The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-02-27
HTsToRY OF TIE HAT.
Its Evolution Through Three Thousand Years to the Stoveplpe of To-day.
 From the New York Recorderl

NtH GNoluuOn IhiouBh Ihree ihous"hu
 Years to the StOvepipe of To-day.
 [From the New York Recorderl
 What is hat? Is it a necessity or simply an ornament?
 The Africans and Australian abori- zines, destitute of hats in any shape or form until they saw and envied those possessed by Europeans, proclaim the fact that it Is not q necessity.
 The earliest records of the hat are preserved in the frescoes of Egypt and Assyria, magnificent specimens of which, carved in bold relief out of gran ite, basalt and limestone, may be seen in the galleries of the British museum. These grand pictorial works of history have served to hand down from re- mote ages the physical types and nat tonal costumes not only of their own, but also of contemporary nations. Here are to pc seen delineated with scrupulous fidelity the hats of the Scythians and Parthians and the curi- ous head coverings of their Assyrian rulers. And, although tens of centuries have elapsed since they left the sculp- tors hands, the outlines are clearly de- fined as if they were the work of yes terday.
 The Pagan Armenians wore hats mostly made of vanished cloth or thick felt closely resembling those still worn by their Christian descendants while the Egyptian husbandman covered his head with coarse straw hat to shield it from the sun. The hat has always been an indispensable article of dress with the Jew, and when Shadrack, Mes hach and Abednego were cast into the burning fiery furnace the Scripture says that their hats were bound down over their brows At the fall of Jerusalem thousands of Jews were sold as slaves to the neighboring nations, and their owners were doubtlessly greatly aston fshed at the first sight of a hat as part of the Hebrew national costume. The 'Parsees of India, the descendants of the ancient fire worshippers of Per sia, wear almost the same shaped hats as their ancestors did three thousand years ago.
 The Chinese and Japanese from the earliest times have worn hats, and so have the Tartars. The mandarin, how ever, has forsaken the costume of his predecessors by discarding the hat and replacing it by what is known as the mandarin cap, which is usually decor ated by single precious stone of great size and value.
 Among barbarous tribes the hat is rarely worn. It is said, however, that in the time of Captain Cook the natives of the Southern seas had a convenient article which, in Goldsmith's words, "contrived double deb to pay" the hat being occasionally utilized as the family soup tureen.
 The Greeks and Romans of the higher class wore no hats, or Caesar would not have valued so highly the privilege ac- corded him by the senate of hiding his baldness under the friendly shade of a laurel crown, which he wore on all oc- casions of ceremony. The Goths and Gauls were hat1ess; so were the Celts and Teutons.
 Hats appear to have found little fav- or in England until the fourteenth cen tury. They were, however, manufac- tured in France, before this time Charles VII, on the occasion of his triumphal entry into Rouen in 1449 created quite a sensation by wearing a | hat lined with red silk, surmounted by | a plume of feathers. From this time | may be dated the rise of hats and the l fall of hoods, which had been the GUS | tomary head covering mp to this period. | The unfortunate and much prosecut- | ed Jew in the Middle Ages was compell- cd to wear a distinctive costume, con- sisting of a gabardine and yellow hat. It is related that the conquerer of Con- stantinople marched triumphantly into | that city wearing on his head an inn mensely tall white hat
 Among the hats of the Middle Ages | two stand conspicuously forth. One |