The Delaware farmer., 1883-09-14
THE PLUG, HAT FEVER.
WHO Is THERE THAT HAS NOT
BEEN ALL THROUGH 1T.
The New Tile and the Way One Wears it
for the First Time in His Life.
[From the Milwaukee SUM-

tleman the other evening, and, withou
waiting for reply, went on to relat,
his own experience, and to tell the resul
of his own observations. ''I nevel
knew a young man who, when he haC
reached an age between eighteen ant
twenty-five, but what he had the plug
hat fever to a greater or less severity,
He will suffer a great deal, too, before
it fairly breaks out, and he gets a shiny
tile on his head Then he suffers Sc
verely 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 viii wish for the first
day Or two he hadn't gos it, and then
again he'll pluck up grit enough to wear
it in 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 dozen silk
hats, and looking admiringly at himself
in a 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.
"a 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 a 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 in a hat-box, and con-
veyed 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 a 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? 1t is easily explained. When
a man wears plug hat on the street for
the first time lie gives himself away by his
I'm-on-dress-parade air. He will walk
as carefully as though trying to balance
4 pail of water on his head and expect |
ng every moment that it will trip off |
md douse him. 1t don't squeak alike
lew shoe to attract attention, but it /
tiffens up the spine in an unusual and
unnatural degree. It takes several pub
ic appearances in the new plug to again
imber up the spine to its normal con-
Iition. Arriving at church the young
1an hesitates for an instant about going
4. but remembering an appointment to
ee a young lady home, he braces up,
tifly holds the determined to- attract
ttention silk hat over his right fore
rm, he mentally swears vengeance
n the usher who prances him
p to the front pew in the center of the
hurch for no other purpose than to call
5tention, in his mind, to the new plug
light out of ten first-time-I- wore-a-plug-
at young men will become so agitated !
lat instead of putting the hat on the a
DOR out of the way, will place it on the
.at and forget to remove it when the
lher shows some one else in for the sole
lrpose, in his mind, of having them
on it and wreck it. It's good thing
have the first plug wrecked in this
ny, because the first hat has got to be :
rocked, but it is generally done by 8
me kind friend who sneal1s up behind, (
ms it down over your ears, and is
yay before you fairly understand a
ick block hasn't tumbled onto you.
plug hat is probably the most dressy u
{, but hea-ens ! how u man suffers I
len the fever first fully develops itself .
a head. g 6.
Just as the story was finished young =
IN with skin-tight pants, tooth-pick ,,
pes, arms curved so as to make his Is
dy look as though it was in paren- y
isis, with a pipe-stem cane in the 7
gers of his right hand, while shiny,
est style of plug hat was on his head,
ised. Poor fellow" remarked the
man as he passed into the hotel, ''if
only had brains enough to cover the
Mt Of a cambric needle his hat would
quite becoming. They all get the
er though, regardless Of brains"