The Opelousas courier., 1886-07-10
BULLET-PROOF HATS.
some Very Queer Headqear.
Ancient and Modern.
Queer Japanese Tiles Of Varnahed Paper
and Bamboo Helmets.

u lnaia, the Malayan Archipelago, in
china, the Siam and Burmah hats are
made OF straw, Of rattan, of bamboo and
OF pith, OF the leaf of the TALBOT palm
ana a variety of broad-stemmed grasses.
fhe straw hat is merely for shade; the
rattan and bamboo hats more often as
sunni 9 helmet shape than that of a cylin-
DER, and arc often useful in deadening
che blow of a club. But the pith hat is
an invaluable protectf6h against sun
stroke.
The Japanese make hats, as they make
everything else, of paper, and these they
are clever enough to coat with a rain
proof varnish. The people of ancient
Europe never went so far in invention in
this matter.
Hats were worn in Hellas by
by the Laconian peasantry, as we learn
from the older historians, but they were
straw sunshades in Summer, and in VIM
ter Tapping constructions of dogskin
quite unworthy of the name of hat. In
this respect, as in the use of tobacco,
America forestalled the old continent.
The Spanish conquerors found the ma
tives Of South America wearing a broad
brimmed hat, neatly plated of maize
stalks, and which was only worn during
the sultry weather of the hot season. The
Romans wore no hats. Had they done
SO Cesar would scarcely have valued SO
highly the privilege by which the Senate
entitled him to hide his badness with a
laurel crown on all occasions.
The Cloths and Gauls were hatless.
The Celt, the Spaniard, and the Teuton
were alike destitute of that great emblem
of civilization. The true hat of the East,
along with the secret of felting wool, was
brought back from Asia by the Crusaders,
and from that time forth there begins to
arise in the foreground of European his
tory the majestic presence of the hat.
Ladies, who are seldom slow in dis
corning the merits of novelty in dress, at
least, appear to have adopted the hat be-
fore it formed q part of the wardrobe OF
their lords. During the splendid reign,
for instance, of Edward III. Of England,
they wore alternately the hat and the
coli, or the hood, unmarried damsels
contenting themselves with the wimple.
At this time the noble still wore his
cap of maintenance; the knight, his NOR.
tier; the esquire, his plumed bonnet and
the citizen, the fiat blue, red or black
cap of his guild or livery.
So early as the reignof Henry ", how.
ever. the hat began to steal into popular.
ity in Spain, in England, in France, il
Italy, and especially in Germany an6
Flanders, where it soon became part o
the ordinary equipmentsof a Lanzknecht
who usually wore it steeple-croWned
broad brimmed and lined with plates o
iron.
These hats were pronounced p~ositivel,
bullet-proof. BY the time of the War
of the Roses all men, high and low, saw
only the 'prentices of the city of London
seem to have worn hats. Ladies Wor
them also-hideous, steeple-crowned fab
RIGS, with brims of undesirable breadtl
and from which flowed a kerchief 0
head-cloth-an ugly fashion, which laste'
to the end Of the seventeenth centnr
among the rustic bellies and Of which "
may see examples in the vignettes Of oil
Izaak's Complete Angler. .1Ne1os-Lettea