Pueblo chieftain., 1921-01-09
SOCIETY
HATS OF THE AGES

1t must be said for hats in general
that they are a very ancient part of
dress, perhaps the most ancient. The
Chinese, who carry their records farth-
err back than any other people, are
hated race, both narrow-brimmed and
broad We are apt to think of the
Greeks as a bare-headed people, and
they like to be so; but they had hats
for journeyinE in such as may be seen
on the statues of Mercury. They are
large and tapped. and We're sometimes
fastened round under the chin like
lady's straw bonnet. The eastern ma
tions generally wore turbans, and do
still. with the exception of the Pers-
ians, who have exchanged them for
large conical caps of felt. The Romans
copied the Greeks in their dress, as in
everything else. but the poorer orders
wore cap like their boasted Phrygiau
ancestors. resembling the one which
the reader may now see abouz the
streets upon the busts of Canova's
Paris. The others would put their
robes about their heads upon occasion
"a custom which probably gave rise
to the hoods of the middle ages, and
TO the cloth. head dresses which we see
in the portraits of Dante and Petrarch.
From these were taken the draperies
on the heads of our Plantagenet kings,
and of Chaucer. The velvet cap, which
succeeded, appears also to have come
from Italy, as in the portraits of Ra-
ly have continued till the French times
of Charles II (for our ancestors. up to
that period, were always great admir-
ers of 1taly), had not Philip II of
Spain come over to marry our Queen
Mary. Tho extreme hats of Spain had
forced the natives upon taking to that
ingenious union of the hat and UNI
brella- still known by the name of the
Spanish hat. We know not whether
Philip himself wore it. His father.
10 NJ .k< h ~ ,f ha
world, is represented as delighting in a
little humble-lookinG cap. But We con-
ceive 1t was either from Philip, or
some gentleman in his train. that the
hat and feather succeeded among us
to the cap and jewels of Henry VIII
The ascendancy of Spain in, these
times carried 1t into other parts of Eu-
rope. The French, not requiring so
much shade from the sun and always
playing with and altering their dress.
like a child with his toy, FIRST covered
the brim with feathers, then gave them
n pinch in front. then came pinches up
tho side: and at last appeared the
fierce and triple doring cooked hat.
This disappeared in our childhood.
or only survived among the mill
tary. tho old. and the reverend,
who could not willingly part with their
habitual dignity. An old beau or so
would also retain 1t, in memory of its
victories when young. We remember
It's going away from tne heans OIL inc
Foot Guards. Tho heavy dragons re-
tained IT till very lately. It is now al
most sunk into the mock-heroic, and
confined. as We before observed, to
beadles and coachmen, etc
Still, however. the true cooked hat
fingers hero and there with solitary
old gentleman: and whenever II ap-
pears in such company. begets n cer
tain retrospect reverence There was
something in its connection with the
high-bred drawins-room times of the
seventeenth ccntury-in the gallant
tho quaint ardor OF it's look. and in its
being lifted up in salutations with that
deliberate loftincss. the arm arching
up in front, and slowly raising 1t by
the front anglo with finger and thumb
that could not easily die. We remem-
bcr when our steward at school, re-
markablc for his infleSiblo air of pre-
cision and dignity. loft or his cooked