The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-10-28
THE PANAMA HAT.
Truths About It's Origin and Manu-
 facture.
From Mems Wear.

From Mems Wear.
 With Panama hats in such unprece. dented demand as they this season Ii is. not surprising that much has been written concerning then,A
 The. rlant from which is obtained the material of which the hats are made Is commonly called the Panama nat palm, although botansis do not group 1t under the head of palms classifying 1t under the name cyclanthcecoe. The botanical Lame of the particular species with which we are concerned is carludoyica palma ta The South American natives call 1t palma de Pima. It is indigenous to parts of Ecuador Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Central America.
 Right here it may be we'll to define cer- tain terms that have been used by writ CTS in connection with this subject and which have appeared in advertisements in the daily papers, without their mean ing being clear.
 The word Jipijapa Is really the name of an interior town in Ecuador, and the natives in that part of the country com monly speak of the Panama hat as the Jipijapa hat. Another word that has been frequently used is Manabi. This is the name of province in Ecuador, and Man abi hat is also synonymous with Panama hat. In Manabi province Is the city of Monte Cristi, where some exceedingly fine hats come from.
 The expression Paja toquilla has been erroneously used by some writers as be- ing the name of the plant, but 1t is the name of the straw obtained from the plant, as anyone who knows Spanish might readily have understood, since the word paja means straw.
 Many of our readers will be surprised to know that this straw is made from the flat leaf, and not from the stalk of the plant, for a casual glance at the exterior surface of a Panama hat would give tho impression that the hat was woven from fibre of Cylindrical form. However, close scrutiny of the inner surface of the hat will disclose the fact that the fibre Is not a cylinder
 The method of preparing the straw is as follows: Young plants, not over four or five feet in height, are used for this purpose. Only the leaves that are young, stiff and in prime condition can be used. These are split into narrow strips by the native, who, for this purpose. uses his finger-nails. But the strips are not sep arated at the stalk end. Up to this point you still have the flat straw, but what we shall call the rounding, for want of a better name, Is accomplished by the deft-fingered native, aided by the natur- al tendency of the strip to curl. The strip is rolled from each of its two edges toward it's middle, and thus is formed ready for plating into a hat body. that excellent straw with no raw edges, and which Is deceptively like cylinder.
 The French Panamas are made of this same material, which is exported to Nance, Saar Union and other places in Europe where the French Panama hats are made.
 The statements that Panama hats are made under water, and that the very fine ones are woven only by candle light. are characterized as incorrect by a man who has all his life been engaged as a first hand in the Panama hat trade. and who has not only seen the hats made. but has made Panama hats himself
 It is true that the hats are woven in the early morning hours, when the at mosphere Is damp, as the heat of the sun makes the fiber brittle and unfit for manipulation. At night the hat is hung out in the open air. where 1t absorbs the dew, and is the next day in condition to be worked This accounts for the great length of time required in the hatmaking, one of the very fine grades requiring up- ward of three and half months to pro- duce.
 The hat is woven on a block which Is held between the knees of the operator, although some of the very coarse hats are woven on the knee of the native too poor to own a hat block. Men, women and engaged in the weaving of the hats. To