Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-09-21
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

Men of Washington today are
usurping one privilege formerly held
exclusively by women, that of walk
ing downtown without hats, if they
please.
Whereas in the old days many girls
were to be seen on F street during
Summer afternoons bareheaded, today
every last girl of them wears a hat
and while then not a man dared APP
pear in public without head covering
today scores of them do so.
1t is nothing more or less than a
revolution which has been wrought
in this matter. A test count made
the other morning on F street be-
tween Twelfth and Thirteenth streets
showed that, of SO men passing by, 13
were bareheaded.
These. statistics are presented be-
cause every one loves statistics. Who
is there but has thrilled at the state
ment that If all the books printed in
a year were piled one on top of the
other the stack would reach to the
moon?
Similarly, if the bareheaded men on
+ street in any one day were marched
one after the other in single file, with
g. feet between each marker, the line
would extend from the White House
to the Capitol exactly 9B times.
If all these brave and independent
men were to mount on each other S
shoulders the column would be 932A
times as high as the Washington
Monument. If they were packed into
the Washington Auditorium there
would not be room enough left for a
mouse to squeeze in, and outside the
hall the overflow meeting would eX-
tend to the brink of the Potomac.
X X X X
Not only does male Washington
come downtown without a hat, If it
pleases. but it ambles back and forth
without attracting the slightest bit of
attention.
So far as is known, we are the only
agency in Washington that has ever
gone to the trouble of actually count
ing the proportion of bareheaded men
to ha wearing men on a busy street
at midday.
In this task we were aided by an
ether gentleman-also hatless-who
kept count of the uncovered portion
of humanity while we solemnly licked
off the fully clothed passersby.
The thing turned into a sort of race
% "a Akr>f -.~;. -<r''t all our available
cash on Jack Dempsey to knock out
Tunney in three rounds, we might
have been inveigled to make a small
wager on the proportion Of hatless to
hated men.
1t was a free for-all affair, every
thing that wore trousers counting
and being counted. Tall men, short
men, fat men, slender men, white men
and colOred men-nO one was barred.
We drew the line, however, at youths
in knickerbockers.
AS is usual with men with a mis-
sion, we were pulling hard for bare
headed men to come along. We knew
that our observations were a fact, but
we wanted to prove it all over again.
Had we not noticed dozens of bare
headed men on the south side of the
street? And over on the north side,
where everything was nice and sunny,
should there not have been even
more?
Fate is perverse IN all such matters,
as every one knows. No sooner had
we taken up our stand on the north
side. and clicked our mental adding
machines, to see if they were in good
order, than the flow of hatless gentle
men suddenly ceased.
One" we checked off, as an elderly
party in an immaculate green felt hat
drifted by. 1.-TWO" we added, as a
dapper chap in big pants shuttled
down the walk. ''Three-four-five-
SiX-SeVen-eight---
"One!" shouted our companion, tri-
umphantly.
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
"TWot"