The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1902-06-22
WHY PANANAS COST
Reasons for the Great Price
on Mems Fine Hats.
HOW THEY ARE MADE
Best Can Be Put Through a
Finger Ring.

Five hundred dollars for a straw hat
Think Of it. Enough with which to take
three months holiday in Europe
enough TO keep your son year at col.
lege; enough to buy small farm; And
yet so astute hnancier 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
a Bond street merchant $3.50 to secure the
best Panama in London, while Jean de
Reszke. the noted tenor. has paid the
tOp-notch price-something under SG00-to
procure a similar object in America.
Ex-Mayor Van Wyck. of New York. is
chuckling over his success in securing a
Panama which dealers have told him is
superior in quality 10 either King Ed
wards or the one owned by Jean de
Reszke. He only paid $3.50.
These instances of extravaganza are
not mentioned as a reflection upon the
perpetrators, but merely to illustrate TO
what extent has spread the Panama hat
craze one of the most expensive fash
ions ever adopted by men. It is expen-
sive, because a Panama of even medium
quality may not be had for les sthan s25
and if you aim TO have one that may be
tucked away in the vest pocket like a
lead pencil or slipped through a finger
ring, the price is TO most persons prohib-
tive
In spite of this costliness, however,
Panama hats are being dispatched from
South America absolutely in ship loads,
and is about half the population of Ecua-
dor is engaged in supplying hat luxuries
for the men of Yankeedom.
The craze began last year. and appear
ed to be only transient, but the enter
prising merchants of the big cities fore
told that this summer would find a de-
mand far greater than the supply, and
they accordingly put in their orders
about six months ago.
Since then the Panama hat industry
has become more lucrative than any
other in that part of South America ad-
joining the isthmus and. with the pros
poets OF making fortune in few years,
many planters have abandoned the rails
ing Of coffee and rice.
The mountain passes of the Andees,
from Chimborazo northward, TEEN day
and night with long columns of pack
mules and OK carts bearing their precious
burden to Panama, which is the clearing
house for hats.
The streets of Panama itself are flank
ed with the establishments of hat
brokers.
In all the pages of history you will.
perhaps, find no account of a fad that
was at the same time so costly as this
one, and yet so generally adopted. not
even when plumed knights and velvet
clothed courtiers trod the earth,
In their heyday a considerable sum of
money was no doubt paid for the pictur-
esque "Gainsborough." extensively dec
GRATED. but it is safe to say that not even
the extravagant Louis XIV. paid for his
headdress the price Of the best Panama
In our time it has been the exclusive
privilege of women to spend large sums
Of money on hats. and it is not uncom-
mon to hear of a Partisan creation"
selling for 81 900. With the fashion now
adays Of occasionally wearing diamonds
or other precious gems on a headdress,
there is practically no limit to the depth
that woman may plunge in this luxury
The fad OF wearing real lace that IS
affected today is also a costly one \
smartly dressed woman. whose ambition
IS 10 stay in the swim OF society. will Of
ten wear two or three yards of Irish
point lace that costs perhaps $500 yard
1t is this sort Of thing that gives father
or husband heart disease" a tragedy
that has been so useful to joke writer's
and knock-about comedians.
But the tables are reversed and hunor-
lists to be up TO date must regild one Of
their stock commodities. It is the wo-
men who may gasp with astonishment
when the head Of the house comes home
with a little wisp Of straw which he
carefully proclaims has cost him several
hundreds Of dollars Not only that but
he has the effrontery 10 boast Of the pur-
chase. and goes strutting about because
Brown or Jones has a Panama hat that
Is woven in TWO pieces. while his. proud
man, has never \ seam.
AZ first sight the Panama hat craze
would seem 10 be a lavish folly taken up
by the Americans because of their wild
desire to ever be in style" even though
by so doing they may be impoverished. /
But there are good causes Tor the Pana-
ma s popularity. the chief one being
that the common or garden straw hat. /
with its stir brim. 50 universally worn
in this country and abroad IS a fragile (
affair breaks easily and has little to
it excepting Iightness II its /
weight
= good Panama may be worn a life
time. can be blocked 70 any shape and is +