Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-06-19
CURB AND. CORRIDOR.
The Hat-Man's Perplexing Duty = Felix
BlackwelPs Hat Register-Trod on a Mill
sip of Day In Town.

BlackwelPs Hat Register-Trod on Mill
fonaire's Toes-Local Royalty-The Cos
sip of a Day in Town.
AS you enter the dining room at the Hotel
Anderson colored man with q pleasant,
bright face relieves you of your hat Felix
Blackwell has been caring for the headgear
of those who eat at this hotel for three years
or more, and in that time has achieved cell
ebrity. Travelling men and other experts
say that Mr.. Blackwell is the boss hat-man
OF the United States. Mr. Blackwell himself
refers to the gentleman who takes care Of
the guests tiles at the Palmer House, Chi
cago, as the great master of the art. 1t is an
art to keep track of two OF three hundred
hats and their owners without check or
artificial aid to memory of any sort. Mr.
Blackwell does this and an instance of his
forgetting the relationship of man to his
hat, or confusing identities, is practically
Talking of his work yesterday Mr.. Black
well said: 81 have been three years in
charge OF the hat rack here. When first 1
began the work found it very perplexing,
and tried several systems Of fixing the
identity of the hat and its owner in my
head. For instance, at first made it prac-
tice to put the tall mems hats on the upper
shelf of the rack, and the short mems hats
on the lower shelf. Then tried arranging
the hats according to the order in which the
guests entered the dining room; but found
that this would not work. for no two men
took the same time to eat o meal; some re-
qu1ring 10, others Is and others as much as
~ minutes; so that they seldom came out of
the dining room in the same order that they
entered. In fact, no system L tried amounted
60 much, and finally resolved to depend
entirely upon my own memory L nave
made my memory serve me pretty well"
Keeping Track of Hats.
"MY method is, when take hat from
guest, to register in my mind the mans feat
ures, the name of the maker of his hat
and the city where it was sold, which in
formation is usually to be found in the hat"
continued Felix. "That is, when Mr.. c.
gives me his hat 1 note that he is Of medium
height, has heavy mustache, blue eyes,
and wears hat with a Pittsburg hatter's
name in it. As soon as I see his face again,
as he comes from the dining room, reach
instfnctively for his hat. After have once
associated man with certain hat have
no difficulty in keeping them together. The
only thing have to be careful about is not
to allow my attention to be distracted while
I am taking q mans hat. You see on an
average in the busy season of the year sell
dom less than 240 and often more than 275
men eat dinner here and that is the hardest
time upon me. Sometimes man will take
another persons hat from the barber shop
and not notice his mistake till 1 hand him
the hat after dinner. Then he'll insist that
by exchanging hats before they come to me,
but they don't succeed All pretend to do
is to give back to man the hat he has given
to me-; I connect him absolutely with that
hat, and that it Is not his in the beginning
does not concern me at all. As a rule, how
ever, things run smoothly and I like the
work. find it necessary to live carefully,
for man who drinks or spends the night
dancing cannot rely upon his memory. get
to know most of the guests, and good many
of them expect me to inform them about
the theaters and other local matters SO that
I have to keep posted on such affairs all
the time. OF course l pick up some odd
points about mems habits in wearing hats
For instance, 1 find that the average man
wears hat three months, and at most four
months. This summer fewer white hats
than ever are being worn, and silk hats do
not seem to be as popular as they used to be.
The black derby Is in the majority always,
and it is made SO much lighter of late that Il
sticks on mems heads no matter how hot it.
gets"
A Pittsburg Prince.
HIS family was away, and he had to go to
the wedding on Tuesday night alone. The
brougham came to the door for him, and,
dressed in .scrupulously correct style, he
entered it. The journey from the East End
was uneventfu1 for the most part, but at
last the brougham was caught in block
ade near the Court House, and very near an
electric light. AS the carriage stood there
the man inside was brilliantly Illuminated;
a wide, white shirt is first-class reflector,
and as its wearer leaned back lazily in the
heat, which forbade an overcoat, no doubt
the appearance he presented was rather
gorgeous. Still he was a little surprised 4
rade: Here, Jimmyl Get onter the Prince
er Walesl"
A Study in Philology.
sHow do you suppose the slang term he's
got his skates on meaning man has taken
too much liquor, originated?" asked the in
quisitive man.
"It was born in my town." said the solemn
young Philadelphian, "a year or two ago.
There was fellow in our set at that time,
fact he's still keeping up his record, who
answered to the nickname of William the
Third. It is not because he is taciturn,
or in other ways resembles the
Prince of Orange that he wears that
name, you can bet, for hvelier
or Fighter chaser of rainbow pleasures
never broke a bottle with the boys. One
night remember, he engaged with several
congenial spirits in the merry sport of
emptying champagne bottles to the tune of
six quarts an hour. This naturally pro-
duced plethora of exhilaration in, the
party before very long, and William the
Third, l regret to say, became so manifestly
his companions charitably Conducted him
to q secluded corner of o convenient club
and left him there to make repairs with
sleep:
first thing he did was to procure from the |
steward of the club block of ice. Then he |
hired porter to carry it around to his |
rooms in neighboring apartment house. !
The porter carried it to the foot of the stairs |
and left it there, much to Williams disgust,
who proceeded to have terrible time taking |
the 5Opound block Of ice to his rooms. |
Finally he succeeded after three attempts, |
In one of which the ice fell down three |
flights of stairs and collided with married !
sister of William, who was on her way to |
call upon him. She retired in disgust.
"His idea originally in getting the ice was |
to produce q large quantity of some cooling |
beverage. AS he entered the room with the /
ice, however, he knocked down O pair of |
skates that hung on the wall, and an idea |
and the steel blades struck him simultane- !
ously. The former was that he could cool !
off better if he put on skates and rested his |
feet on the ice. It was a red-hot day in July.
He buckled on the skates, seated himself in |
an easy chair, and with the rapidly melting |
Ice as q footstool went to sleep. An hour
the skates resting on the wet carpet. Since
then many q follower in Williams footsteps |
has been charitably covered with the |
euphemistic phrase he has his skates on
and 1t may be said to be O monument in
words to the hilarious Philadelphian."
Don't Attack NIiIlionaires.
"NoBoDY can make million dollars in
lifetime honestly" said one of the party.
"That's very risky thing to say" said
Vice President Penna, of the Mine Workers
If America, who is now resident of Ohio
Ind a prominent labor leader, but formerly