becomes responsive TO his actions
and opinions. and silent but active
expression of his thoughts. Hats of, !"
/ cries an authority, and of they go. You
will know gentleman by the manner
of his touching his hat. 1t is royal
salute when lifted with . chivalrous
hand That business pendulum be-
tween the upper and the lower world
the eleyator-may be filled with men
all with their hats on; enter, one little
weak, defenseleSs woman, instantly
every hat is dotted. Why, they couldn't
do more than that for the Queen of
England! And it is thus ther rccor-
nize the queen of womanhood
The hat is often vehicle for the
transmission of charities. 1t was a col
ored minister who sent his hat down
from the pulpit by his ancient deacon
and received it back empty. The old
! preacher was equal to the occasion; he
/ looked into the hat then at his people.
'Let us pray" he said, land tank de
Lawd | got my hat back from dis con-
| gregation."
| A woman's hat has no value. it can
not be used TO take up collection or
bail out boat, nor can she cover her
face with it at church while she saws her
prayers, like him of whom u poet
wrote:
To church he went with head bowed down
To read best waterproof within the crown"
Women's hats are not historic if we ex-
eept the Gainsborough hat of the lovely
Countess of Devonshire. Rubens
painted tho hat into Immortality.
A political mass meeting is the place
to study hats-one in Chicago, for in
stance, wien Long John, Daddy Hal
pine and q few other notables were
present The Republican hat was
soft, wide-awake; bhe Democratic hat a
stiff beaver with the nap crushed the
wrong way, and it had tread-on-my-
neutrality-suspicious. air about it. 1t
was we'll pulled back and the brim
spread like an awning.
There is the wedding hat-when
grandpa was young man-and it,
though napless. has still an air of hay
ing been asleep for quarter of a cen
tury. When a hat gets old enough it
side, too, like the hat of the old school
master:
1--WE sat down IN row 10 see
His WORKOUT hat come up the HILL
Twas hanging up at home-a quill
Notched down and sticking in the band"
The tall bat enjoys the distinction of
being the only one that can be used as
memorial to grief.
Sundays all day in the door he sat,
A string of withered-up Grape on his hat;
The crown had fallen against his head,
And half-sewed in with a shoemaker's
thread.
Sometimes with his hard and toil-worn hand
He would smooth and straighten the faded
band;
Thinking perhaps. of a little mound
Black with nettles the whole year round"
There is heroic quantity in a hat,
too, as Bret Harte tells us in his fGe
poem John Burns, of Gettysburg, of
whom he Tecites:
He wore a broad-brimmed, bell-crowned
hat,
White as the locks on which It sat
And striplings downy of lip and chin,
Clerks that the home guards mustered in;
Glanced as they passed at the hat he wore
Then at the rife bis right hand bore.
" How are you, white hat? Put her through,
Your heads level! Bully for you"
But later on they learned to respect
that old white hat, when the soldiers
declared:
THAT the CLEAN of his old white hat afar.
Like the crested plume Of the brave Ma
varre:
That das was their oriiamme of war;
There is religious look about some
hats-as the shovel hat of the clergy,
the scarlet hat of the cardinal, to which
frequent allusion is made in Shake
speare.
THAT out of mere ambition you have
caused your hat to be stamped ON the
Kings coin" saws the noble Suffolk to
Cardinal Woolsey, in Henry VIII
Under my feet / stamp thy cardi-
mails hat" Gloster vehemently declares.
what, man, meier pull your hat up
on your brow" protests Malcolm.
There IS the broad-brim of the Quak-
er, sectarian in its might but gracious
and benevolent as well. And there are
patriotic hats like the old Continental.
The ha. was dividing line between the
Cavaliers and the Roundheads. History
has many illusions to remarkable and
distinguishing hats. Some one gives us
THIS:
Beyond the Egyptian room in the
Louvre there used to be the cooked hat
of the Emperor Napoleon. There was
magic in il: it seemed to radiate power |
and glory 60 from 4 sun. Beside it I
were the green coat, the breaches, the |
boots Of the great man; all hung over |
with interest and curiosity by visitors. |
But it was the little cooked hat that hid /
the seheeming and Unsuitable brain /
which chiefly riyited all eyes.
An Indian chief considers himself in /
full dress when he is arrayed in hoop
earrings and tall silk hat, and there |
is probably no single object of civilized /
clothing which is as much admired by /
both the men and women of the aborigi- /
nal races.
While an old hat may be very dilapi- /
dated and yet retain the marks Of bet
Ter days, there are hats that fall very
low in the world. such as the tramp's /
hat, which seems to shrink away and /