Edward cM. Knox Copyright, 1900 by Cbe ffiell pubUsblns Company 45 Rose St,, New York City CO to cn l 3?/"f /<7 7 ^ &be Stor^ 5 * of^belbat 4 J. 4 4 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/storyofhatOOknox The Story of The Hat. “ Is he of God’s making ? What manner of man ? Is his head worth a hat ? ” Query by Rosalind in Shakspere’s “As You Like It.” Act III., Scene II. The first hint of hat-wearing in history occurs in the Bible. Turn to the third chapter of the book of Daniel and you will find it recorded that Shadrach, Me- schach and Abednego, at the command of that cruel Imperialist, Nebuchadnezzar, who afterward became a beast and went to grass, were thrown into the fiery fur¬ nace, bound in “ their coats, their hosen, and their hats.” They had refused to bow down in worship to the huge image of gold which the king had set up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. It is an interesting, yes, an inspiring story and its moral reaches fresh and 6 The Story of The Hat strong even to our times; for they came out of the “ burning fiery furnace ” all right, as all men will who do not worship gold. In the old version of the Bible the word hats is used ; but a lateral note gives tur¬ bans as a variation, and later translation gives mantles. Hence it is hardly safe, scientifically, to assume that the Hebrew historian, or myth-writer, of that far-dis¬ tant date, meant exactly the kind of head- cover which we now consider and call a hat. Probably in those days the Jews wore hoods, if civilians, or helmets, if soldiers; just as their cotemporaries in Greece, Italy and Britain undoubtedly did ; or they may have worn first a mantle to protect the head, as the Spanish beauty in our day uses her mantilla, and then, in due course of time, through Oriental coun¬ tries, the simple mantle may easily have evolved into the turban many-folded and compact. The hat, as we define it, distinct from 7 The Story of The Hat hood or cap, is a comparatively modern* creation and yet its exact origin and date of appearance are matters of grave doubt: questions unsettled and apparently so to remain. The Egyptians wore hoods or thick head-dresses, often curiously elabo¬ rate and fantastic, as can be seen to-day in the reliefs and mural paintings on their tombs and temples; but the hat proper, the head-gear of definite shape with a brim, appears to have been unknown or at least unused by them. One would naturally imagine that in a very hot country about the first thing to suggest itself to civilized man would be a sunshade or umbrella and that this would soon modify itself into a brim or circular projection of the hood or simple head¬ dress. But this apparently is not the case. Dampier, the English pirate and author, in his “ Yoyage Bound the World,” pub¬ lished in 1697, notes that the Chinese even * That is, in comparison with the civilization of Egypt and India. 8 The Story of The Hat at that late day had no hats, caps or tur¬ bans. “ When they walk abroad,” he says, “ they carry a small uinbrello wherewith they fence their heads from the sun or rain.” The first clear trace of the hat appears not among Orientals, but among the an¬ cient Greeks* probably of the Homeric age. Certain classes of Greek citizens wore caps of cloth and leather, possibly too, of felt and the shape of these was al¬ most identical with the fez worn still by Greeks and Arabs in cities. Artisans and sailors are represented thus on antique vases and soldiers, too, wore them under their helms. But the rich and urban Greeks, as a rule, went bareheaded and, except when a cap was adopted as the badge of some special calling, it was ap¬ parently deemed rather effeminate or, at least undignified, to go capped. But hunters wore a hat with a brim, which the Greeks called icir a<7o?f and the * Doubtless, also Asiatics or half so. | Means literally “spread out.” 9 The Story of The Hat god, Hermes, (the Mercury of the Romans) is generally figured with a hat. In a later epoch Greek youths took to sporting the petasos which is occasionally depicted DOGSKIN HELMET PETASOS WORN BY GREEK HAT WORN BY SOLDIERS. COPIED ROMAN SOLDIERS. FROM ANTIQUE VASE. with a brim of irregular width and now and then with a brim turned up so that it seems the veritable antique ancestor of the cocked hat of last century such as Wash¬ ington wore. Another hat, the causia, a variation of the petasos with a band or fillet about it and long ends of ribbon flowing behind, was affected by the Macedonian Greeks; 10 The Story of The Hat chiefly, however, as an emblem of high rank or of sovereignty. Here- it may not be unaptly remarked that the hat, through all ages, has been a sort of symbol of social superiority. A man in the Middle Ages was known by his hat, as he now is by his hatter. But Greek Art, for the reasons already given and because it usually ad¬ dressed itself to the depiction of the un¬ dressed or nude, naturally gave the hat very slight consideration or representation. Possibly, the odd phrase “ Mad as a hat¬ ter,” originated thus; inasmuch as Greek hat-makers must have been mad because the Greeks bought so few hats and thought so little of them, either as a utility or an ornament. With the Eomans it was very much the same. A fold of the toga served the pur¬ pose of covering the head. The priest¬ hood, however, wore skull-caps with a point sewed on, which was the mark of their trade, and the free artisans had a soft, cone-shaped cap, called pileus, as the em- 11 The Story of The Hat blem of their calling and condition. When a slave was freed, one of the legal cere¬ monies of his manumission was the put¬ ting of this pileus on his head. This, as PETASOS WITH TURNED BRIM TIME OF ALEXANDER. will be readily inferred, was the origin of the “ liberty cap.” The shape, however, was different. A later age gave to the liberty cap its peaked top, turned or droop¬ ing forward. In this comparatively hatless epoch of the world, the Greco-Roman, the surround¬ ing nations wore either hard helmets in the North, or in the East and South a tall 12 The Story of The Hat soft cap, generally tapering, and called mitra; from which it is believed by some that the mitre of European bishops was ultimately derived. This point, however, is doubtful. Some writers on this highly interesting theme of human head-gear do not feel sure that the art of felting which appears to be a necessary concomitant of hat-mak¬ ing, unless we suppose the first hats to have been plaited from straw, was known to the Greeks and Romans before the Christian Era. But there seems to be suf¬ ficient circumstantial evidence of this, al¬ though, as noted, the process was little practiced, since hats were not common or popular. The writers who hold to this doubt maintain that the art of felting was introduced into Europe by the Crusaders who, they sa^q found the tents of the Sar¬ acens made of compressed wool. This might be “ true, too,” * for it is quite * One of the profoundest suggestions in Shakspere’s works which, by the by, are peculiarly rich in allusions 13 The Story of The Hat within bounds of belief that this art might have lapsed among the Greeks and Ro¬ mans from non-user, especially after those nations declined into decay and then fell under the sway of Christianity. At any rate, the Roman phrase lana co- acta, compressed wool, which, we know, was used for soldiers’ cloaks and for the Lacedemonian “ hats ” must have been something exceedingly like felt. In lands where Roman Catholicism is paramount it has always been held that St. Clement— Clemens Romanus, the earliest of the Ap- to hats and style in head-gear, is that passage, King Lear, Act V., Scene II., where the blind Gloster convinced in his own mind of the reasonableness of his own attitude toward life, and meditating suicide, yet assents to Ed¬ gar’s counter argument as containing a philosophy equally true and pertinent; thus indicating that appar¬ ently contradictory sets of facts or opinions may be rec¬ onciled or have equally valid standing in the Supreme Court of the mind. Gloster. No further, sir. A man may rot e’en here. Edgar. What! In ill thoughts again? Men must endure Their going hence, e’en as their coming hither: Ripeness is all: come on ! And that’s true, too. Gloster. 14 The Story of The Hat ostolic Fathers, who, according to Euse¬ bius, ruled over the Church from 91 to 101, A. D.,— was the inventor of felt.* The fact that the Hatters’ Annual Fes¬ tival for centuries has been holden on the 23d of November, St. Clement’s day in the Roman Catholic Calendar, shows a general acquiescence in this belief among the guild. Whether this is to be accepted as his¬ tory or not, at least it appears reasonably clear that the introduction of the hat, as a regular piece of apparel among the upper classes in Europe, is due, in no small meas¬ ure, to the dignity attached to the hat by Roman Catholic dignitaries in the Middle Ages. According to an edict of the fam¬ ous Bishop of Dol in the twelfth century, * The legend is picturesque and worth, at least, a foot¬ note. To guard his feet during a long pilgrimage the saint put carded wool on his sandals. The result of the friction plus the alternate dampness and warmth during the journey pressed this loose wool into fine, firm fabric; and, having a good understanding, the saint thereby di¬ vined how a felted cloth suitable for cloaks or hats might be made. 15 The Story of The Hat the canons of the Church alone were al¬ lowed to wear hats and if anybody else ventured to visit church thus arrayed, di¬ vine service was to be suspended till the intruder retired or was forcibly ejected. Thus the hat came to figure as an ensign of honor and then of specially religious eminence; for just a hundred years later Pope Innocent IY. ordained it as the sym¬ bol of a Cardinal and bade all such wear a hat of red in all ceremonial processionals. This, he said, for like many others of his line, he was of a turn poetic,* was to be “ in token that they were always ready to spill their blood for Jesus Christ.” It is from this that the adjective, cardinal, meaning a certain deep shade of red was derived; and, speaking of Cardinals and poets, an apt allusion in an American poem published years ago in The Inde¬ pendent comes to mind. It is in the de¬ scription of a late September sylvan scene along a sluggish river and the poet says: * The present Pope is a poet of no mean rank. 16 The Story of The Hat “ Where Cardinal flowers, brave priests with tongues of fire Denounce the dulness of the shadowed stream Whose amber partly mirrors Heaven: indeed, E’en as our hearts, where many a vain desire Broods o’er the bright brim, like a river-weed.” In “ Froissart’s Chronicles ” there is a quaint passage, touching the time in ques¬ tion, where he tells how the Cardinals were threatened that, unless they elected a satisfactory Pope “ we woll maike your heddes reeder (redder) than your hattes.” But the scarlet color, we learn from the same Froissart and from other chroniclers, while especially emblematic of the hat clerical, was not by fashion limited to the clergy. Such of the laity as indulged in hats generally affected a hat of red which was composed of “a fine kind of haire matted thegither.” Turning for a moment from considera¬ tion of the hat in Europe at or about this epoch to contemplation of it elsewhere, let us transcribe a couple of highly pictur¬ esque passages from Ruy Gonzales de Cla- 17 The Story of The Hat vija, who was Ambassador from the King of Castile to the court of Timur Beg, or Tamerlane the Great, as he is generally known: Timur, the Shepherd who became a King! Gonzales left Seville in May, 1403, and reached Samarkand the last day of August, 1404. On the eighth of Septem¬ ber he was presented at the Court of Timur, where he met the Ambassador of 18 The Story of The Hat China, the other end of the then known world and Gonzales records that Timur gave him a seat above the Chinese Ambas¬ sador—but this may be only a flamingo flight of Spanish fantasy. “ Timur Beg w r as seated on the ground in a portal at the entrance to a beautiful palace. Before him was a fountain which played up very high, and tossed up in its jets were some red apples. The lord (mon¬ arch) sat cross-legged, on silken embroidery amongst round pillows. He was garbed in a robe of silk, with a high white hat on top of which was a ruby with pearls and precious stones about it.” Later, at a banquet and drinking-bout where the tables and the jugs were of gold and the cups were studded inside and out with emeralds, pearls and turquoises (one which Gonzales particularly fancied had a ruby “ two fingers broad ” in the heart of it) the Emperor’s wives were present, un¬ veiled ; which is a rare compliment to a guest among Mohammedans. Timur’s chief 19 The Story of The Hat wife especially attracted the Spaniard’s admiring heed. He thus described her costume: “ Her robe of red silk, trimmed with gold lace, was long and flowing. It had no waist and fifteen dames held up her skirts, when she walked. She wore a crested hat (head-dress) of red cloth, very' tall, crusted with pearls, rubies, emeralds, etc., and embroidered* with gold lace. On the top of it was a little castle on which were three very large and brilliant rubies, surmounted by a tall plume of feathers. Her very black hair—they prize black hair above all other shades—hung down over her shoulders. She was followed by about three hundred ladies, and when she sat, three held her head-dress, lest it topple to one side.” Timur’s three other wives—Mohammed¬ ans and Americans in our Sultanate of Sulu can have four by law—to his credit be it said, were gowned and hatted with equal gorgeousness, and to amuse his guests Timur ran his fourteen favorite elephants 20 The Story of The Hat against horses and professional human run¬ ners which was a “ diverting spectacle.’’ Let us pause a moment now to inquire into the origin and radical significance of the word hat. Scholars are one that it comes from an Anglo-Saxon word, haet, meaning a covering for the head or, in fact, a hood, which, throughout the Middle Ages, was the popular wear, but since the fifteenth century has been out of use, ex¬ cept in some very primitive out-of-the-way corners. In tongues akin to the Anglo- Saxon the word is similar ; German, hiiten and hut; Swedish, hatt; Danish, hoed; Dutch, hoeden ; all with the underlying idea of a guard or protection. A thimble, for example, in German is called a finger- hut—a finger-hat; because it fends the fin¬ ger from a needle prick. Horne Tooke at¬ tempts to derive the word from “ hoved,” the past participle of the verb, heave or heaf-an, which would thus make hat mean a thing heaved or raised, as the head is on the shoulders. This, then, if a correct sur- 21 The Story of The Hat mise, would class hat and head and hood and hut as words of exactly similar origin and primary meaning. And here, though this little book is con¬ cerned chiefly with the evolution and his¬ tory of the hat, it seems well to say a few words on the hood, the hat’s forerunner. Hoods of skin and leather were worn in Northern Europe so far back before the Roman Conquest of Gaul and Britain, that no date can be even guessed as to their be- HOOD WORN IN BRITAIN HAT OF PLEATED CLOTH TIME OF CAESAR TIME OF HENRY I. ginning. Sometimes, probably most often at first, they were independent, but fre¬ quently they were attached to a cloak or cape. In the Middle Ages this was the distinctive badge of artisans and workers 22 The Story of The Hat in the field, of the toiling and moiling mil¬ lions. In some regions, warm ones, doubt¬ less, as a rule, this head-cover was little and of light stuff, a mere cap; but elsewhere it was so large and heavy as to seem cum¬ brous and look outlandish. This latter which that great authority on costume, Mr. Sturgis, thinks was the hood proper, or chaperon, (chaperones,, nowadays, are often equally cumbrous and outlandish) in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had a cape reaching to the elbows- and closing in front, so that the face peeped out through a slit and the wearer looked not unlike an Esquimaux or Arctic explorer of the present day. But there was more than one style to the hood-cape. The cape- part was twisted sometimes into a tippet and wound about the hood turban-wise and at one period the hood was made prodi¬ giously tall like the hat of Timur Beg’s chief wife, described previously. Under these hoods a close cap had to be worn, if the wearer wished to keep the hair smooth. 23 The Story of The Hat It is easy to understand why the hood held out so long against the hat as an arti¬ cle of common use in Europe. The hood could be made with ease in the huts of the poor: the hat demanded a skilled labor. So the hat during that period was the out¬ ward and visible sign of a person of higher class or of wealth; one who rode, not walked; one who could travel. Perhaps the most curious hat of this epoch, in the way of shape is the by-cocket, of which an illustration is presented ; but, though fantastic, isn’t it rather picturesque? In the fifteenth century the women’s hats, 24 The Story of The Hat among the upper classes, were extraor¬ dinary affairs which must have devolved upon their wearers an almost crushing sense of responsibility ; but in the succeed¬ ing century taste became less fantastic, more simple, more refined. Although it is recorded that near the middle of the twelfth century a “ hatte of biever was worn by one of the nobles of the lande mett at Clarendon ” (clearly it was regarded as an eccentricity or curios¬ ity) and although Froissart refers to the hats and plumes worn at King Edward’s Court in 1340, when the Order of the Garter was ordained, yet the mass of evi¬ dence goes to show that even at the begin¬ ning of 1400 in Western Europe the hat was chiefly used by men; and by them chiefly, out riding. When Charles the VIE of France, styled the Victorious, who had redeemed his country from the grasp of the greedy English, entered Rouen in triumph, 1449, “ he had on a hat lined with red velvet,” says the historian, “sur- 25 The Story of The Hat mounted with a plume or tuft of feathers and under his reign the use of hats and caps is to be dated, which henceforward COMMON MEN’S HATS IN TWELFTH CENTURY. began to take the place of chaperons and hoods.” The importance of the hat officially is noteworthy through all that transition period and in the succeeding century. Among the privy-purse expenses of Henry YIIL, one of England’s most typical kings and Englishmen, is an entry, 1520. “Peid for a hatte and plume for the King, in Boleyn,” (not Anne Boleyn, but the town of Boulogne, old spelling) “ twenty-five shillings.” And in the diary of King Henry’s Secretary is a note of a “ Scarlett 26 The Story of The Hat beever hatte ” presented to the King on New Year’s day, 1543; possibly a compli¬ mentary hint by virtue of its cardinal color that he was accounted indeed, what he had decreed himself, the religious as well as political head of all England. They knew how to pay neat compliments in those bad old days, compliments that went right to the head and heart, like wine or a line brand of hat. Speaking of Cardinals, in Wolsey’s in¬ ventory, when he resigned the Great Seal to that still mightier and nobler Catholic, one of the noblest men who ever lived, Sir Thomas More, there are five hats men¬ tioned It would seem curious nowadays if Mr. Croker should be forced to resign the rule of New York to Mr. Platt for a brief period, to have him give up five hats or even one, except on an election bet. Yet, no doubt, his official hat would fit Platt perfectly. At this very scarlet period in England’s official history, when heads went to the The Story of The Hat 27 MUFFIN CAP WORN BY EDWARD VI., SON OF HENRY VIII., COPIED FROM HANS HOLBEIN’S FAMOUS PICTURE. block about as often as hats, a wonderful variety in fashions prevailed. Hats were of various shapes both as to brim and 28 The Story of The Hat crown, though the majority of brims ran to breadth, “ sometimes narrowing a little toward the back and a little bent up and scooped in front,” says one authority. So fantastical the fashions again became to¬ ward the middle of the sixteenth century that one Master Stubb, a satirist, in his “ Anatomie of Abuses,” published 1585, dilated as follows: “ Sometimes they use them sharpe on the crown of theire heads; some more, some lesse, as please the fantasies of theire inconstant mindes. Other some be flat and broade, sometimes on the crowne like the battlements of a house. Another sorte have rounde crownes, sometimes with one kind of bande, sometimes with another, now black, now white, now russed, now redde, now greene, now yellow, now this, now that; never content with one color or fashion two daies to an end. And as the fashions be rare and strange, so is the stuff, whereof their hattes be made, divers also; for some are silk, some of velvet, some of 29 The Story of The Hat taffetie, some of a certain kinde of fine haire; these they call bever hattes, of xx, xxx, xl shillings price, fetched from be¬ yond the seas, from whence a great sort of other varieties doe come besides; and so common a thing it is, that every servying man, countrieman, and other, even all in¬ differently doe weare of these hattes.” Whether the satiric flings of Stubb and other writers, who very likely were envious, because they couldn’t afford more than one hat per lifetime, and so had to talk through it at everything in sight, effected any speedy modification in the taste of hat- wearers or hatters, is open to much doubt. But through the seventeenth century, in England at least, fashion in men’s hats grew soberer and at the beginning of 1700, the crowns of hats, which were mostly round, were made much lower than before. Possibly men had grown weary of wearing felt and fur steeples, which must have made short persons frequently look ridicu¬ lous or as if under an extinguisher. Then, 30 The Story of The Hat too, wig-wearing necessarily caused a cor¬ responding change in the style of head- gear. But after the crowns had been cut down the brims yet remained for a while disproportionally broad, not unlike those of what are now called Quaker hats, until the cumbrous protrusiveness, possibly, sug¬ gested to some man of fashion the idea of turning the flap up and pinning it back in front. This was quickly followed by an¬ other dandy, who went the first reformer “ one better ” by turning up another flap and this led to a third turn, so that in 1704 the three-cocked hat, a very dashing, pic¬ turesque thing, became the correct style. Plumes and tufts continued still to be worn by a few men, but they gradually gave way —-place aux dames , as it were—till the term, fuss and feathers, became applicable to the head-dress and temper of one sex alone. A curious point of commercial history may perhaps be rightly noted here in pass¬ ing. The Gentlemen’s Magazine for 1743 31 The Story of The Hat states that Cardinals’ hats were then made in Great Britain. Considering that Eng¬ land had become a pretty thoroughly Protestant country at that time, this proves what a long stride she had even then taken toward her long manufacturing supremacy, when a comparatively small item of commerce like this and one with contrary religious associations could be in¬ cluded in her industries. Toward the latter half of that century, a round-edged, flat-bottomed and full- brimmed hat came into vogue and common use, and the cocked-hat as a popular thing was “ knocked into a cocked-hat.” It lin¬ gered chiefly as a mark of rank, real or pre¬ tentious, and as the sign of a soldier ; and in the last quarter of the eighteenth century a close approach among men of fashion to the style prevalent at present took place. One writer says that in London during the last decade of 1700 a cocked-hat was a very rare sight. At various periods in the history of the 32 The Story of The Hat hat, as worn by men, who have always been, by the by, just about as brim-iu\\ of vanity as women, all sorts of adornments have been superimposed on the head-gear. Badges, gold-bands, and silver cords— mark to-day the Mexican greaser’s som¬ brero !—loops, rosettes, plumes, jewels even, have gleamed, flared or flaunted in evidence. In an old poem satirizing the Puritan, who was ostentatiously plain in his garb, for the servile, commercial civil¬ ity he was believed to possess preemi¬ nently, occurs this keen and striking pas¬ sage. “ Oh ! monstrous, superstitious Puritan, Of refined ways, yet ceremonial man, Who, when thou meet’st one, with inquiring eyes Dost search; and, like a needy broker, prize * The silk and gold he wears, and to that rate, So high or low, dost raise the formal hat.” But among highly civilized peoples gew¬ gaws are no longer worn by average men on their hats. Metal bands, loops, and * “ Prize ” here means to appraise. 34 The Story of The Hat tassels, to be sure, are still used in the world’s armies and navies to some extent, as designations to the eye of the rank of the wearer, and serving-men in livery still are marked in this way. A contrast of the extremes meets here, just as in apparel otherwise among men; the waiter and the gentleman at evening ease being both garbed in a dress-suit; which occasionally at entertainments has been productive of confusion and double-sided embarrassment. This reminds me of an anecdote. The well-known wit, Edgar A. Jones, once re¬ quested a man at some party in England to bring him an ice or a light or something. “ Damn you, sir, do you take me for a waiter or a gentleman ? ” was the roared reply. Jones put his monocle to his eye, coolly surveyed the savage Briton, who was about twice his size, up and down for a moment and then in suavest tones de¬ livered this caustic rebuke: “ Pardon me for my tremendous error. I see now that you are neither, and must be neuter. No 35 The Story of The Hat waiter could wear such an ill-fitting coat: no gentleman be so ill-natured as not to smile at a natural mistake and try to re¬ lieve another from the embarrassment of a blunder.” The barbarian was on the point of striking his rebuker, when some one twitched him by the sleeve, saying: “ That’s Jones, the Joker. Don’t make a sanguinary ass of yourself, old man.” Then he made a bovine effort to grin and apologize; but Jones confused him com¬ pletely by saying: “ Not a word, not a word, I beg of you. Accidents will hap¬ pen in the best regulated Sunday-schools. Don’t mention it, my dear young man, but don’t let it occur again ! ” and then he put everybody at ease by telling an amus¬ ing story about a bibulous fellow who walked off with his hat and left him a bet¬ ter one where he found several bank-notes hidden in the sweat-band. One anecdote leads to another and of the many relating to hats as pleasant as any is that which the celebrated English 36 The Story of The Hat hatter, Henry Melton, still green and joy¬ ous in his easy eighties, tells on himself and how it determined him to become the greatest hatter in the United Kingdom, as he certainly was—a veritable artist in his business. One spring morning in youth, while he was sauntering along the gay green fields of B&ttersea, full of rebellion at the idea of his father putting him into business, for which he had an aversion, he was startled from his rambling revery by a loud, mock¬ ing voice on the other side of the hedge which cried out: “ What a shocking, shocking bad hat! ” Looking about and over the hedge and seeing no one but a professional bird-catcher with an array of cages and traps, young Melton ruefully concluded the rude criticism must be aimed at him and accordingly took off his beaver to see what was wrong with it. Immacu¬ late it seemed as Avhen it came from its band-box. He stared at his rustic critic who grinned hugely in return and then, 37 The Story of The Hat dismissing his irritation, the youth rambled on. Toward evening, however, in two other places he was greeted with the same remark which made him uncomfortably suspicious of presenting a shabby appear¬ ance and served to fix his mind perma¬ nently on the hat per se as an eminently important part of a gentleman’s attire. Ergo, Melton became a hatter and in his day probably made, more hats for royal heads and for men of note than any man before or since. Afterward, however, he found out, much to his amusement and satisfaction, that the expression which had so upset his juvenile jauntiness was only one of those peculiar jests which every now and then pervade a community, as for instance in the eighties—“ What! Never?” “ Well, hardly ever,” from Pinafore; or that equally popular query : “ Is this hot enough for you ? ” And the origin of that salute caustic of the hat he found very odd. But that is another anecdote. It appears that just a little 38 The Story of The Hat while before in that locality, Southwark, the candidate elected (they call it “ re¬ turned ” in the English lingo) was the famous reformer, Mr. Wilson, a hat manu¬ facturer, who afterward became an ac¬ knowledged statesman and died in India, while engaged in putting the finances of that country on a safe footing. This Mr. Wilson had in his employ as a political canvasser at that time another hatter, Mr. Franks, who, by the by, de¬ serves more than “ honorable mention ” for his philanthropic and successful labors in calling the heed of his country to the cruelties in the coal-mines of Cornwall and the practical enslavement of women and little children.* Now this Mr. Franks was then rather a smooth politician and in canvassing votes for his friend Wilson (it would never do of course for a Reformer to offer a bribe for a vote) he used to say to each elector, when he called at the * If curious on this theme, get a book entitled “ The White Slaves of England,” from any first-class library. 39 The Story of The Hat house : “ Dear me! What a shocking, shocking bad hat you have there! Pray permit me to send you one.” Your true Briton has many faults, but he likes frank¬ ness ; indeed, he has far greater respect for the man who abuses him than for the ful¬ some flatterer. Mr. Franks’frankness and his little attention in the way of sending a new hat “ caught on ” and his principal, Mr. Wilson, was triumphantly “ returned.” But this politician trick naturally was de¬ nounced by the losing side and so it be¬ came a common joke. Men greeted each other with “What a shocking, shocking bad hat,” and, if they were acquaintances, the man on whom the salute was inflicted had to “ stand treat.” Extremes meet. “How’s your poor feet?” was another familiar address, by-word or “catch” in England not long after and this arose from the inquiry of the riflemen to each other after the cruelly long marching and counter-marching of the first Brighton Review. This grew into “ a universal and 40 The Story of The Hat most surprising sympathy,” according to one writer, with everybody’s pedal ex¬ tremities throughout the entirety of the United Kingdom, so that men finally headed it off by saying, when they met: “ Oh ! they’re all right. How’s yours ? ” These little stories have side-tracked us a trifle, but not much, from our main line. Yet, in fact, when writing on this topic, it is rather hard to avoid lapsing into one’s anecdotage; such a multitude of pat stories present themselves. The hat that has held its own most markedly, since hats became popular, is unquestionably the beaver. It has under¬ gone many mutations and had many names, but its general shape, beauty and utility have persisted—a survival of the fittest,—unmoved by abuse, and rising above ridicule. Many nicknames have been fastened upon it, cylinder, funnel, stove-pipe, plug,—it has triumphed over all and still to-day holds the fort—or the 41 42 The Story of The Hat head. There is cause for this; more than one cause. In the first place this hat, if properly made, is the least irritating to the scalp by reason of the ventilation it allows. Secondly, though not primarily cheap, when made by a good hatter, it wears well; holds its form and style and stands re-blocking. Thirdly, it is more generally becoming than other hats. And here it is well to say that an artistic hat¬ ter, if he enjoys the confidence of his cus¬ tomer, ought to tell that customer when any special style of hat misbecomes the head or figure. There are some who never ought to wear beavers and some very short and rotund men on whom flat hats look ridiculous. To hit the happy medium, when one is at all out of the ordinary or average in appearance, is a very delicate matter and the hatter should study this point for his regular customer who may not have the time or taste to evolve it for himself. The style of the present high hat is 43 The Story of The Hat derived from that worn by the famous Earl of Essex, favorite of Queen Bess, who was the first to trim the heavy brim of his all-around flapping beaver, raise the crown, and give it the air of elegance and dis¬ tinction which it has never lost, but gained upon through the years. Sir Walter Raleigh adopted this and by force of his fame made it even more fashionable. Since then this hat has had many adven¬ tures made upon it in the way of shape and material of composition, as the illustrations will sufficiently indicate, but, if the permanence of the “ type ” be a proof of original excellence in hats, as in animals, following out the theory of Dar¬ win, it is clear that this kind of hat came to stay. In regard to width or turn of brim, as in slope or curvature or height of crown, there have been countless, sometimes al¬ most playful, variations of fancy ; but, in due course of time, by some man of fash¬ ion or prince, his Royal Highness of 44 The Story of The Hat Wales, for example, the hat has been quietly brought back to affinity with its primal type. “ Hats will throw back,” remarked Melton, “ as well as race-horses or greyhounds,” and he who went down to Deptford to see Ealeigh embark on his caravel for that last brave adventure to the Spanish Main—now no longer Spanish— might, had he had the gift of Methuselah, have seen, two centuries afterward, that “ glass of fashion and mould of form ” the delightful Count d’Orsay caracoling down Eotten Kow, crowned with a hat of al¬ most identical shape with Kaleigh’s. This Count d’Orsay, who for years was the setter of all fashions in England and who, Lord Byron said, was the only thoroughly joyous and genial dandy he ever knew, was more particular about the style of his hats than any other article of his apparel. The Count gave as reason for this that the hat is the crown of a man’s appearance. His hats varied in size to suit his coats. If he wore a light, short riding-coat, his hat 45 The Story of The Hat would be smaller in all ways than with a thick overcoat, as, for instance, with the sealskin coat of which he was the intro¬ ducer, if not the inventor, and which has been generally discarded since then by men and taken up by the fair sex in jacket forms. The Count also held that a hat should cor¬ respond to the height of the wearer. “ A short man in a high hat is out of propor¬ tion,” he used to say. “It dwarfs him, just as long hair does a lady who is petite." D’Orsay never had less than fourteen hats at hand for use and often as many as forty. The hat in the illustration of this famous personage, an illustration made originally from Grant’s magnificent picture, Aas no¬ ticeable for the thick, ribbed, broad silk binding and a band tied in a rather large bow, the place of which was a matter of moment with its wearer who held that the location and set of the bow gave “ chic'” * to the whole hat. This beau of England’s * It was d’Orsay, I believe, who introduced this word into our language. 46 The Story of The Hat palmiest days, who was of commanding height and fine proportions, always wore his hat at a very slight angle to give an air of gayety, but never of jauntiness. His imitators, the Earls of Pembroke and Chesterfield and a host of lesser lights, carried this inclination to a ridiculous ex¬ cess and got themselves properly cari¬ catured in the comic prints. But there was a rival faction of fashion in England at that epoch, led by the Marquis of Anglesea, popularly nicknamed “ The Magnificent,” and “ True Blue.” The hat named for him, still seen in remote dis¬ tricts of the United Kingdom, was par¬ ticularly bell-shaped in the crown and the brim was perfectly flat. This was a fa' vorite style at one time in this country and was called “the bell-topper.” It is still in use on the stage to give an air of quaint¬ ness to the parts of old country gentle¬ men. It is said, however to have fitted the bearing of Anglesea himself and to have added to, not detracted from, the The Story of The Hat 47 dignity which was his chief character¬ istic. Another odder hat once popular was that invented by the eccentric Earl of Harrington. This amusing fellow as- WELLINGTON. ANGLESEA. HARRINGTON. tonished his hatter by his method of test¬ ing the quality and endurance of his hats. He stood on them, and if they stood this treatment without a dent he pronounced them fit for his head. As they were made of the finest quality of beaver, costing about twenty-five dollars apiece and weigh¬ ing never less than twenty and one-half ounces they were generally up to his re¬ quirements. It will be noticed that they 48 The Story of The Hat were remarkable for their extreme yeo¬ man-shaped crown and square-cut brim, turned up severely at the sides. Another of Harrington’s eccentricities— fads we should term them now—was his insistence on differences of color to suit different occasions. Many odd stories are told of him, of which this is, perhaps, the best. A friend who called was taken out to his garden where the Earl was pensively strutting about, crowned with a sage-green hat. Surprised at this, the friend asked why he wore such an outlandish color. “ To be in harmony with the trees and thus not frighten the birds,” was the Earl’s grave reply. After this, who shall say that the English are not a very humorous people—unintentionally ? There is, however, an excellent explanation given for Harrington’s insistence on the stiffness and solidity of his hats. The Earl in youth had been like Nimrod “a mighty hunter” and once had been flung head 49 The Story of The Hat foremost on a rock. The hard hat he hap¬ pened to be wearing had acted as a buffer and saved his skull from fracture. Hence his lifelong devotion to it. Up to that time the hard hat, which was cheaper, had been considered as vulgar—a shining show, fit only for grooms or post-boys. Its vogue is believed to have dated from Har¬ rington’s preference. In this connection may be added an in¬ teresting anecdote communicated to me by Richard Knight, author of that most delightful and original of modern detect¬ ive tales, “ The Haunted Hat.” An eld¬ erly German named Cullman, who got a grant of Alabama land and from whom Cullman County, Alabama, is named, founded a German colony there, which, when Mr. Knight visited the place in 1883, was a model town with no saloons, two churches, a bucket-factory, only one Amer¬ ican and one negro, and not one poor or discontented man. Cullman, when he started his colony, was looked upon with 50 The Story of The Hat dislike by some of the neighboring “ poor white trash,” as the negroes call them, and one day a huge, hulking fellow picked a quarrel with the old German and stabbed at him downward with a bowie-knife. The hard high hat worn by the intended victim deflected the murderous blow and it only chipped out a Y-shaped piece of Cullman’s frontal bone, missing the kind old brain The assassin fled the country; but Cullman kept the piece of bone and, when familiar with a visitor, used to take it out of a silver snuff-box and-, while tell¬ ing how his hat had saved his life, would playfully fit the fragment into the deep dent that slightly disfigured his fine, phil¬ anthropic forehead. Another style of hat which contended for popularity with the d’Orsay, the Anglesea, and the Harrington, was the Wellington, named for the famous “Iron Duke ” who, with Prussian help, defeated the Great Napoleon at Waterloo. This was rather a mean between the extremes 51 The Story of The Hat of the others, moderately straight in the crown and, though curved up rather smartly on the sides of the brim, not of sufficiently aggressive appearance to look eccentric. When the Prince of Wales be¬ gan to take a hand in the direction of the fashions, he first set the seal of his ap- 52 The Story of The Hat proval on a hat straighter in crown than the Wellington and but slightly curved in the brim. It was a much lighter and more juvenile style than had ever been worn in England, but the brevity of its brim gave it an air of levity, when above round or fat faces, and it cannot be com- \ 7 pared for elegance of proportions and average fitness to the styles in prevalence recently. Mention of the Wellington re¬ calls the curious fact that Napoleon, un¬ like most great commanders, was notori¬ ously careless about the appearance of his head-gear. ^ hat of his that used to be on exhibit as a relic in the Louvre was a thing of no quality, shape or comeliness, an outlandish peasant-sort of slouch. But while he was this way in dress, the bills incurred by his wife, Josephine, are said to have more than struck a high average. Great soldiers, as a rule, have been rather noted for their hats. Alexander is represented as having his “ billy-cock ” or petasus, turned up jauntily at the brim 53 The Story of The Hat and young Caracalla, the Roman dandy Emperor, was joked about a good deal—on the quiet—for imitating the Alexandrine cock in his hat as well as the conqueror strut in his walk. Among the dandies of those days the hat was clearly regarded ARM-HAT HELD IN HAND BY LOUIS XIV., OF FRANCE, AT HIS MEETING WITH PHILIP IV., OF SPAIN, l66o. more as an ornament than a utility, for we find it noted as a custom that on re¬ turning from a ball or entertainment the Roman youths wore their hats and bore their slippers on their arms, just as country- girls in England, France and very old set¬ tlements in America may be still occasion- ally seen carrying their shoes to church and donning them at the door. The chapeau bras , or arm-hat, a curious 54 The Story of The Hat fashion, probably a revival of the Roman one just in allusion, was for a while ram¬ pant in England and as recently as 1860 was not uncommon in some parts of Eu¬ rope. Melton records that he found its use lingering among some elderly beaux in his time and that he himself made one of velvet, lined with white satin, for the Prince Consort who used it at parties. It is also told that at the funeral of the Duke of York, where several of the aged Bishops and peers in attendance caught colds resulting in sudden death, the cele¬ brated Lord Eldon* saved his own life and that of King William by shrewdly setting the example of using the velvet hat * Eldon, the law-lord, bitterly immortalized in Shelley’s “ Masque of Anarchy.” “ I met Fraud and he had on, Like Lord Eldon, an ermine gown. His big tears, for he wept well, Turned to mill-stones, as they fell. And the little children who, Round his feet, played to and fro, j Thinking every tear a gem, Had their brains knocked out by them.” 55 The Story of The Hat he carried in hand as Lord Chancellor for a foot-mat; thus keeping his feet warm in the long stand upon chilly stones in the bleak Abbey. The odd uses to which men have put hats have been partially noted, and it is in or¬ der to consider the especial honor in which this part of the apparel is held. Symbol of devotion unto death and of lofty rank, it becomes the distinctive badge of the Cardinals, the Great Princes of the Catholic Church. Mark of letters, the trencher of the collegian and the ensign of finished learning, as in the case of the Mas¬ ter of Arts, it stands for the culture of the mind as well as the heavenward aspiration of the spirit. Sign among the Romans of the raising of a serf to the status of a citi¬ zen, in its humbler form of cap, it offers itself as an easily understood and accepted token of the march of practical progress; in a word, the evolution of the Brother¬ hood of Man. As an expression of rever¬ ence in religious matters the hat cuts a fig- 56 The Story of The Hat ure both ways; the Christian doffs his hat, the Jew puts his on, in their respective churches and synagogues—Temples to the Same and One Maker! The Quaker fol¬ lows the Jew’s example. The ancient pa¬ gan priests of Greece and Rome wore a head-dress, when officiating. The soldier salutes by touching the hat, and among civilians respect used to be graded in the intercourse of men with each other by raising the hand toward the brim, by touch¬ ing it with the forefinger or with all fin¬ gers, by tipping it forward slightly, by lifting it a couple of inches, by taking it off,* by lowering it, by almost sweeping the ground with it to imply profound re¬ spect. In Spain, poor old erroneous, cere¬ monious Spain, the hat has been often an * A charming anecdote is told of Jefferson. He was riding along with a somewhat consequential companion, when they happened to meet an old negro, who doffed his hat at once. Jefferson gravely uncovered in return and wished the fellow good-day. “ I am surprised,” said the great man’s companion, “ that you take off your hat to a slave.” “Would you have me then his inferior in politeness ? ” 57 The Story of The Hat essential mark of distinction according to the quality of its texture, the shape and the incidental ornamentation. So much a thing of honor is it that in many houses, on visiting, one finds a chair set apart es¬ pecially for the hat to sit on. But the hat has been made to convey disrespect also When in 1866 a certain society in Charleston, S. C., sent the Editor of the New York Tribune , Horace Greeley, a personage noted for the uncomeliness of his head-gear, a gift of a hat, it was meant to hint that he needed something new “ to talk through,” on the subject of Southern outrages. It was one way of calling the sage a voluminous, long distance liar. By law in Italy and France, even so late as the reign of Louis XIV., the hat was made into an insulting symbol of race-difference and a tab of degradation; Jews were com¬ manded to wear yellow hats and insolvent Jews, green hats. Perhaps here was where the French poet, Baudelaire, got his idea of dyeing his hair green to surprise his 58 The Story of The Hat friends. He was certainly insolvent of brains, when he did so. One of the first patents * taken out for hats used by the gentry was that of Melton, I believe, for a Reversible Shooting, Fish¬ ing and Traveling Hat. This, of which il¬ lustrations are given, combined a cool and porous head-cover on a hot day, and a waterproof one in wet weather. Fig. 1 shows the hat in dry weather, made of cloth or tweed and ventilating. In event of rain the double rim at the edge of the black brim may be reversed and when it is brought over to the front, the hat is com¬ pletely covered with japanned waterproof¬ ing. Figure 2 shows this cover about three- fourths turned so that the reversible part may be seen. This was instantly patron¬ ized by the Prince Consort and gained vogue among sportsmen and others much out in the open air. * Many patents were taken out in France and England for waterproof hats, chiefly for use by sailors and porters. Dunnage of London, in 1794, got one for waterproof beavers, and in 1802 Overbury and Jepsin took out others. 59 The Story of The Hat The derby is a modern hat which owes its vogue likewise to the same princely hat- fancier, and shortly after these came into general favor, his Royal Highness intro¬ duced the innovation of having hats of this kind covered with the same plaid as his various hunting garbs, and'these made a great hit among the sporting fraternity of England, Scotland and Wales. In these hats, however, the true derby shape was modified by a slight flattening at top of the crown. During the sixties a sharp discussion was begun in the press and has been re¬ vived periodically as to the existing—and persisting—cylindrical form of the high hat. Artists, particularly, who have plunged into the controversy, generally have reviled this form as lacking in pictur- ‘60 The Story of The Hat esqueness. But the question holds firm whether picturesqueness is the sole object to be aimed at—especially in masculine at¬ tire. Is it not clear that the modern ten¬ dency is toward what is unpretentious, easy and comfortable, rather than what is picturesque and cumbrous ? What makes fashions change ? Is it mere whim of the public, or artful intrigue and subtle sug¬ gestion on the part of merchants ? Is it not rather some point of utility as well as elegance that suggests, or leads up to, the change ? The bicycle is invented ; youth and age of both sexes are attracted by the combination of healthful exercise and play which the machine offers. What results ? A return on the part of the male to some¬ thing like the costume of last century— short trunks and long socks; and on the part of the female to an abbreviated skirt, a more easy fitting shoe and more consid¬ eration as to color and texture of hose. The funnel-shaped hat, which has tri¬ umphed over that most potent of de- 61 The Story of The Hat stroyers, Ridicule, has a reason to account for its triumph. It is the best of ventila¬ tors. The cause of so much baldness among our ancestors, that made wig- wearing the fashion, was undoubtedly the TIME OF CHARLES II. cumbrous head-gear which, causing irrita¬ tion of the scalp, had produced a race of baldicoots. Another point. The black funnel hat is more in keeping with our dress than the plumed hat of the time of Charles II. Think how absurd a man in black frock and grey trowsers would look, if he topped his toilet with a hat like this. 62 The Story of The Hat Charles Dickens, in his magazine, All the Year Rounds inveighed earnestly against the “tile.” “What Fiji,” he says, “ would wear our black hat ? What abo¬ riginal would not dance on it in sheer disgustful contempt? It is costly, frail, lets in the rain, does not keep out the sun,” (very narrow brims were then in vogue) “ attracts the wind, is unfit to travel or to sleep in ” (he must have been thinking of nightcaps and going to bed with his boots on) “ is ugly, uncomfortable, cold; yet it has existed now in full fashion for some seventy years and it defies all reformation. Stupid type of Chinese changelessness that it is, it has spread all over Europe and reigns predominant wherever there is civ¬ ilization.” A bright indictment this; but analysis dims it. In the first place, the high hat is not an expensive article of one’s dress and was not, when he wrote. Its cost in a year will be found considerably less than that of any other part. Second, its fragil- 63 The Story of The Hat ity is entirely optional. It can be made strong as tin or so light as to weigh only tw r o ounces. Third, it doesn’t let in the rain, does keep off the sun and, when the brim is made wide enough, protects the vision. Its height may attract the wind, but its rotundity breaks the force of it; TWELFTH CENTURY FASHIONS. and its value, in the way of ventilation, 'what critic can deny ? As for coldness, of course, in deep winter, it is not as warm¬ ing to the head as a fur cap ; that can be admitted, but as to its being uncomfort- 64 The Story of The Hat able, that is the fault of one’s hatter—sim¬ ply and solely a culpable carelessness in the fit. If a hat is well fitted, a man doesn’t know he has it on till he takes it off, as the Irishman says in his “ bully ” fashion. The fact of its general adoption and long reign—it is now centennial—would seem to be a fair proof of its general advantages and merits. HSTo, dear Dickens, you were a great and splendid writer, and you righted not a few wrongs in your day, but you were not in¬ fallible. Your tilt against the high hat was a repetition of Don Quixote’s assault on the wind-mills, and your indictment, as to substance of sound sense, reminds one of Phelim’s dinner. “ What have ye for din¬ ner to-day, O’Brien ? ” “ Boiled beef and purtaties, Phelim.” “Ah—just me own dinner, barrin ’ the beef.” Would any of the “artistic” denouncers of the “ chimney pot ” like to have us go back to the flaunting foolscap pomposities 65 The Story of The Hat of the twelfth century such as those exam¬ ples on page 63 from Repton’s Tapestries ? Or perhaps, a flaring yellow sugar-loaf, tricked off with sky-blue trimmings like that of the time of Edward the IY., would YELLOW SUGARLOAF. ANOTHER OF SAME TIME. tickle the fancy of our artist friends. Im¬ agine our court-jester, Mr. Chauncey Depew, under a foolscap extinguisher of this kind or of the companion hat with its long suggestive goose-quill. 66 The Story of The Hat Or consider the napkin hats, which had a run in the fifteenth century. Would even our waiters care to be marked as a class by such uncouth and ultra-comical head-gear ? Or the muffin caps and hats of the reign of Edward VI., or the “ flat-heads and half muffins ” which were worn in the hazy, half-chaotic six¬ teenth century—who votes for them ? One is inclined to think that here was a reversion of type to the buttoned bonnets mentioned by the great narrative poet, Chaucer. “ His stature was not very tall. Lean he was. His legs were small, Hosed with a stocken red; A buttoned bonnet on his head.” In that same century the battle between hats, (chiefly of beaver,) and caps, which has long since ended in a victory for the blocked hat, appears to have begun. These by virtue of superior comfort and adapta¬ tion to climate have held the field, Avith variations of shape, until foreign influence, 67 The Story of The Hat Highland shooting, and a general loosen¬ ing of costume, due possibly to the rapidly increasing attendance upon and interest in collegiate races, restored to common use the comic expansion of the “ billy-cock ”— NAPKIN HATS FIFTEENTH CENTURY. the pileus (cap) of the ancients, and the navvy’s “ wide-awake.” * The “ wide-awake ” is only a modern form of the petasus of the Greeks or an amplification of the pileus. This was fol- * It seems to be a fact, although savoring of joke, that the “ wide-awake ” was thus named, because it never had a nap. 68 The Story of The Hat lowed by the invention of the boating-hat of straw; the turban, or “ pork-pie,” now entirely lapsed from fashion; the fishing- cap with solid brim and flexible head-case and finally the close round-crowned felt, or derby, which is only a revival, after all, of a hat current in the twelfth century, as the illustrations on page 25, from a manu¬ script in the Cambridge Library clearly show. Reference has been made to Sir Walter Raleigh, one of England’s greatest char¬ acters, as an early wearer, if not actual originator, of the style of beaver, chiefly affected by Count d’Orsay two odd cen¬ turies after. It appears that Sir Walter brought over from the Low Countries the idea of block¬ ing or shaping firmly the hat, which was a European, not an English, invention. Indeed, it is noticeable that the English are not an inventive, but an adoptive race, quick to seize, and sometimes to improve upon others’ ideas, just as they are quick 6b The Story of The Hat to seize others’ lands, when they dare or can. Wordsworth’s Eob Eoy fits the case historically. “ The good old rule sufficeth him, The good old rule, the simple plan: That they should take, who have the power, And they should keep, who can.’ But an even greater, and far more typ¬ ical Englishman than Kaleigh, had. pre- FRENCH EIFFEL TOWER THE PORKPIE. A REVIVAL HAT OF I4TH CENTURY. OF THE FEZ IN FORM. viously gone across the Channel for his hats. That royal lady-killer, Henry VIII., whom Froude makes out a great states¬ man, in his youthful days, like the present heir to the English throne, was as partic- 70 The Story of The Hat ular about his hats as his heart-affairs. One of his foreign hats has been subject of allusion earlier in this history and the only thing to be added is that, probably, it was not a blocked beaver, though it may have been. Opposite is a specimen of the shaggy and shapeless beaver in use about a century before King Henry cut off his wives’ heads and founded a national church on the purely legal right of divorce. But the beaver hat (or cap) dates even further back than this most frank and honest period of English history; for in the chronicles of the Abbey of Mandeville mention is made in monkish and very bad Latin of certain gifts to the Abbot in 883 A. D. among which are two Roman caps, one (ex cane Pontico) from the dog of the Pontic Sea, i. £., the barking seal; the other of beaver, trimmed with other furs. Henry III. of England, in his long reign of peace, had a little cap of beaver, with gold band and set with precious stones— doubtless, a gem of a cap in those days. The Story of The Hat 71 The Low Countries were at that time the seat of hat-manufacture. Chaucer, the charming poet, from whom quotation has previously been made, describes the merchant—in those days generally his own SHAGGY UNBLOCKED BEAVER OF I4TH AND I5TH CENTURIES. drummer or traveler—as having on his head a 64 Flaundries (Flanders) beaver hat.” In 44 Much Ado About Nothing” Shakespeare puts this into Claudio’s mouth ; 44 He brushes his hat o’ mornings; what does that bode ? ” That he was a gentle¬ man particular about his looks, of course, but also doubtless that his hat was of beaver and needed smoothing. The blocked beaver, championed by 72 The Story of The Hat Raleigh, made such head-way in popular regard that Queen Bess felt constrained to pass an Act for the protection of the “ thrummed ” cap trade, which manufac¬ ture, originally started by some fugitives from Flanders in the time of the Fourth Edward, had assumed large proportions. In this protection of established industries the chief element of consideration, how¬ ever, was probably not so much the cap- trade, per se, as the native wool-grower; who, as a landed proprietor, Would natur¬ ally be an object of solicitude to a paternal semi-feudal government. This act, 13 Elizabeth c. 19, was passed in 1571, and it ordered that every person, save ladies, Jews, etc., on Sundays and holidays— there were many of the latter, then, for it was still Merrie Englande—should wear a cap of velvet wool, made in England by the cappers, under a penalty of three shill¬ ings and sixpence per day. This curious tax was repealed by 39 Elizabeth c. 18. The hat had begun to win its long fight. 73 The Story of The Hat Its price, however, continued high and so confined its use for a century chiefly to the upper circles. In the time of Charles II., 1668, date also of the Great Fire of London, it is quaintly recorded that one Giles Davis, a merchant, offered Timothy Wade, a gen¬ tleman, five pounds to buy a beaver hat .so as to induce him to surrender a lease to a certain piece of ground. This costliness naturally caused imitation and substitu¬ tion of inferior fur and thus led in a few years to a lowering of price. A History of Trade, published in 1702, contains this instructive passage : “ About this time we suffered a great herd of French tradesmen to come in ,'particularly hat-makers , who brought the fashion of making a slight coarse-woven commodity —viz—felt hats, now called Carolinas ; a very inferior article to beaver, which then sold at from twenty-four to forty-eight shillings apiece.” Thirty years later we find the London 74 The Story of The Hat Board of Trade in behalf of London hat¬ ters complaining bitterly to the House of Commons about the extent of hat-making in New York and New England. In con¬ junction and contrast with the curious at¬ tempt by Elizabeth to protect English hat- makers from foreign competition is the fact that about 1500 it had become a regu¬ lar custom for the government of Worms to send annually a messenger to Frankfort with a felt hat as a symbol of petition for release of customhouse duties; the hat, like its humble forbear, the cap, thus be¬ ing a token of liberty desired or demanded. The first regular hatters (or cappers) in the Middle Ages were apparently a guild in Nuremberg, beginning in the year 1360 under the name Filz-Kappenmacher—Felt- cap-makers. Twenty years later this busi¬ ness appeared in France and twenty-one years after that in Wurzburg, Bavaria, For the further encouragement of Eng¬ lish hatters—an odd remedy for their evil case—in the first third of the last century 75 The Story of The Hat the government proceeded to tax hats by making every seller take out a license. Then it decided to impose a stamp which was put on the inside of the crown where a maker’s name is now found. If a man sold an unstamped hat, he was fined ten pounds. If he was proven to have forged a hat-stamp, the punishment was death. Law, in those good old days, was a veri¬ table Reign of Terror. Naturally such legislation put a quietus on all improve¬ ments in the hat business for years, dimin¬ ished the manufacture and sale of beaver hats in England and ruined the foreign and colonial trade. The advent of the silk hat proper, ac¬ cording to Melton, was about the year 1822. Made of long-napped English silk on felt bodies, they were heavy and clumsy and so, he says, “ did not take among the upper ten.” In 1840, the pres¬ ent style of silk hats was brought from France and Lyons silk of the best quality was used. This at first upset the hat- 76 The Story of The Hat trade, for the workmen accustomed to beaver hat-making did not take kindly to the u Frenchified 55 method; but, after a while, they “ caught onand surpassed their teachers and the substitution of cot¬ ton bodies for felting was a great improve¬ ment, the cotton being so prepared that, although thin and light, it was as firm as thin board. Thus the hats were not only relieved of heaviness, but retained their shape. English rulers, it will be noticed, have paid extraordinary attention from the start to the hat and hat-business. Some have even invented as well as given coun¬ tenance to certain fashions. James I., who among other eccentricities tried by liter¬ ary fulmination to blow all the tobacco smoke out of his Kingdom which Kaleigh had caused there, entertained peculiar ideas about hats. Here are some of them which his unlucky courtiers had to don, or doff royal favor. Eighteen years before this learned mur- 77 The Story of The Hat derer, James VI. of Scotland and I. of England, the worst king of the worst dynasty England was ever cursed with, ascended the throne, fashion in hats had rioted to the top notch of the fantastic. The Elizabethan—or, more rightly, the Shaksperean Era—was an age of plumes; STYLES BROUGHT FROM SCOTLAND BY JAMES I. an age that, indeed, had no small reason to plume itself on its magnificent intellec¬ tual expansion. But Stubbs and other satirists were paving the way for James' clipping of head-gear by denouncing in unmeasured terms the bright and feathery follies' of the time. “ They are content,” said Stubbs, “ with no hat without a great 78 The Story of The Hat bunch of feathers of divers and sundry colors, peaking on the top of their heads not unlike, I dare say, Cockes combes, but as stemes of pride and ensigns of vanity; and these fluttering guiles and feathered flags of defiance to virtue are so advanced in England that every child hath them in his hat or cap. Many get a good living by dyeing them, and selling them, and not a few prove themselves more than fools in wearing of them.” The Revolution when Cromwell, the greatest of English rulers, took the helm, found and stamped out the feather fashions to a great extent. The Puritan hat, a sufficiently hideous affair, was merely a high-crowned felt un¬ blocked. When the Restoration came and Charles II. began to shed the light of his ugly humorous phiz on England, the Merry Monarch issued a solemn pronunciamento, laughing in his sleeve all the while, ’tis likely, as to the shape of hat and coat to 79 The Story of The Hat be worn by true Britishers till the day of Judgment; and his brother, James II., amid his general paucity of ideas, had some on hats. William III. not only rev- COMMON PURITAN HAT AND THAT WORN BY ROBERT DEVEREUX, LORD ESSEX, COMMANDER OF PURITAN ARMY, FROM PORTRAIT. olutionized James’ deserted Kingdom, but the national head-gear, to boot. Still, he did not improve it much. On the eighty- first page, from Hogarth’s immortal sketches, are some samples of the extra¬ ordinary three-cornered cocked-hats with gold-lace edges which gentlemen wore and 80 The Story of The Hat sweltered and swore under in the reigns of Queen Anne, George I. and George II. Are they not comical monstrosities ? Who would seriously advise or advocate a return to such opera-bouffish trumpery ? By 1760, however, one of the most un¬ couth styles, the broad flap, had vanished ; the flaps having been turned upward tri¬ angularly. Did no one during this period recognize the grotesquery of these be¬ spangled piles of decorative discomfort ? Oh! yes; a facetious writer in 1762 gives the following pictorial comment. “ Some have their hats open before like a church- spout or the tin scales they weigh flour in; some wear them rather sharper like the nose of a greyhound ; and we can distin¬ guish by the taste of the hat the mode of the wearer’s mind. There is a military cock and the mercantile cock; and while the beaux of St. James’ wear their hats under their arms, the beaux of the Moor- fields-Mall (a region similar to our Bowery or Tenderloin) wear theirs diago- 81 82 The Story of The Hat nally over their left or right eye. Sailors wear their hats uniformly tucked down to the crown and look as if they carried a triangular apple pasty on their heads. I hope no person will think me disaffected; but, when I meet any of our new raised Infantry wearing the buttons of their hats bluff before and the trefoil white worsted shaking as they step, I cannot help think¬ ing of French figure-dancers. A man with a hat larger than common represents the fable of two mountains in labor; * and the one edged with a gold binding belongs to the brothers of the turf. With Quakers ’tis a part of their faith not to wear a button or a loop tight up ; their hats spread over their heads like a pent-house and darken the outward man to signify they have the inward light. Some wear their hats with the corners (which should come over their foreheads in a direct line), pointed into the air; these are the gawkies. Others do not above half cover their heads; * Parturiunt montes; nascetur ridiculus mus.—Horace. 83 The Story of The Hat which is, indeed, owing to the shallowness of their crowns; but, between beaver and eyebrows, expose a piece of blank forehead which looks like a sand road on a sur¬ veyor’s plan. Indeed, people should hide as much of the face under their hat as pos¬ sible, for very few there are but what have done something for which they ought to be out of countenance.” Thirty years after this pleasant satiric FRENCH REVOLU- ROUND SLOUCH FRENCH REVOLU¬ TION STYLE. OF FOX. TION STYLE. broadside a noticeable improvement of simplification was made. The wide, use¬ less buttoned-up brims were pared down, 84 The Story of The Hat as can be noted in the illustration of the hat worn by the heroic General Wolfe. Besides, the round slouch was introduced, and was worn by Pitt and Fox to whose particularly shabby hat William Austin, in his “ Letters from London ” published in 1803, has left a pleasant reference. While the higher crowned hats became appreciably softened in outline and height,, their smartness was still often emphasized by gold bands or tassels. Two of these, one with ribbon ornaments, were repro¬ duced in the early days of the French Rev¬ olution and found a considerable but not lasting favor. Here, however, it is well for the serious investigator of human head- gear to note that a return was being un¬ consciously made to the Raleigh hat. The absurd superfluity of the brim has been docked ; the feather has been plucked out; the cocks have been knocked off and the lace fringe has been relegated to limbo. From now on the progress becomes clear and rapid, though with some slight diver- 85 The Story of The Hat gences into vapidity, such as the ludicrous angularity and exaggerated crescent of brim in the heyday of George IV., and the oddity, though not ugliness, of that style favored by the Earl of Harrington, to the simpler, but perhaps over-plain fashion of Anglesea and thus to the cotemporary summit of taste which eventually domi¬ nated them all and holds fairly firm to¬ day, the design of that inimitable dandy, Count d’Orsay. About the same time that the hat got simplified in shape and color and denuded of tinsel ornamentation, a marked im¬ provement in its material and manufac¬ ture took place. Fabric softer, equally strong, yet more flexible, began to be used for its body; its cover was woven more closely, of a richer pile ; its dye was made more durable and capable of taking on a higher polish. .Reference has been made to the great interest in hats manifested by many Eng¬ lish rulers and no history of the hat would 86 The Story of The Hat be complete or just which did not admir¬ ingly chronicle the taste and practical judgment shown by that amiable gentle¬ man who.was the husband of Queen Vic¬ toria. The Prince Consort, as he was called, was a man of marked simplicity, though extreme elegance, in his tastes'. In public, through the summer, he usually wore a hat of drab felt, for which he paid two guineas. In his gardens, however, he always wore a Panama, which in those days, according to the fineness of the plait, ranged in price from twenty-five to two hundred and fifty dollars.* But it was the fate of this Prince, who, as a foreign husband of the Queen, was peculiarly studious to avoid giving offence to the English by any appearance of interference in state affairs—it was the singular fate of this unusual Prince to raise a perfect storm in England—a tempest in a hat. This, too, by an act of real benevolence. Not * Rich Mexican planters have b^en known to pay even as high as $300 for a hat of this kind. 87 The Story of The Hat long after his transplantation into Ham¬ let’s mad island of exile, the Prince had occasion to wear one of the military hats then in style of which an illustration is general’s hat, 1850. WEIGHT 25 OUNCES. given. This absurd and ugly thing had a uniform weight of twenty-five ounces. It is, as any one can see with half an eye, both heavy and clumsy. Taking a prac¬ tical hatter into confidence and counsel, the Prince evolved a marked improve¬ ment which weighed only eleven and a half ounces. Lightness, smallness, com¬ fort, were his aim. When this General’s hat was finished, he submitted the matter 88 The Story of The Hat to the Duke of Wellington and Welling¬ ton, anxious to have a finger in this pie of military reform, and being of a very eco¬ nomical turn of mind (the accidental con¬ queror of Napoleon was a sad skin-flint) advised that, instead of the rich, gold loop, a bullion twist should be substituted and for the rich gold tassel of the Prince’s de¬ sign he offered a somewhat cheaper and prince Albert’s improvement ON THE GENERAL’S HAT. far less shapely one. The saving this in¬ volved was comparatively slight and in consideration of the high rank of the offi¬ cers and the small number of hats required the Duke’s improvement was absurd. 89 The Story of The Hat But the Prince had no choice save to ac¬ cept the “ amendment.” The result was that the nation’s jealousy was aroused and the press teemed with charges of insolent interference on the part of the foreigner and accusations of stinginess. But the storm at last subsided and the English, OLD SHAKO. coming to their senses, recognized the vast improvement which a foreigner of taste could make among them, if he had a chance, like the Prince Consort. He then set his mind toward simplifying the shako, which at that time weighed twenty-four 90 The Story of The Hat ounces. The one he proposed weighed ten and it was not adopted, but, as a sequel to his agitation, the French-shaped shako weighing seven and a half ounces came into use; not so handsome a hat as that of the Prince’s invention and more “foreign” but possibly more serviceable and conven- ALBERT SHAKO. PRESENT SHAKO. ient. This reformatory Prince also brought into fashion a very pretty and serviceable hat for deer-stalking, a favorite pastime of his. This was made of a misty mixture of shepherd’s plaid, which resembles the black-and-white stone so common in the Highlands of Scotland arpl thus is calcu¬ lated not to arrest the keen vision of the 91 The Story of The Hat deer and put him to flight. The shape is that of the Yenetian period, the back brim turning down in wet weather and guard¬ ing the neck from rain. Before parting with Victoria’s excellent husband, it is impossible to refrain from PRINCE ALBERT’S DEERSTALKING HAT. relating a delightful story of a famous hat¬ ter to whose book much is owing by the author of this, although it contains a few singular mistakes. Sir Edwin Landseer, the noted animal painter, was commis¬ sioned to do a life-size of the Prince’s fa¬ vorite dog, Eos.* It was decided to repre¬ sent Eos as on guard over his master’s hat and gloves reposing on a foot-stool or cush¬ ion. Sir Edwin, wishing to be realistic in * A Greek word, signifying Dawn. 92 The Story of The Hat reproducing these stage-properties, sent to Mr. Melton for a hat of the Prince, which was furnished. Now listen to Mr. Melton’s deep wail of advertising woe: “ Sir Edwin introduced it into the picture, placing it easily on its side on a cushion and showing nearly half the inside of the lining. Had the hat luckily been placed just an inch more horizontally, the crown would have displayed my name as ‘ Hatter to his Royal Highness,’ and thus rendered me an incalculable service, without prejudicing the picture in the least degree. But Fate, or the artistic fancy, decreed otherwise.* When I remind mv readers that the en- tJ graving of this charming picture has had an almost unprecedented popularity, the importance of my suggestion can be readily estimated. . . . Assuredly, a great error, a most unartist-like proceeding and, indeed, an almost unpardonable neglect in our pre- Raphaelite age. I understand from good * Mr. Melton evidently had a classic mind, for this re¬ calls Virgil's famous Dis aliter visum. 93 The Story of The Hat authority that Mr. John Everett Millais, It. A. paints from a brick. Assuredly a*n artist should do justice to a “tile.” And then to cap the climax, Mr. Melton criti- EOS, FROM SIR EDWIN LANDSEER’S PICTURE. cises Sir Edwin’s counterfeit presentment of the Prince Consort’s hat as dispropor¬ tionate ; “ out of drawing ”; and from a study of this famous picture one is inclined to admit that, in this point, the hatter has the great painter decidedly on the hip. 94 The Story of The Hat The pictured hat is really not quite true to the style of the original. About fifty years ago, the sound sense of the Prince Consort having percolated at last into many English heads, his advanced ideas on the subject of hat ventilation were taken up by several hatters to the advan¬ tage of the community, and a man named Ellwood patented a double hat, with a space between the outer and inner body and with little perforations all around un¬ der the brim so as to produce a perfect and constant current of air. The sale of this cool hat, which had cost the hatter who exploited it a large sum to produce, “ hung fire.” What is new, however excellent, is apt to suffer from slowness of approval, and the greater the excellence, the smaller is often the amount of immediate appreci¬ ation. This applies to heads as well as hats. A Balzac spends years, nearly all his life, before he succeeds in achieving popular acceptance; while some trumpery novelist who treads in beaten tracks and 95 The Story of The Hat never lias a single new idea lives in ease and imagines himself one of the Immortals. The ventilator hat went slow until the exploiter conceived the happy plan of giv¬ ing it a pompous, mysterious name. Call¬ ing in a scholarly friend to his aid, he con¬ cocted the word “ Aleckephales-Kepasteer,” which is Greek and signifies “ Head-pro¬ tector from the heat of the Sun.” The trick won. Men, seeing it advertised, be¬ came curious as to what such a hat could possibly be and also how to pronounce its outlandish title. They flocked to see it, and trying it on pronounced it a good thing. The Emperor of the French, Na¬ poleon the Little, who having lived much in London was more than half an English- p man, took a great fancy to this new hat and gave it the stamp of his approval. Large quantities were shipped to India and there it soon evolved into the pith-hat or Indian helmet hat, which is at once comfortable and becoming in a tropical climate. 96 The Story of The Hat Not long after this invention, a French¬ man devised an umbrella-hat which pro¬ voked only ridicule in Paris. So he tried it on London through a friend in the hat- trade. This was a very simple affair; merely an exceedingly light umbrella with a handle about nine inches long which fitted with a screw into the centre of the crown of a stiff hat. In merely wet or bright weather it answered its purpose admirably, but if the day were also gusty, it was likely to cause amusement to spec¬ tators, for its wearer had to tack about like a human ship to prevent this umbrella taking flight along with the hat. Some, however, liked the hat for use in still fish¬ ing or for reading in the open air, and as recently as 1889 I saw one of these old patents in active service in this country. It now comes in order to say a few words on the subject of ladies’ hats which, about the same time, began to displace the bon¬ net ; the bonnet being merely, in essence, a variation on the old cloth hood. It is. The Story of The Hat 9'< noteworthy that through all the fantastic changes in men’s head-apparel woman has more than kept an equal pace with man. When men’s hats were widest, and weight¬ iest, women’s were still more strange and towering. On succeeding pages are some illustrations of what ladies sailed under in the days of the Tudors and still earlier. STYLE IN LAST DAYS OF HOUSE OF YORK. When a soberer taste began to show it¬ self, the style affected by women became still plainer than that of the men. The straw-bonnet of our grandmothers even strained plainness at times almost to the 98 The Story of The Hat point of ugliness in shape, little relieved and, indeed, rather accentuated by the ad¬ dition of lace and artificial flowers. In the forties, however, when the feather and plumes were things of the past in male costume, an English lady began to devote her attention and artistic skill to the com¬ position of fancy hats in felt, straw and velvet; and fine feathers for fine feminine featherless bipeds came with a bound—and boundlessly—into fashion. Every kind of bird from the dazzling, darting warbler or the modest low-flying sparrow to the tall flamingo or the soaring hawk, was made to contribute wings, tails, breasts, or, in the smaller species, whole bodies, stuffed and generally set in strained positions, to the adornment of lovely woman’s head. Such was the bewildering variety of birds in use that a salesman in a hat-shop had to have not only a pretty good memory, but no small ornithological knowledge, in order to tell a customer just what kind of bird or feather she was buying on her hat. 99 The Story of The Hat An amusing story is told of this time. A lady of title, one of the sort who are al¬ ways on the lookout for monstrosities in the way of fashion, entered a hatter’s and desired to be shown a hat which was unique and could not possibly be duplicated by any other woman. A monster with a wondrously dyed and flaunting feather was brought forth. She greatly admired it and inquired the price. “ Fifty pounds.” Rich as the lady was, it staggered her a little and she expressed surprise; where¬ upon the saleswoman began to expatiate on the rarity of the feather as offering a happy medium of convincing the customer of its value; but not being a very fluent orator the saleswoman got confused and commenced to stammer and flush. The proprietor, noticing this, flew to the rescue and gracefully ousting his subordinate, while taking the cue as to rarity, began to explain that there wasn’t another feather like it in all England and might never be again for many years, inasmuch as the 100 The Story of The Hat bird was one of the scarcest in the world and oh account of its peculiar habits al¬ most as impossible to shoot as an American loon. “ But what is this feather and what’s the bird’s name ? ” suddenly queried the lady. “ Madam,” he said, completely at his wit’s end, for he hardly knew a hawk from a hernshaw, when it came to the pinch, “ Madam,” he repeated, rolling up his eyes and lowering his oily voice to an impress¬ ive stage-whisper, as if the secret were be¬ ing dragged out of him, u This is the wing of a diving peacock.” Delighted and as¬ tonished, the dame apologized for her ig¬ norance and took the hat at once. While in the vein anecdotal concerning English hatters, one is tempted to refer to the system of long accounts with fashion¬ able customers which used to prevail in England and to some extent still obtains. Tradesmen, especially in the hat-trade, were heavily handicapped by this usage. To press for a bill meant often to give great offence. Months, years frequently, The Story of The Hat 101 rolled by with large bills apparently no nearer to settlement than when contracted, An old joke from Punch illustrates this. “ I must withdraw my patronage from HORNED HEADDRESS. TIME OF HENRY IV. Dunning,” says young Frank Dash. “Why, what has he done, Frank?” Frank’s brother asks, “ Oh! he has as¬ sumed a hostile attitude: he has actually asked for his money” Indeed, so fearful were some tradesmen of angering the gentry that, after a while, they would go through the form of bankruptcy so the 102 The Story of The Hat sums due could be collected without any apparent application on their part; and there was one firm which made a practice of only sending in accounts to dead men, i. e., to the executors of its debtors’ es¬ tates. Melton tells a delicious anecdote of one London gentleman’s method of set¬ tling. To a patron who, he supposed, would pay him at least once a year, he sent a bill at Christmas. No heed being paid to this, at Easter the hatter sent a clerk with a duplicate. My lord received the humble envoy politely ; but, pointing to his desk, expressed some irritation at Melton’s “ impropriety ” in expecting him to “ disturb the regularity of his file.” “When my accounts reach the top of that,” he said, blandly, “ I begin to pay them off in regular order by easy stages so as not to weary myself in well-doing. If a bill comes in early, you see, it must get paid late, for it is low down on the file. This too, fulfills the Scripture that the last shall be first and the first last.” 103 The Story of The Hat The clerk, duly impressed by such holy business methods on the part of a noble, cringed away. It was another year be¬ fore the hatter received his money, from which it may be inferred that the cus¬ tomer had a pretty long file—and was a pretty keen one. The early mention of the hat in our literature is noticeable. Chaucer has been cited, but even before him in the old poem “ Pier’s Ploughman ” there is reference to a merchant wearing a hat. Shakspere is particularly copious in allusions to hats. Master Slender in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” swears by his hat: a good proof in what high esteem or reverence the hat was then held. Claudio in “ Much Ado About Nothing ” is noted for “ brush¬ ing his hat o’ mornings ” which allows a fair inference that beaver was then in wear or coming into fashion. Beatrice in the same play remarks: “ He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat: it ever changes with the next block,” which in- 104 The Story of The Hat dicates how capricious was fashion in that day. In u All’s Well That Ends Well” the Clown, describing the advent of Bertram and his retinue, exclaims “ Faith, there’s a dozen of them, with delicate fine hats and most courteous feathers which bow and nod at every man.” Grumio in “ Taming of the Shrew ” refers to a servant’s hat; Vincentio alludes to a copatain* hat; Biondello describes Petruchio’s servant as wearing “ a old hat and the humor of forty fancies pricked in it for a feather.” That jewels as well as feathers were dis¬ ported in men’s hats, when Shakspere lived, appears from the Third Lord in “ Timon of Athens ” who says : 66 He gave me a jewel the other day and now he has brat it out of my hat.” Coriolanus is made by Shakspere to speak of taking his hat off in order to curry favor with the mob; but this is probably a mistake his¬ torical on the part of the poet, since a Roman of the time, stamp and age of * Means high-raised or pointed. The Story of The Hat 105 Coriolanus would not be likely to have worn a hat. Mrs. Page in “ The Merry Wives of Windsor,” when urging Falstaff to escape, bids him put on a hat, a muffler WHAT A MERRY WIFE OF WINDSOR MAY HAVE WORN. and kerchief, and there is also reference in this play to a u thrummed ” hat which was a shaggy sort of wool cap, worn by com¬ mon people and covered with the ends of yarn called thrums. Ophelia, when 66 mad as a hatter ” sings — “ How should I your true love know From another one ? By his cockle-hat and staff And his sandal shoon.” 106 The Story of The Hat This was probably a ditty old in Shaks- pere’s time and transplanted by him into the play as a piece of nature; for the refer¬ ence is to days when persons went on re¬ ligious pilgrimages and wore a cockle or shell in the hat as a sign of their errand. That the ancient Britons wore no hats, except when going into battle, when they wore nothing else, seems to be a well estab¬ lished fact; and that the ancient Greeks wore hats, besides the helmet, which is a kind of a hat, appears clear from the “Works and Days” of Hesiod, a poem written for “ the agricultural interest.” Hesiod, describing the proper dress for a farmer in raw weather, says, “ Then for the head a pilon, wrought with care, Both ears enclosing cautiously prepare; For piercing are the morning winds that blow From the chill north and drive the hosts of snow.” Strutt,* an authority on ancient cos¬ tumes, speaks of the pilon, or pileus of the Romans, as a woolen cap sometimes worn * Strutt’s “Ancient Habits,” Introduction, p. 95. The Story of The Hat 107 as a lining to the helmet. We have no absolutely overwhelming proof that the Greeks had discovered the art of felting much before the Christian Era; but the likelihood is large that the brimmed hat or petasus which- Alexander the Great favored and made fashionable for ages among Greek and Roman youth, was of felt; and Pliny who flourished in the first century of Christianity which he reviled as “ an extravagant superstition ” has a minute account of the process of felting which renders it evident that the attribu¬ tion of the invention to St. Clemens must be taken very largely on faith ; if, indeed, at all seriously. To be sure, it may have lapsed, may have become a dead art, to be revived by the sensible, practical saint who may have felt that a multitude of sins might need to be covered by a good stout hat as Avell as by charity. Evi¬ dently the hat was not in common use among the Romans, was not countenanced by custom and was, perhaps, regarded as 108 The Story of The Hat tending to effeminacy or dudishness; for it is of record that Caligula by a special edict only let people wear the petasus at the theatre to shade their eyes from the sun. But the ancients wore a much more primi¬ tive hat than the pilon or pileus of which an illustration on page nine, taken from Choul’s Castramen des Anciens Romans, gives an idea. This—Cudo it was called— was made of the undressed skin of a wild animal; very likely among the early Ro¬ mans of wolf-skin, since the wolf was their national emblematic animal, as the lion is England’s, and the eagle ours. Probably the home-made fur hats or caps of our western trappers tally closely with this early Roman type. In the sculptures on Trajan’s Pillar, some of the Roman sol¬ diers are figured as wearing the whole skin of an animal, the face glimpsing be¬ tween the upper and lower jaws and the body skin hanging down over the back. Gatlin’s drawings of our American Indians exhibit a similar thing, the braves wearing The Story of The Hat 109 the hide and horns of the buffalo. The Roman galea was originally a helmet hat made of hide, fitting more or less closely round the skull with slits for the eyes and sometimes with a flap covering the front of the nose. The Greek helmet was gen¬ erally made of dog-skin at first, as the name of it shows, but, afterward, among both races, it was made wholly of iron or brass. The petasus, of which an illustration on page nine taken from an antique vase and representing a Greek soldier gives a good average idea, varied greatly in shape ; perhaps, according to the occupation of the wearer. Frequently it was a mere skullcap with a narrow, but stiff, brim. Sometimes the brim was very large and presumably more flexible, corresponding to the Spanish or southern slouch. The petasus is worn still by husbandmen in Greece and Asia Minor. Roughly speaking, it may be said to have been the hat of shepherds, travelers and hunters. Three kinds of petasus are men- 110 The Story of The Hat tioned by ancient authors, the Arcadian, (farmers’ or shepherds’) the Thessalian (hunters’ probably) and the Laconian, which may have been the more cosmo¬ politan or travelers’ kind; but one has no present means of knowing the exact differ¬ ences of these hats. The causia, classifiable as a petasus of rank, since it was the hat affected by Mac¬ edonian Kings, and by nobles with regal permission, generally was ribboned or filleted, but not always, as the illustration on page eleven shows. The brim of this turned up, instead of down, and that it must have been com¬ posed of a stiff fabric, some sort of felt, seems beyond question. This is the hat Alexander wore and which the Roman dude Emperor, Caracalla, assumed, under an illusion that he was a second Alex¬ ander, or Alexander himself reincarnate. The mark in the top of this suggests that, with the ancients, the idea of ventilation was just as dominant as it was in the wise The Story of The Hat 111 head of Queen Victoria’s husband. Strabo writing about 15 A. D. refers to the hats of the Persians as “ felt-made and like a tower.” The Persian hat to-day is the same. The ancient Lycians wore hats with feathers, not unlike those current in the days of Louis XIV. Pome’s ancient RICHLY EMBROIDERED COWL-SHAPED FEMININE HEADDRESS OF l6TH CENTURY. priesthood—it is noted among the Institu¬ tions of Numa—wore a kind which was very likely the progenitor of the bishop’s mitre. It was called the apex; a hat coming to a point, stiff and bodied, either 112 The Story of The Hat of hide or felt. Sacredness attached to this hat as to the scarlet crown on the Cardinal. Sulpicius was degraded from the priestly rank because his apex fell off, while he was offering a sacrifice. Remains now to consider an ancient head-covering which has persisted with little or no change of form to modern times. The cucullus (cowl), was worn by slaves, and by shepherds, who were gen¬ erally slaves, as many farmers are to-day of the mercantile or moneyed classes. This humble headgear was adopted by the lowest order of Christian priests or monks,* supposedly in order to identify them with the common people and in token of that practical brotherhood of man which the Greatest of Masters sought to preach and teach by shining example. Did Christ wear a hat? The question is proposed with the greatest reverence, * The old proverb, “ Cucullus non facit monachum ” for “the cowl makes not the monk” occurs to memory here. The Story of The Hat 113 and not in any light or reckless way, for the sake of sensation. Unquestionably the Jews, living in a tropical country, wore something of the sort and we have the testimony of Daniel to that effect. But there is no mention in the New Testament of this thing and is it not a just inference that, according to the general Roman cus¬ tom—rendering unto Ctesar the things that are Caesar’s—and disdainful of what to Him would have been a superfluity, He walked bare-headed, as bare-souled, among men ? Sculpture and painting in the main have represented the ancients or, more exactly, the notable figures among them, as un¬ covered ; but it would be a grave mistake to rely too strongly on these representa¬ tions as embodiments of absolute historic truth. It is likely that artists of yore, like those of modern times, generally took pains to free their subjects as much as possible from conventional trammels of costume. Why, there used to be a statue 114 The Story of The Hat of Washington at the Capitol, which not only imaged the father of his country bare¬ headed, but bare-backed and bare-legged. Suppose our civilization should lapse into chaos, like that of Greece and Home, as must all systems of government founded on inequality or superstructured with in¬ justice; and suppose amid America’s ruins scholars and explorers of a new race, delving with curiosity, should find only that half-dressed statue of Washington, all others having been mutilated by Time al¬ most beyond guesswork. Might there not be many then who would regard this as affording proof that in the morning twi¬ light, the mythologic part of American history, the men went about dressed or undressed in Washingtonian fashion? In¬ deed, some modern writers on costume with far less evidence have gravely argued that the Greeks and Romans in the heroic ages wore no hats or caps and even went to battle unhelmeted. This, as has been seen, is a gross blunder; but it does The Story of The Hat 115 appear that at the dawn of Christianity the hat was not, in the heyday of the Koman Empire, a universal piece of ap¬ parel even among- the gentry. It may then be fairly inferred that in the prov¬ inces of Rome, unless they were tropical or sub-tropical, the hat did not figure to any large extent. In his amusing “ Essay on Hats” L$igh Hunt, who bore the dis¬ tinction of wearing about the worst hats of any man of letters in his time, speaks of a famous Spanish picture of the Virgin Mary, wherein she says to a Jewish gentle¬ man who has politely doffed his hat: “ Cousin, be covered! ” But Kaphael and the other great Masters who have dealt with scriptural scenes do not represent Christ or any of the apostles as wearing hats. It is highly interesting to compare the costumes of different races, and especially in the matter of headgear. Take for ex¬ ample that figure of a Briton in a hooded cloak, page twenty-one, at the time when 116 The Story of The Hat Caesar seized the “ tight little, right little island.” Such hooded cloaks are not un¬ common to-day among women of cold countries and I have seen in the last ten years at least a dozen traveling Britons with an abbreviated costume somewhat similar; the hood lying back on the back till rain should call it into use. Nor was it an ungraceful phenomenon of reverting fancy in fashion. Here, again, is the separate hat or cap on the opposite page worn as late as the year 1100 in many parts of England, this particular specimen having been copied by Fairholt from a manuscript of the eleventh century. Compare this with the classic helmet hat* of Paris whose elopement with Helen caused the fall of Troy, and note the remarkable similarity. And on page twenty-one is a hat whose replica as to shape can be seen almost any day in the Orient. This was taken from a manuscript of the reign of Henry I. of *From Hope’s “Costume of the Ancients.” The Story of The Hat 117 England—and seems, as to crown, to have been woven, or plaited, from strips of cloth, stiffened possibly by some mucilaginous preparation. A twelfth century manu¬ script in the Cambridge Library gives us IITH CENTURY. PHRYGIAN CAP B. C. the hats on page twety-five worn by the middle classes on which I have previously commented as hints of our derby and those on page sixty-five are the styles that apper¬ tained to the nobility or higher clergy of the fifteenth century. The tall single feather in one of these emphasizes the idea : the greater the man, the taller his hat; and it seems an al- 118 The Story of The Hat most universal characteristic of the human peacock,* male as well as female, to stick a feather in the hat, cap or hair. Our In¬ dian sticks it in the hair. Originally, among savages, it may not have been adopted as a mere decoration; but from a superstition that the warrior thus ar¬ rayed would acquire some of the swiftness of the bird, just as some savages, not otherwise cannibals, eat the hearts of their bravest opponents under a fancy of thus gaining additional courage. Or else in the mind of primitive man the killing of some big bird was regarded as a great achieve¬ ment of valor or of skill and so the wear¬ ing of its feathers came to denote an honor¬ able deed. Thus possibly rose the com¬ mon proverb —one of the oldest known to man—“ a feather in one’s cap.” * Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Stetson has a very amusing poem on this topic which closes somewhat thus: Vanity’s wide as the world is wide. Feminine Vanity ? O ! ye men, Look at the peacock in his pride I Is it a hen ? The Story of The Hat 119 As Genin, a famous New York hatter half a century ago, wittily said, “it is a great feather in the cap of the present generation that it wears no feathers in its cap.” Only women, some soldiers, and a few barbarians cling to this antique fashion, and the decimation of our beauti¬ ful and valuable birds for the purpose of supplying feminine vanity in this way MIDDLE OF I 8th CENTURY. has of recent years led to a strong coun¬ ter-movement, or crusade against fuss and feathers, which bids fair to be soon suc¬ cessful. But how tremendous is the force 120 The Story of The Hat of fashion—how slow the process of evo¬ lution—how long delayed, like “ hope de¬ ferred,” the triumph of simplicity in taste! Let us give an historic illustration of this in the way of feminine headgear. On pages ninety-seven and one hundred and one are two of the horrid headdresses worn by ladies in the York and Lancaster period of England and elsewhere in Europe pre¬ ceding that time. Could anything be more monstrous ? Against these towers of van¬ ity the thunderbolts of the clergy, the shafts of the satirist, the slings and flings of husbands, brothers and fathers were for ages launched in vain. In face of all attack the women kept on wearing these extinguishers of grace and belittlers of beauty till the sixteenth century, when they reached a pitch of extravagance, a top-heaviness of splendor, beyond the which was no going. Then, indeed, a re¬ action set in and feminine hats have never since risen and spread to such mad, Babel- The Story of The Hat 121 tower dimensions; though, about 1750, there was a menace of return to the old appalling absurdities. Even the mighty Catholic Church was worsted in this battle against Vanity raised to the summit of Insanity. The good Bishop of Paris in the fourteenth century—one of the most enlightened of churchmen—undertook to head a crusade against these abominations. He not only denounced them from his pulpit, but he offered a ten days’ pardon of sins to all who would cry out and fight against them. But Fashion foiled him; the milliners of Paris triumphed over him; and the muslin steeple, on page sixty-nine, copied from the old illustrated French Romance “Comte d’Artois” still flourished in air, when the good Bishop yielded up his reformer-breath. Proof of the radical persistence of a fashion lies in the fact that a headdress, nearly as top-heavy and absurd as the one cited, continued to be worn by the peasant women of Normandy as late as 122 The Story of The Hat 1850, at which date, travelers aver, the streets of Havre were spotted by them and they were not uncommon even in Eouen and Paris itself. But some hats of taste were worn in the fourteenth century in France. Here is one from the romance just quoted, which is rather pretty ; and espe¬ cially noticeable, evolutionally, froln the suggestion of likeness in shape to our modern beaver. Hats in the same general class (a rough and ready grouping is all that a science of manufactured things can safely attempt) are plentiful in the ex¬ quisitely illustrated manuscripts of this period. Two examples, from a “Chron¬ icle of England ” composed for Edward IV., will suffice. They can be found on page sixty-five and are so intrinsically in¬ teresting that I have referred to them, I think, twice before. These in the illustrated manuscript are depicted of a bright, staring yellow as a whole with brilliant blue trimmings. The Story of The Hat 123 What the great Italian painter, Favretto, would call “feste di colore ” feasts of color , they must have been in themselves, but think how jarring they would be on a head of profuse blond hair—and men wore BLOCKED HAT OF FRANCE AND FLANDERS, RALEIGH’S TIME. FROM OLD FRENCH ROMANCE ‘ COMTE D’ARTOIS.’ their hair long in those days. Why these particular hats have been from time im¬ memorial (almost) assumed by artists as 124 The Story of The Hat tho correct headgear for wizards and witches is a mystery. But even now in children’s picture books—Mother Goose for witness—and on the stage this odd convention prevails. The witches in Mac¬ beth are generally thus hatted. In the same illuminated “ Chronicles of England” are figures of men wearing a close round green (velvet or sarcenet ?) cap with long lappets falling over the shoulders and down the back. These bands, black in color, and probably of rough silk .occa¬ sionally hung down to the heels. Perhaps, they were a special class-distinction. The illustration on page ninety-seven is of a lady of fashion in the last days of the House of York. This curious headdress was made of black velvet or silk, studded with gold and bestuck with jewels. The poets of that time admired hugely these huge fantasticalities, it seems, for their writings abound in references to such things. Idlenesse, one of the characters in “ The Romance of the Rose,” is depicted wearing The Story of The Hat 125 “ fine orfraies,” an ornament of gold, and “ A chaplet so serenely on * Ne never waived mail upon, And fair above that chaplet A rose garland had she set.” From this it is evident that not content with her tower of filagree the lady had a chaplet of lace and over and above that a wreath of roses. On page one hundred and one is a specimen of the horned headdresses of the dames in the reign of Henry IV. which made a lady look like a kind of enhaloed and beatified cow. With the coming to the throne of Henry VII., a monarch who set a fashion of so¬ briety and economy of living, then a novelty in England, for a while the hats worn by gentlemen were, as a rule, much more convenient and at the same time more truly picturesque. But still the feather appealed to dandies and some of the “ men * The double negative, merely for purpose of emphasis, appears in Early English just as in Greek. 126 The Story of The Hat about town ” looked more like flaunting flamingoes than sensible creatures. In the following reign (Henry YIII.) the portraits of that bluff old Bluebeard’s various wives, painted by the Dutch artist, Hans Holbein, show as hideous hats or headdresses as could easily be imagined. Anne Boleyn’s is the only one of the group which approaches grace or fitness. In the reign of Elizabeth, to which attention has been previously directed for other points, a button-cap for countrymen came into vogue which, doubtless, in its management of the flaps gave suggestion for the but¬ toning up of some of the cocked-hats of the eighteenth century. But, preceding Elizabeth’s reign a queer little pan-cake looking cap (worn as late as 1850 by the Blue Coat Boys of London) caught the popular fancy. It was even worn by the young King, Edward VI., and has been known to fame as the “ muffin-cap.” * A * The great merchant, Sir Thomas Gresham, who founded the London Exchange, always wore this cap. The Story of The Hat 127 picture extant shows him in this rig, em¬ bellished, however, with a tassel. This kind of cap is still made, and worn in England by the very young or at times by AGE OF ELIZABETH. FLATHEAD FOR MAN, SAME CENTURY. elders who wish to appear jaunty and juvenile. The page of illustration, thirty-three, shows collectively the general fashions that obtained in the sixteenth century. They are derived from Repton’s “ Tapestries ” and while, perhaps, exaggerated in some details correspond sufficiently well with 128 The Story of The Hat portraits and pictures of that century to be accepted as typical. Note how much more sensible the women’s hats had be¬ come, when the greatest of English women sovereigns, Queen Bess, was on the throne. Halcyon days for hatters one writer calls this reign, and intimates that nobles and men of fashion purchased a new hat every other day. These were chiefly made of velvet, probably of beaver for the nobles and a little later still felt* rose in estima¬ tion even for fine hats. In the reign of James I. the felt-makers of London secured an act of incorporation. The Puritan hat, severe and sugar-loafish, has already been considered, but on page seventy-nine is one from a full-length por¬ trait of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex “ Lord General of the Army.” The feather presumably is on account of his military * Stowe says that felt was made in England during the reign of Henry VIII. by Dutchmen and Spaniards. It was worn in England by Edward III., according to Green’s History and Froissart’s Chronicle; but, doubtless this was the exception, not the rule. The Story of The Hat 129 rank: otherwise the hat is Puritan, but doubtless of beaver. When Charles II. regained his throne, one of the first “ reforms ” he and his dis¬ solute gang instituted was the cutting down of the “steeple-crown” hats, as they were nicknamed, and the smothering of WHEN CHARLES II. WAS KING. the brims with plumes once more. The women in that reign of riot and ribaldry wore hats almost exactly like those of their lords. This was a French taste which Charles endeavored to impart to his people, even going so far as to decree 130 The Story of The Hat it in Council in 1664. In 1660 Louis XIV., according to a print representing a meet¬ ing between his Magnificence and Philip IV., of Spain, held in hand the kind of hat—an arm-hat doubtless—depicted on page fifty-three. The cocked-hat has been discussed pretty fully, but one interesting thing remains to be told of it. Sign and symbol of aris¬ tocracy, it was particularly antagonized by the French Revolution, though it was even then a decaying fashion. But Em¬ peror Paul of Russia, because French Re¬ publicans hated it, conceived almost an adoration for it and forbade his subjects to wear a round hat under penalty first of the knout and second of a visit to Siberia. Thus, again, as in the case of the Neth¬ erlands which, when Spain’s yoke was thrown off, assumed a certain kind of hat as the token of freedom and made it a national emblem, the sort of hat in the last century favored by France was re¬ garded as the horrible mark of Republican The Story of The Hat 131 institutions. Still, though the cocked-hat with its gold or silver lace, its buckles and rosettes, was nearing its fall fjjom all heads save those of soldiers and flunkeys toward the close of the last century, and a breeze of purer, simpler taste was beginning to blow from France over England, some ladies of fashion made a desperate en¬ deavor and for a few years succeeded in rendering feminine hats almost as ridicu¬ lously heavy, high and cumbrous as they had ever been. The author of the New Bath Guide in 1776 has this humorous description and warning to a young lady that, if her hay¬ cock of a hat catches fire from some of the candles or flambeaux in the Bath Assembly Booms, a conflagration of Cupids may re¬ sult. A cap like a hat (Which was once a cravat) Part gracefully platted and pinned is; Part, stuck upon gauze, Resembles macaws And all the fine birds of the Indies. 132 The Story of The Hat But above all the rest A bold Amazon’s crest Waves nodding from shoulder to shoulder. At once to surprise Ana to ravish all eyes ; To frighten and charm the beholder. In short, head and feather, And wig altogether, With wonder and joy would delight ye; Like the picture I’ve seen Of th’ adorable queen Of the beautiful, blest Otaheite. Yet Miss at the rooms Must beware of her plumes, For if Vulcan* her feather embraces, Like poor Lady Laycock, She’ll burn like a haycock — And roast all the Loves and the Graces. Hat-making in America was a branch of industry which early attracted the atten¬ tion of the settlers in colonial days and provoked the jealousy of the English makers which resulted in several abortive attempts on their part to procure Parlia¬ mentary interference and check the *God of Forge and Fire, put by a figure of speech com¬ mon in the last century for fire itself. 134 The Story of The Hat growth of the industry. The extent to which the stepmother country wished to carry this petty tyranny of prevention seems hardly believable nowadays, when one sees how England encourages in all her colonial possessions the manufacture of any and every thing. Even the great Lord Chatham, who nobly opposed the final physical oppression of the colonies at the time of the Revolution, had earlier declared that Americans should not be permitted to manufacture “the nail to a horseshoe.” So intense was the then narrow view of colonial rights. After the achievement of our Independ¬ ence we were still regarded as a set of crude barbarians not really capable of doing much fine hat-work, or head-work, though it was felt by England that we would fight “ at the drop of the hat,” and this gained for us a grudged respect. Not long after the war of 1812 in which we were compelled to thrash the Britons into still greater respect and keep them from The Story of The Hat 135 stealing our sailors on the high seas, manu¬ facturing began to “ look up ” somewhat in the northern part of this country and among others the business of hat¬ making reared its head proudly. J ust as there were kings before Agamemnon, there were good hatters in the United States before those who are flourishing now and some of the hats made in General Jackson’s glorious day, though not re¬ markable for beauty, perhaps, were mar¬ vels of fine workmanship. Old Hickory, who in youth had worn a cocked-hat, sensibly lent the light of his countenance and the vast force of his example to the beaver or chimney-pot, as it was disre¬ spectfully called, and that, with the south¬ ern slouch, held sway. Toward the middle of this century American hats began to be known in Europe for the excellence of their make. A few years before an impu¬ dent English critic had sneeringly asked : “ Who reads an American book ? ” and probably the contemptuous question “ Who 136 The Story of The Hat wears an American hat ? ” may have been asked among the traders. We have changed all that. Hitherto we have been considering chiefly the hats made of felt or pelt; but the development of the straw hat is of equal interest. Straw for many centuries has been used in tropical countries for the production of head-coverings and in south¬ ern Italy it was plaited with rare skill, often in divers colors, about three centuries ago. Tuscany was the principal seat of this industry and the city of Leghorn was particularly noted for the beauty of its work in straw. To this day the Leghorn hat survives. These art-works of the early Italian Masters were made from a short and small wheat grown for this purpose on the Arno and the Italian hat stole its way into favor, at last, all over Europe. Only in the last century, however, did it begin to triumph over the insular prejudice and congenital slowness of the English race ; but once having gained a foothold— The Story of The Hat 137 or a headhold—there, the straw-hat in¬ dustry began to flourish in Great Britain. At first the Italian straw was imported and the Italian method of plaiting followed in which thirteen unsplit straws were used, seven turned to one side and six to the other. Thus a flat, broad plait is pro¬ duced which can be continued to anv de- «j sired length. This, coiled up in large circu¬ lar plats, is threaded loosely together and in that shape is ready for exportation. But the English before long began to em¬ ploy their own grasses for the same pur¬ pose and a wheat which grew on the chalky soil of Dunstable was discovered to be so fine that Dunstable hats became famous. An extension of this industry ensued in the counties of Bedford, Hert¬ ford, and Buckingham particularly, and by the middle of this century over fifty thousand persons were there engaged in straw hat-making with a yearly return of nearly five million dollars. The old Italian method of course, was 138 The Story of The Hat entirely superseded. By the new process the best and whitest straws cut into equal lengths were subjected to fumes of burning sulphur, which bleached them to uniform tint and then each one was divided into several strips by a wire with several cutting edges passed up through the straw. Then the strips, after being soft¬ ened in water, were ready for plaiting and as fast as the plait was made they flattened it by pressure between wooden rollers. Next, in order to form the hat, they wound it spirally over a block, overlapping the edges and sewing the coils together. It is noticeable, indeed I have often heard it remarked by persons not particu¬ larly interested in the hat-business, how from year to year the straw hat seems to gain a fineness of finish in the point of manufacture and in attractiveness of gen¬ eral appearance on the heads of wearers. This is really true likewise in regard to other hats, but is not quite so self-evident. It stands to reason that it should be thus, The Story of The Hat 130 particularly in a country like our own,, where the inventive faculty of the people is very fertile and where competition between makers is very keen ; for as } r et there is no Hat-Trust and little likelihood of such a thing for many years to come. On the other hand, while the American THE COLLEGE MORTAR-BOARD, WORN NOW BY BOTH SEXES. people make and in large numbers 'wear the very best hats in the world, it must be admitted that a vast amount of worthless hats appears also to be bought by the mul¬ titude. Mere cheapness, of course, always makes a potent appeal to average human 140 The Story of the Hat nature. Men, even when fairly well-to-do and able to afford the best—which is the cheapest in the end—are frequently tempted into purchasing a hat which will not hold its form, color or freshness thirty days; while by paying twice as much they could get a first-rate article which with fair care would last for months: in fact, many first-rate hats last and look well more than one season. Several men about town make a practice of following substantially the example set by Count d’ Orsay in the early part of this century: that is, they lay in a supply of a variety of styles and they never wear any hat more than a fortnight consecutively. Thus their hats always look fresh and by replenishing from time to time with some new style in the most stylish kind they are constantly up with the fashions. It has been said on good authority that very good razors will often sharpen themselves, if after considerable use they are laid away to rest. Whether this is a fact or not I The Story of The Hat 141 cannot say from personal experience, but I am convinced that a somewhat similar phenomenon is true as regards hats. Like human beings they seem to need a day off, now and then ; and to keep several and give them all vacations from active service tends to a real economy as well as to a continuous elegance in one’s personal appearance. I have now arrived nearly at the com¬ pletion of the pleasant task I set myself last summer in the composition of this little book; and I trust it will not be deemed egotistical or out of place, if I say a few words, in closing, about its plan and purpose. My aim was not to produce a vade mecum of present fashions or to put anything before the public eye that should savor in the least of an advertisement of my business or of myself as a manufacturer and expert. The vast and varied press of the country presents legitimate channels for advertising a man’s goods and a man’s goods, if they be 142 The Story of The Hat good goods, must also in the long run adver¬ tise themselves. I believe heartily in using the great newspaper channels of communi¬ cating with the public, even after one’s business has grown to great size, and I think nearly all great merchants will sub¬ scribe to this opinion. So I have refrained from putting anything in this book which might appear to lead a reader to the con¬ viction that a Ivnox hat is the summum bonmn, the final flower of taste, the per¬ fect evolution of utility, beauty and fitness in this important branch of human in¬ dustry. I have even avoided presenting any ex¬ amples of modern masculine styles in the illustrations lest it should be fancied that I took them from my stock to impress by suggestion the public. The few specimens of modern feminine hats with which I have sought to embellish these closing pages were chosen by me in the same way, not from hats I make, but from foreign makes which I handle to some extent for The Story of The Hat 143 some customers whose fancy leads them to desire occasionally that which bears the mark of Paris or London in preference to that frequently far superior article made SOMETHING VERY MODERN IN FEMININE HEADGEAR. in America and made by more than one hatter of real note and authority. I look forward to the day when the words, “ Made in America,” will not, like the stamp “Made in Germany” on any article, carry a suggestion of mere cheap¬ ness, but an absolute conviction that the article, whether a hat, a shoe, or a pen, is 144 The Story of The Hat of immensely superior quality, resulting from a combination of the most highly skilled and best-paid labor with the choicest taste, and commanding every¬ where and always, as it should, a just price: in fine, every American product should be a victory of true values. Having stated thus my general purpose, let me give a brief outline of the plan of this book. I have sought to group in a form easy to grasp the essential details of the development of this industry ; to show how, with certain gaps (which a future historian may be able to fill up with ma¬ terials not yet accessible, but possibly dis¬ coverable) there has been a steady evolu¬ tion toward the present leading styles among civilized men; and how even some extravagant fashions which threatened, by dint of long reign, to become fixed, have been really but exceptional or transitional —mere birds of passage. By copious ad¬ mixture of anecdote derived from many sources I have tried to make this topic GOLFING HAT AND CAPE, IMPORTED. 145 146 The Story of The Hat entertaining to the general reader as well as to members of my own craft. Whether I have succeeded or not is for the public and the critics to say. In conclusion, it is only proper to ac¬ knowledge my large indebtedness, not only to other men’s casual writings on this theme, but to several literary gentlemen, Messrs. John B. Carlton, Charles Frederic Stansbury and George Bell, Esquire, of The New York Bar and the Bell Publish¬ ing Company, for many corrections in the text and some re-arrangements of the orig¬ inal matter. If this little book is found instructive and entertaining, as I hope it will be, I shall be tempted to compose another deal¬ ing with all the interesting details of the art of hat-manufacturing as practiced by other hatters and myself, with illustrations from life of the work-women and work¬ men in the greatest hat-factory of the world and of others where special branches of the industry are flourishing; and bear- The Story of The Hat 147 ing fruit of good wages for thousands of people. In this hope and ambition I now dedi¬ cate this book to the Hatters of the United States, wishing that the day may soon ar¬ rive, when they shall “ hat ” the world— surely, no unreasonable expectation, since America already heads it. E. M. K.