ABOUT UMBRELLAS.

Evening Star, Issue 11677, 8 February 1902, Page 3

ABOUT UMBRELLAS.

Umbrellas have quite a history. They are not merely things of the day before yesterday, nor are they likely vanifb with the bike, ping-pong, or khqjjd suits; and the reason is simple. They are not only ornamental, but they ore also useful, and any article—how few there really are which combines these has within it the elements of immortality. Certainly the umbrella might without exaggeration claim to have fhem—that is, unless our definition thereof be exceedingly strict. It Is older than Shakespeare, long anterior to Chaucer, had quite a history ere Virgil sang or Homer wrote, and has witnessed the rise and fall of many empires. The wanderer by the classic Nile, armed with a cheaptrip - to-London - and-back -in-teivdays-with-the-Pyramids-thrown-in ticket, as he gazes from beneath the shade of his up-to-date gamp is startled to find amid the sculptures of dead and half-buried cities figures of men and women ‘bearing umbrellas. These “ shades from the sun ” were a necessity of life. Gay, gorgeous, and brilliant, like the vegetation around them, the peop'e of those far-off days.clung to that which we too often hastily assign to some out-of-the-way comer, there to be appropriated by the first passer-by. In the dazzling East, China, Burmah, India, etc., it and the parasol are ns much a necessity of life as any other article of dress, liven ancient Greece and Home did not disdain them as far as the fairer half of their people were concerned, for the ladies in this as in many other matters showed a distinct superiority to their lords, who preferred to get wet through when watching the Olympic games or betting on a gladiatorial combat from their exposed seat in the Coliseum. And it was long before our own fathers and greatgrandfathers took to them. Not till the time of good Queen Anne did they become popular, and then chiefly among the patched, powdered, and bewigged dames of high degree. It was in this century—the eighteenth—that the blessings of what h"* - ' been contemptuously termed a “bumber” began to be appreciated. Some coffeehomes kept one in stock for the common use of their customers, and in certain parishes there were what were known as parochial umbrellas, these being held over the head of the officiating clergymen at funerals. Crude, ugly, cumbrous affairs they were, too —more like a felt roof spread ou "sticks than the light, dainty, impervious to-rain articles we have to-day. Heavy was the pain of the first individual who, defying custom, heroically kept to Ins umbrella in the London streets. Now it ,s the man without the umbrella on a wet lay who is laughed at, especially if he happen to wear a silk hat at the same time. But the change in fashion is as great between the umbrella itself and that of the eighteenth century as is the point of view from which wo regard it. An umbrella or parasol can be carried, and prettily carried, by a lady on the finest of fine equally with the wettest of .wet dear’s, M’hilst for the male gender the really artistic and elaborately-carved and embossed handles of the umbrellas made for his especial benefit are so admirable that no man who wants to be anything at all can afford to despise them. The whirligig of time has effected a change in this direction which can only be characterised as revolutionary. The trade in umbrellas is enormous. Thousands of bands are employed in England alone in their manufacture, and our own comparatively small colony in 1900 imported £17,746 worth! We are glad to note in this direction that Mr Lethaby, who has for many years repaired our umbrellas and counteracted the effects of Dunedin's wind and storm, has decided to check the imports if possible, and we think, .after an examination of his work, that he will do so. Mr Lethaby is the first in New Zealand to make umbrellas. That is to say, ho imports his slicks, silks, alpacas, ferrules, tassels, frames, etc., but as far as the actual umbrella is concerned it is made in Dunedin. No other firm has yet done this, but that it can be done and* satisfaction given is evidenced from the fact that Mr Lethaby’s first order (twelve grass) has been executed, and the goods are now delivered. Wo have seen these, and we have seen the imported article, and wc are guilty of no exaggeration, as an examination will prove, when we say that in finish, neatness, appearance, and strength, combined with lightness, these umbrellas cannot be excelled. They are of all grades and prices, and thev all* bear the stamp of a man who is not only a master at his trade but an enthusiast in turning out good work. There should be room for a flourishing wholesale business in this line in New Zealand, and there can hardly be a doubt, when once that unpatriotic feeling of slighting the colonial-finished article is got over, that there will be few umbrellas imported. No one who has seen the daintily-got-up pearl and ivory-handled, gilt or silver-mounted articles from Mr Lethaby s factory will question this. We may add, for the benefit of our own modest selves iu particular, that the boxes m which the umbrellas are attractively laid out iu ha.f-dozens are also of local manufacture, the ‘Evening Star’ box factory being responsible for this part—a minor one, we admit—of the work.