The Washington times., 1901-09-29
HATS OF THE MIGHTY.
History and Anecdotes About the
Stoyeufpe and Its Wearers.

HATS OF THE MIGHTY.
History and Anecdotes About the
Stovepipe and Its Wearers.
Ever siace a certain John Hetheringten
on January Is, 1898. appeared IN the
Strand wearing to quote newspaper re-
port of the period. upon his head what
he called a silk hat, tall structure nav
ing a shiny lustre and calculated TO
frighten timid people, the top hat which,
to quote the "Thunderer' of the same
| date, was destined to work revolution
in headgear," has been the headgear OF
| the mighty: and in the case of Joseph
| Hume, the political reformer and hnan-
cier, and some others, mighty heaogear-
Joseph Hume, says the Globe, In one
of its chatty Turnover, who, when
| Member of Parliament for Middlesex, pro-
posed in 1884 fixed duty on imported
| corn apparently had the largest head OF
any man famous in English history, 1udg-
| ing from some interesting statistics re-
| specting the headpieces Of celebrities
| which were forwarded, together with a
| travelling cap, by an admirer to Mr.. Glad
| stone in 1897. His size in hats, indeed, was
siz. or half size larger than that of Dr.
| Thomson, who succeeded Archbishop
! H.,
| whose head covering, which was on view
| a few years ago at a meeting of the Coun-
| ty Kildare Archaeological Society at
Mas, measured eight and a half inches in
width and ten inches in its longest diam
eter, ard was of SUFFICIENT dimensions
completely to extinguish the chairman of
| the meeting as far as the chin when he
| elected to try 1t on. Following Daniel
O'Connell in the size of headgear comes
DR.. Thomas Chalmers, the eminent theo-
| logian and one of the few Britons who
| have been elected members of the French
Institute, and I following him w. M
| Thackeray.1 who was short head, In
sporting parlanee, in front of Mr.. Glad
stone, Charles Dickens, and Robert Burns
| whose head was never graced by tall
| silk hat, for the poet died exactly six
| months before the happening of the stir
ring event that marked the occasion Of
the birth Of the tall hat.
The painstaking correspondent of the
Grand Old Man did not conclude his sta
tistical record Of headpieces with Burns,
but extended 1t so far as to record the
| fact that our King Edward VII requires
No. heads covering, his nephew of Ger
| many hat bearing the mystic figures 63s,
the late Dean Stanley a 694 tile and the
q
the proportions represented by the size 6ss
Information that the original recipient
found, as he mentioned when acknowledge
ing the gift, full of interest" Large as
some of these mighty head coverings ap-
pear. they would, If placed side by side
with "a couple of straw hats made in 1893
and last year at Luton, appear almost in
significant In the one case the crown of
the straw erection measured about twelve
inches high, and across the brim the
measurement was six and half feet; the
hat, which required the services of three
experienced men to block and iron it, con-
tained no fewer than 200 yards of jumbo
plait one inch wide. and the hat box In
which 1t Travelled TO Newcastle (Australia)
measured seven feet square and was two
feet deep The second straw was even
larger, for 1t measured over seven feet
across the brim, twenty-one feet round
the brim, and three feet round the crown;
moreover. it contained $50 yards of dark
blue and white jumbo plait, and no fewer
than four men of vast experience were oc-
cupied in its manufacture. Wearing this.
the largest hat in the world, even La
blache, the great singer who overcome
with emotion once entered the royal pres
ence wearing a hat on his head and car
,
come oblivious to it's presence. 1t Will be
recalled by some old playgoers that when
Queen Victoria, desirous perhaps of put
ting the great basso of the century and
her old tutor at his ease, laughingly re-
marked: Monsieur Lablache, you have
got one hat too many the singer wittily
and promptly replied: Pardon, your Maj
esty. there are two hats too many for. a
man who has lost his head"
In the early days of the last century
the topper OF the period was styled a
castor" title that gave rise to the re-
tort uttered by the first Baron Chelmsford
when coming away from a reception with
Lord Cockburn and Sir Frederick Pol
lock. Said Cockburn, Chief Justice: Il
can't find my castor" Then try Pol
locks" rejoined the lord chancellor
When the century closed NJ. Carolus Du-
ran styled the unpopular but only head
covering worn by polite made society in
town. the last word of the horrible,
but, Notwithstanding the vituperations of
the artistic and the slang of the period,
the top hat continues on is career, unde-
tered by the hard things said about 1t.
The reason of this lies in the startling
fact that the topper though most east-
ly damaged, Is one of the most indestruct-
ible of things-a fact that ought to prove
consoling to those members of Paria-
ment who, like Sir f. Powell in 1897. aft
er delivering crushing speech, likewise
crush their TOP hats by sitting on them,
or have them crushed by others. This
was the fortune of some unfortunate
wight a few sessions ago. the culprit be
ing Lord Stanley. who. inadvertently
passing between the Speaker and the
member addressing hlm was assaiIe9
with such Shouts of ORDER! ORDER
that he hastily sat down. alas! on an i'm
macuIate silk hat gracing the bench in
his Immediate vicinity.
Granting the fndestructibility of tall SILK
hats If placed ia the hands of experienced
renoyators and duly steamed and reshel-
lacked, it may be asked what becomes OF
ali those hats that are not transported to
Australia or to Africa to be proudly dom
ned by the artiesS savage. The natives
have been seen; off the west coast of the
latter continent, swimming out to incom-
ing steamers, etfch man wearing reno
waited silk1.hat still wrapped in all the
glory of the White tissue paper In which IL
left it's native Bethnal Green, Whitechap-
el or Barmofdsey. the homes of the rem
ovators The answer to this question
cou.d be supplied. perhaps. in bated
breath by many-they are collected. Ii
seems, perhaps, incredible that any man
should care to turn his house into mu-
scum of shocking bad hats but 1t is
done none the less, as is evidenced by the
startling prices that some famous hats at
tain such for instance, as the sum fS00
in gold paid for the Mexican sombrero
presented to General Grant while lie was
in that country in 1882. This now rests in
the National Museum at Washington,
where, ii we renimeber rightly. reposes
the headgear worn by President Lincoln
an ,he night of his assassination in Ford's
Theatre and is considered the finest spec
inen of its kind extant. 1t does not mat
ter in what state of disrepair the hat may
be or the material out or which 1t was
fa shioned the collector is influenced In his
regard only by the degree of celebrity at
tained by the original wearer and the
Inioueness of his head coverings
When Baron Christiani damaged the
NJ