Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-11-10
TIE PLUG-sAT FEVER.


plug hat fever ?" asked an old gentleman
the other evening, and, without waiting
for reply, went on to relate his own ex-
perience, and to tell the result of his own
observations. 81 never knew a young
man who, when he had reached an age be-
tween Is and %, but what he had the
plug-hat fever to greater or less severity.
He will suffer great deal, too, before it
breaks out and he gets tile on his head.
Then he suffers severely for several days
after he gets the hat, and he is conceited
enough to believe 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
in spite of everything. Next to the mus.
tache ambition, the plug.hst 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 ad-
miringly at himself in mirror. He will
put it on square, then cock 1t over to the
right side, then hang it on his left ear,
and smile with satisfaction at the image of
himself under the hat in the mirror. A
young calf under new shed could not
with goose. down on his upper lip when he
first beholds his manly brow in a looking.
glass, supporting shiny silk hat 1t is too
overcoming for anything, and in a great
many instances it is more overcom-
ing than becoming. But then they must
have EN-, no matter about the price. FL
nally the hat is purchased, put in a hat
box and conveyed to the young mans
room with the greatest OF care and fond
expectations of the maDliness 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 ev-
cry evening. Finally he gets his courage
to the proper pitch, and on an suspicious
Sunday evening starts for church with the
hat setting nicely on the top of his head
He knew he would attract attention, and
the first street urchin he meets calls atten-
ton to it by shouting Shoot the hat.
Now, how did that young heather come to
notice anything new or novel In the hat ?
Il is easily explained. When man wears
a plug hat on the street for the fret time
he gives himself away by his Pm-on-dress-
parade air. He will WALL as carefully as
though trying to balance pail of water on
his head, and expecting every moment that
it will tip off and douse him. It don t
squeak like new shoe to attract atten-
tion, but it stiffens up the spine in an unu-
sual and unnatural degree. 1t takes sew
eral public appearances in the new plug to
again Timber up the spine to it's normal
condition. Arriving at church the young
man hesitates for an instant about going
in, but remembering an appointment to see
young lazy home, he braces up, stitfly
holds the determined-to Standardization
silk hat over his right fore arm,
and 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 hrst-time-I -wore. a. 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, in his
mind, of having them sit on it and wreck
it. It's good thing to have the first plug
wrecked in this way, because the frat hat
has got to be wrecked, but it is generally
done by some kind friend who sneaks up
behind, jambs it down over your
ears and is away before you fairly
understand a brick block hasn't tumbled
onto you. A plug hat is probably the most
dressy hat, but heavens how man SAT-
fers when the fever first fully develops it.
self TO head"
Just as the story was finished young fel
low with skin.tight pants, tooth pick shoes,
arms curved go as to make his body look as
though it was parenthesis, with pipe
stem cane in the fingers of his right hand,
while shiny, latest loud style of plug hat
was on his head, passed. Poor fellow, u
remarked the old man as ne passed into the
hotel, "if he only had brains enough to
cover the point of cambria needle his hat
would be quite becoming They all get
the brain fever, though, regardless of the
absence of brains. - Peck's Sun.