New-York tribune., 1903-01-15
HaTTERS.
4nd,,e,c Lang on Their Alleged
LuRdCy

From The London Morning POST
"As mad as A halter" is a saying current III
-ho nonIIar mouth Implying an extreme degree
Of mental 1erangement. What can De the oiI
Gin of this proverbial phrase? The rela atoms oi
the general public with hatters are not lh'n .i
h,,t aeeting and unfamiliar. OF the hattlhs
psvchology We know little OF our dehusos de,
see much. or at least we nave lohe M ilit Lev
with them. While our vocal organs are u .tL
rssrraint when we are bitted and bridled WIN
a great flap of india rubber. or When a oiapo 80
kind of drill is playing in one OF our tira 49,,
danfist gives lis extracts from MS aulooioSt
phy deprecates urban existence. praises ~
rus am9num and recounts ms aoNehtules
an angler for roach or club. Thus we hno" d
g,o5 deal about our dentist and when he as
sures us that he is not going 10 hurt US we at
preciate the meaning of ne frelcn ~ pr y; not ~
When the Gaul would imply that persol Is ~
accurate he saws that he Lies like a dentist,
or Lies like bulletin. This phrase OF CouiS .i
applies the dentist only ID MS ptoies is san;se
nractice when he wanders from the precise
truth with the best and most humane OF hio
tives aiming less at deception than at sus
nnarbaDs by an extension of the principle OF
faith healing not be hurt when the aents'
takes liberties with your most sensitive nerves,
OF the halter, as has been sald we KNOW n".h
less than OF tie dentist the physician. the halr-
dresser the solicitor or even the shoemaker.
-Ie he irdresser appears to be interested in many
engaging themes-politics. the turf, the dra-
matte art; on all he expresses himself with Iree
dom. his criticism is sound and sane we 40
not suspect his sanity even when ne recon-
mends Fair restorers The conversation OF the
shoemaker is practical. confined to the matter
in hand-perhaps L ought to say the business
on foot OF bakers know little. To butchers
7 always long to put a question concerning their
private theory of the origin of Lent, bu1 Ger
tain hashfuIness has hitherto prevented me from
entering butchers shop merely to propound
this problem. and 1 await an opportunity, hlth-
erto denied to me Except on one occaslonl, OF
meeting butcher in private society On tnat
occasion Gt was Burns dinner) outcher suo.
denly and unexpectedly arose and ore" d
trenchant parallel between the clerical and the
butcherlv character and morals, charging heaV1-
lv against the clergy. / felt that this was an
intelligent man, irritated probably by the IN
stituticn of Lent prejudicial to MS profes-
sion and unduly favorable to that of the nsn-
monger A theory of the origin OF Lent ne may
have entertained; but as he did not seem 10 oe
in a very good temper hesttated to approach
him
Nobody calls members of any of these useful
callings mad. We do not say as mad as
solicitor publisher, a grocer or a. piumoeI'
We say las mad hatter.-- / am unac-
quainted with any history of Eminent British
and Foreign Hatters,'' which might throw light
on the subject. This work is desideratun L
am acquainted with historical evidence tend
ing show that hatters on any occasion ex-
hibited marked eccentricity in public or private
life The inquiring intellect is therefore thrown
back on mere hypothesis. as in the case OF Bib
ical criticism when Is Almost mos, b Purby stters of
the most disheVelled description.
Though averse from baseess conjecture,
shall throw a purely provisional hypothesls. AS
to the origin of the proverb which quite un-
deservedy) attributes deficient sanity 20 the
manufacturers and vendors of headgear. the
truth. perhaps is that they have never yet coped
successfully with the central problem of their
existence. They have never, to my knowledge.
made really adequate hat--a head covering at
once comfortable in wind, rain and sun, ana
also becoming. OF the hat of the present day II
would be superfiuously cruel to speak in dis
arrangement It is ugly beyond belief: II is ex-
pensive; a nothing Injuries it; 1t is stained and
ruffied by a touch: il is mere dust trap; 1t
does not shade the face in sunshine: it is ruined
by rain (as Mr. Swinburne sings): it is Of an
odious uniformity: and in all weathers 1t is ex-
ouisitely uncomfortable. No man. no halter,
was maniac enough TO invent this hat 1t is the
result of more than three centuries OF evolu-
ton. always steadily degenerating from worse
to worse. About 1870 the Regent Morton wore
hat from which OURS descends by lineal gen
Grafton. He a bad man, and it was a
shocking bad hat The rims were wider, and
not so stiff in headgear. and the super
jacent cylinder Immensely tall, retreating
to blunt, conical top. There was round it
silken band OF five to two inches in breadth,
fastened by a golden brooch. Bad this hat
was-for it invited being blown off by every
bIeeze-stil il was of felt, not OF the shiny
| silken stuff on our hats. Rain did this nat no
harm. Fancy might he shown in the siken
band. The hat worn by Charles 1 at his trial
was bigger, taller black, broader in the brim
than Morton's; there was no fancy about it:
il was heavy, unbecomlng, and wooed every
zephyr. On windy day Charles must have
found it as hard to keep his hat his head
his head on his shoulders Still, 1t was OF Dlack
felt and not apt to be ruined by rain.
From such hats descend those in which,
through much Of the nineteenth century men
played cricket and golf and went out shooting
and fishing. bulgy top-heaviness character
lied such hats especially in France The halter
had his way; he imposed mankind his de-
lirious dream, and had Tennyson not possessed
the courage to revert to the Charles type. his
contemporaries might have lacked poet as
much as do, or, at least, like us, had a crowd
of poets who only be venturously tried as
change boWlers, TO speak. Twas his hat
that made the life of Mr. Carlyle so sombre: he,
too. fell back thing IN soft felt The broad
Cavalier hats OF the Civil War are only COM
patible with love locks and high boots; they
were becoming. and they gave shade but on
wet windy day they must have been intolerable.
The little three-cornered hat OF the eighteenth
century becoming. but the rims held about
a gallon of water when it rained, do those of
the soft modern Tyrolese. brigand hat. The
socialist or Bible reader fat soft black hat is
really more comfortable than most, but every
one does not wish to advertise his political opin-
ions The cooked hat was only saved from ridi-
Guile by Nelson Wellington and Napoleon and
IS abandoned to superior officers. The bishops
hat was invented in a lucid interval of the hat
ting frenzy but cannot all be bishops. The
common bowler or billy COCK (bullycock0
hat IS hard, heavy, vulgar and uncomforta BILE.
The cloth cap is not a hat and comfort Is its
only merit. Thus it is plain that hats through
their modern history. do raise a serious pre-
sumption against the sanity of their inventors
Will no halter arise, and, in a flash of genius
invent a comfortable, cheap, enduring and be-
coming hat? II must not convey the idea that
its wearers are Beers, or Imperial Yeomanry, or
Blue Bonnets over the Border or Tam o. Shan
ters or anarchists, or bishops, generals in the
arry AS to women's hats women have taken
to wearing a horrible fat thing which ii
derogatory to the bakers art to call mullins.
Till something much better than anything
have considered is invented the populace will
continue to regard hatters (in their inventive
capacity. argue) as des hallucines.