Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1899-08-24
HATS IN ENGLAND.
Marked Changes That Have Recently
Taken Place in London.

II the question were asked OF every
wearer of silk hat, IF comfort were
the only question to be considered
would you prefer to wear a felt or
silk hat9" we do not doubt that, with
out exc option, the answer would be
that fashion DEGREES that silk hats
must be worn by all men who wish to
look well dressed, and the dictates Of
fashion must be obeyed, notwithstand-
ing the extra comfort gained by wear
ing a hard or soft felt. While fashion
rules thus, the hat trade benefits all
around. A man wearing a silk hat
when on business, at social functions.
or on Sunday, naturally reverts to a
felt hat on other occasions. As hat
ters know, a hat suffers almost as
mu 10 wear by being exposed to light
Ind dust while hanging on a peg as
when on the wearer's head. 1t fol-
lows that all branches of the trade
are helped and the more frequently
the leaders of fashion desire new
shapes in either silks or felts the
greater will be the turn over of manu-
facturers and retailers.
Who are the mysterious individual.
or. rather, who is the mysterious in
dvidual who DEGREES with what partlc-
ular kind of covering long suffering
humanity shall hide the brains We are
all more or less supposed to possess?
1t is said that the prince of Wales, who
is a stanch believer in the silk hat, has
a considerable hand in the matter But
whether that be so or not, the prince
is undoubtedly responsible for the
almost impregnable position this
article occupies in our wardrobes. Ac-
cording to a London morning paper
the silk hat is losing ground. With a
frock coat it is de rigeur the world
over with all who make the slightest
Fpretence of knowing what to wear"
says the writer of the article, But in
no city, perhaps, is the doom of the
silk hat more patent than in London.
Twenty, nay, ten years ago, who but
a vulgar clodhopper would dare wear
| bowler in Bond street, or the park?
! What city man, to say nothing Of
city clerk. would have dreamed Of 60
ing to mis- Office except in the regula-
ton headgear? What fellow from the
country-more especially If he wanted
to be taken for a cockney-w would have
come for a few days holiday to Lon
don withut his silk hat? The shape or
style, or cut did not matter. To his
Impractical eye he saw no difference;
the fact that he had silk hat on was
sufficient for him. But all that has
changed. The silk hat is fast losing
its hold in other parts of London, as
it did many years ago in Fleet street,
| the one great thoroughfare where
| headgear is of no account, where even
a poetical species of hat Is affected by
some, a veritable sombrero Of sunny
| Seville which for some unfathomable
reason Londoners speak OF a sombrero
nat as though sombrero itself meant
something else.
But in spite of all this the silk hat
still goes a long way to mark man.
| The silk hat of the swell-the man
about towns not the silk hat of the
city merchant. we have cabinet
minister's silk hat, a clerical silk hat,
claimants silk hat city clerks silk
hat, and many more There they all
are, proclaiming loudly to some extent
| by their condition, but more often by
their shape, to what class Of persons
they belong ''-Hatters Gazette.