The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993, 1883-07-21

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 rifle his 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 orifiamme of war;
There is q 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,'' says the noble Suffolk to
Cardinal Woolsey, in Henry VIII.
''Under my feet l stamp thy cardi-
nails hat Gloster vehemently declares.
"What, man, ne'er pull your hat up
on your brow" protests Malcolm.
There is the broad-EFim of the Quak-
or, sectarian in its might but gracious
and benevolentsas well. And there are
patriotic hats like the old Continental.
The hat 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 it; it seemed to radiate power
and glory as from sun. Beside it
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 scheeming and Unsuitable brain
which chiefly rivited all eyes,"
An Indian chief considers himself in
full dress when he is arrayed in hoop
earrings and a 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
be ashamed of the bad company into
which it has fallen. 1t is usually a
SLOUGH hat, not the rakish SLOUGH of the
brigand, but the furtive SLOUGH of the
creature of the slums A bows hat
with the rim torn off is always pic
ture.
An old round hat without a brim,
Was all ne had to cover him."
Whittier does not forget that crown
ing touch to his barefoot boy:
With the sunshine on thy face
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace"
A hat is an important factor in de-
pertinent. To lift it from the head
gracefully, give it just the requisite tilt,
and restore it to its original position, is
a work of art. Some people cling to
their hats as drowning man clings to
a straw. They seem to think it some
kind of an explosive substance, and if
they let go of it that it will go off. An
illustrated paper lately gave spicy
picture in which gentleman who is
making a call resigns his silk hat, and
when he rises to go finds that the small
boy of the family has been making an
opera crush of it, and that it now re-
sembles an accordion more than hat
1t will be remembered that when Joe
Gargery ate that memorable breakfast
with Pip, and being ''invited to sit
down to table, looked all round the
room for suitable spot on which to de-
post his hat-as if it were only on some
few very rare substances in nature that
it could find resting place-and ulti-
mately stood it on an extreme corner
of the chimney piece from which it ever
after fell off at intervals. Indeed, it de-
manded from him a constant attention
and quickness of eye and hand very
like that exacted by housekeeping.
He made extraordinary play with It,
and showed the greatest skill, now rush
ing at it .and catching it neatly as it
dropped; now merely stopping it mid
way; beating it up and humoring it in
various parts of the room, and against a
good deal of the pattern of the paper on
the wall before he felt it safe to close
with it; finally splashing it into the
slop-basin, when l took the liberty of
laying hands on it.''-Detrott Post and
Tribune.