The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1907-12-28
THE POCKET HANDKERCHIEF.


our time makes the statement that
"the education of a nation can be
judged by the length of its words in
ccsnmon use." The expanded mean
ing Of this is that word in frequent
use is subject to vocal attrition which
| gradually softens, impairs and elimi-
mates such of its syllables or parts as
are not strictly essential to the con-
veyance of its full meaning, and the
tinal product pruned, purged and
condensed-stands in its curt signif,
canoe both as the symbol of the
thcught or thing intended, and as
evidence of the innumerable repeti-
tions which gradually abraded the
word to its reduced dimension.
Dur language abounds with strik-
ina illustrations of this law of abridg-
rlt. For instance-Monseigneur,
Monsieur (Signor, Senior, Senhor),
Sieur, Sire, Sir. Again, the old
! English word "dow" means to thrive,
to prosper /; hence dOzOvy to bride,
and endowment of a person or institu-
ton. Thus, How do you dow ?
means How do you prosper? or How
do you thrive? but the law of pho
netic decay has shortened our much
used salutaSion to "How do you do, )"
while In Kentucky and our great
Southwest the economic abbreviation
has progressed to "Howdy."
But perhaps one of the richest
phrase words in English is the rather
ponderous, but self-defnitory and
wholly direct word, handkerchief" f"
In it we have an agglutination of
monosyllabic words, each standing in
trim completeness for definite and
distinct use and in the order of their
prefxing can be read the 1ayered, en-
cysted history of nations transient
customs. First In order we have
"chief,'' from chsf, the head ; then
"ker," which is variant of ''cur," !"
from c0avye, cover. Just as cOn0re-
fSu, cover fire, exists to us as curfew,
so o0n0vs-absf head cover, abides with
us as kerchief and is eloquent of a
time when the shepherd, the swine
herd. the cow-herd, the hind, and all
that great mass cf a nation who are
known as hands," went about their
hewing OF wood and drawing of water
with a kerchief, or square of cloth,
bound round their heads, both as a
protection against the weather and as
sumptuary badge of their serfdom
and low condition.
The hat was worn only by persons
entitled to distinction and in token of
their authority, and even to date of
this current year of grace we are not
wholly emancipate from the glamor
of the hat, for do we not still accept
the kings crown, the cardinals hat,
and the "strike-oil plug" of the sue
cessful miner as appropriate tokens
of the high estate and condition of
their owners? Our cousins across
the water still describe worthless or
Objectionable man as "a shocking bad
hat," and that the personality of the
individual was typifed by his hat is
easily read in the phrase chats in the
ring" which meant hat owners
protest against alleged unfairness in
a ring fight, and his personal gage of
battle for the redemption of his token
and the enforcement of his claim.
The hat once represented an ipdivid-
ual much as flag now represents
nation, and any abasement or insult
to the hat was fighting insult" to
the person concerned and to his fol-
lowing, hence the meaning of the
verse:
"There is brass on my target of barkened bulls
There is steel in the scabbard that swings by
And the brass shall be FURNISHED. the steel shall
flash free,
Ere ioa0 lies The bonnet o. Bonnie Dundee
We have no sumptuary laws in
this country, but we have an instinc-
tive sense of fitness and prcpriety in
regard to head covering, sense that
has come down to us through a long
inheritance, and its working efficiency
is easily tested. Which would shock
us the most, to see the Mayor of the
City of New York attending to his
official duties while wearing cloth
cap, or to see a City Hall bootblack
performing the functions of his art
while wearing a silk hat? Well, the
drastic rules of hat distinction disap-
peared with the cheapening of the
article, and-save for the sailor of
melodrama, the "bandana" of field
hand on a West Indies plantation,
and a few of the more remote peasan-
try of Central Europe-the kerchief
as head covering has dropped to
the dump of forgotten things.
The next phase in its evolution Is
the handkerchief, or the hand-car-
ried -head-cover, and is significant of
more refined age when it was part
of gentleman's training to carry
and use this article of dress with
grace and distinction. From the
hicking of dust spects from mis- buc-
kled shoes and the snuff grains from
his lace and rufles; from its correct
disposal on the crook of his disen-
gagged forearm while dofing the hat
Gust as the competent waiter carries
a napkin when serving dish), or
the dispersal of too pertinacious or
imaginary fly, to the proper cleans
ing of the nose and mouth-all were
parts in that careful training which
made up the now obsolete art of de
pertinent.
But knee.breeches died out at the
dawn of republican institutions, and
with Our increased number of pockets
and larger need for unhampered
hands in the affairs of life it became
the pocket-handkerchief, or the pock-
et-carried- -hand-used- head cover. The
transitional uses of this necessary ar
ticle of dress leaves two things to
mourn. First, Why do so many
seemingly desirable citizens" per-