The Iowa plain dealer. [volume] (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1867-1895, 1891-07-09
THE ENGLISH HIGH HAT.
From Youth to Old Age the British,
wnara = SfnvA.p Pima.


means dignity and responsibility, even
II occasionally combined with certain
amount Of festivity. According to the
shape and newness of the tall hat the
style and characteristics Of the En-
glishman can usually be ascertained.
With the average Englishman tall hat
is the first thing he buys when sudden
windfall arrives; consequently 1t is not
an uncommon sight to see ragged
edged pair Of trousers continuing up
ward to a brand new tall hat. On the
other hand, there are Englishmen,
usually literary men Of note or noble
men Of very high rank, and few poets
and bankers, who pride themselves on
the antiquity and complete shabbiness
OF their tall hats.
A poet who wore the most disreput-
able tall hat have ever seen wrote:
'4The length Of his whiskers defines the cat,
And man you can tell by the style OF his
hat"
But do not agree with that poet.
For instance, his verses were generally
better than his hat; had they been
worse, the couplet might have been re-
garded otherwise.
The Englishman hunts. Now,
should say that the most unsuitable
head-gear possible for q man-even an
Englishman-on the top Of horse going
over fences, rushing under trees, tum-
bling over five-barred gates and other
things, is tall hat. But no; it has
been definitely decided that only one
hat can be worn with ''pink"-the tall
hat. "You see, suppose you fall on
your head, you know" explained fox
hunting judge to me yesterday, ''many
fellows neck has been saved at the
expense Of a crushed tall hat" which,
from the judges point Of view, is q
strong plea.
But, oh dear! How funny it looks to
see small boy Of seven or so with q
tall hat as long as his little body; and
yet no young English gentleman who
wishes to be regarded as "a young En-
glish gentleman" ever dreams Of creep
ing like snail, unwillingly, to school,
unless he is wearing tall hat. Go to
Deans yard, Westminster, and watch
the boys at play. They are spinning
tops, climbing poles, and even kicking the
football in tall hats. At Christ college,
another public school known as 1.-THE
Bluecoat," the boys do not wear any
hats or caps at all, which is presumably
the other extreme Of the tall hat mania.
London cabmen, bus drivers, and
street fakirs invariably wear tall hats;
ancient tall hats often, widowed tall
hats mostly, but distinctively tall hats.
A man who was selling comic songs
three penny in the street told me last
Saturday confdentially that he was
hungry and wanted boots, and had neu-
ralgia everywhere. He looked 1t; but
on his head was an almost new tall hat.
He noticed my astonished eye and ex-
planned: "a bloke guv' time yesterday
with an am SAN widge and seq: Try
and look respectable in this; it don't At
me, and my brother wot wore 1t Sum
days is dead It'll come in bloomin'
fine when follers my purfession agen
in the summer. l does the 'ketch'em
alive n'act' from the day when the furst
warmth is 'atchcd up till when he dies
of the bally frost, and hadvertiscs my
business in front Of my tall at stuck
hall hover, sir, with flies"
gave him sixpence and moved on
after accepting copy of comic song
with the following chorus:
'Oh, the at! oh, the at,
Oh, the nobby tall at!
It's tina pride Of the boy and the man;
It's always the style,
!. the glossy silk tile,
49, .,s. 49, A. q
Go to the Bank Of England to collect
or sell or buy your consols. A man in
q white apron and tall hat shows you
the right door. Several other tall
hated, white-aproned men show you
more doors, and one of them points out
to you q nice, fat-faced, fat-stomached
old boy crossing corridor. that's q
managing director, sir. worth hundreds
of thousands, but just awful eccentric;
never wears tall at hany time, sir.
Railways in q billy-cock from ha EN- to
p. hem. Fact, sir, s'elp me-"
An obliging, middle-aged man leaves
every morning on my doorstep half-a-
dozen little slices Of horsefesh, stuck
neatly on a skewer. The best part Of
him is covered by huge blue apron,
but his tall hat looms up proudly to the
sky, with the words on a band round
the brim: "Purveyor of Cat's-Meat to
the Royal Family"
The gentleman whose profession is
that Of ''turncock" wide Dickens
''hauty uncle" in "Nicholas Nickleby")
is an official of the the New River Water
Co. Tho Englishmans house always
has q cistern, and he is allowed SO
many gallons of water q day, duly
measured according to the size of the
residence, for which he pays tax
known as the water rate. If he fails to
pay it the turncock turns the water of
until the bill is settled, and tho two iron
instruments with which execution is
done arc the turncock's implements of
business. Without the tall hat, how
ever, he never would be able to perform
his merciless GRAND with the dignity
due to a man who fully realizes the Inn
port of the lines in the "'Orrible Story"
ballad;
"And nothing was left, it's the truth state,
Hexcept an unpaid water-r-r-rate."
Slkillful wood-Workers.
It is well known that tho Japanese