The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1902-06-29

Five hundred dollars for a straw hatt
Think of 1t! Enough with which to take
three months holiday in Europe;
enough to keep your son year at COL
lege; enough to buy a small farm And
yet so astute financier as Lyman Gage
ex-secretary of the treasury recently
paid that much for an extra fine Panama
and reckoned, moreover, that he had
made a good bargain. King Edward
VII. also cheerfully paid Bond street
merchant $3.50 to secure him 1.-The finest
Panama in London while Jean de
Reszke, the noted tenor, has paid the
top-notch price-something over s6O0-to
procure a similar object in America. Ex-
Mayor Van Wyck, of New York. is
chuckling over his success In securing
Panama which dealers have told him is
superior In quality to either King Ed
wards or the one owned by Jean de
Reszke. He paid $3.50 Droves of Kan
sas City men are wearing straw hats
each costing the price of a suit os
clothes.
Those instances of extravaganza are
not mentioned as reflection upon the
perpetrators, but merely to illustrate to
what extent has spread 1.-The Panama
craze" one of the most expensive fash
ions ever adopted by men. Expensive.
because q Panama of even medium quail
ity may not be had for less than $25, and
If you aim to have one that may be tuck
ed away in vest pocket like lead
pencil or slipped through finger ring.
the price is to most persons, prohibitive.
In spite of this costliness, however Pan
anna hats are being dispatched from
South America absolutely In ship loads
and about half the population of Ecuador
are engaged in supplying hat luxuries
for the men of Yankeedom
THE craze began" last year and ap-
peared only to be transient, but the en-
terprising merchants of our big cities
foretold that this summer would fipd
demand far greater than the supply and
they accordingly put In their orders
about six months ago. Since the Pana-
ma hat industry has become more lucra-
tive than any other in that part OF South
America adjoining tfN isthmus, and with
the prospects of making fortune in a
few years many planters have abandon
ed the raising of coffee and rice. The
mountain passes of the Andes from
Chimborazo northward TEEN, day and
night, with long columns of pack mules
and ox-carts bearing their precious bur-
dens to Panama, which is the clearing
house for hats. The streets, of Panama
itself are fianked with establishments Of
hat brokers and half the city is engaged
one way or the other in helping to fur
Their this American craze"
In our time 1t has been the exclusive
privilege of women to spend large sums
of money on hats. The fad of wearing
! real lace that is affected today is also a
costly one. A smartly dressed woman
will oftentimes wear two or three yards
of Irish point lace that costs perhaps
$500 a yard 1t is this sort of thing that
gives a father or husband heart dis
ease" a tragedy that has been so useful
to joke writers and knockabout come
dams.
But the tables now are reversed, and
humorists, to be up-to-date. must regild
one of their stock commodities. 1t Is the
women now who gasp with establishment
when the head of the house comes home
with little wisp of straw which he
cheerfully proclaims has cost him $40
Not only that, but he has the effrontery
to boast of the purchase and goes strut
ting about because Brown or Jones has a
Panama hat that is woven in two pieces.
while his, proud man. has never q seam.