CONCERNING HATS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 144, 3 June 1911, Page 3 (Supplement)

CONCERNING HATS.

Quite a number-of people are bra»» encugh to discard the vs? of a hat, 01. the ground that any form of head-cov-ering is unnecessary. Historians ot morality go much further than that by saying that the wearing of clothe*. ork.dni.Uy was not done with the idea of keeping th-, body warm, and that primitive man needed to protect his body from cold no more than we to-day need to cover onr faces. The primitive savages depended for their head-orna-ments on birds; the present-day business man to the rabbit to supply him with his headgear. Something like 46,600,000 rabbit-skins arc used every vear in the manufacture of felt Eats alone; in .st of the-o bunnies are supplied by the Colonies. The band which every man wears tound his hat is a survival of the fillet with which the Grecian maiden bound up her hair so prettily "A belt her waist, a fillet hinds h-*r hair,” wrote Por.e. how cvsiom clings and fashion r.puts itself. The filet as a

•lerorstve band, however, dates back further than the Greek maiden we wot of. Mr. W. M. Webb, in a lecture to the Selbotirne Society recently, displaycr a figure of a little Egyptian wearing a fillet and two .strings, a very cloe likeness to the "Scotch” cap. in the year AUX) P.C. So far as loreiovers hare been able to discover for its we owe to t’e Greeks not onlv the hat proper, but also the "cocked hat,” familiar to us as the mark of superiority among naval officers and highwaymen o' a recent century. It is astonishing how careless many eminent men hare br-cn about their headgear, pie great Duke of Wellington is ere lit <1 with wearing one hat until it.w.is so bad that a tactful friend permiadcd him to give it away to k servant. Some days afterwards, we aro told, the Duke saw this snme hat, newly ironed, on a chair in the hall, where th? ‘errant had that moment placed it. "A nice la". that.” observed the Duke. “Ars.” replied the servant; "it’s the one your Grace gave to me. I've had it don- tin.” "What did it cost yon?” inquire] the Duke. "One ‘hilling.” was the answer. "Here’s half « r-own - I ll hare it back.’ and Wellington ii reported to have taken it. and worn it again till his friends protested against its shabbiness. Perhaps the remaining most remarkable historical comparison in hats is t:etnp-n the plain, steeple-crowned, broad-brimmed hats of the Puritans and rhe flat. brow!, f-n'her!s-decked hets fashioraide with the Cavaliers of Charles 11. Nowadays tie most striking fact about fashion in hats is that while our women rie uitii one another in enrry- ! ing the largest art'fi-i.nl garden-beds and I e-hives w their heads, onr men are eager for the lightest and most ea-v-fitting felts. The demand for a comfortably -fitting felt has led to the invention of m.-I'hinery that has numberet! the days of the orthodox sizes—rhe 7 14? worn b.v the late King Edward th- 7 1-8 of Dickens and John Bright, the 7 3-8 of Mr. Gladstone, and | rhe enormous 8J of Daniel O’Connell, j etc. Nowadays, thanks to an invention rd a well knonn firm of hat manufac-

ture's a man ran ’elect from among th • ■’Tween" hats, as the firm’s new production is called, a bat to fit as exactly as if his head had been measured ’nr ir. just in the same wav as onr is measured for a suit of clothes. The ram- of th- "Tween'’ has been given tv th»' new hat because of it being made •r. s-rcral sizes in between the old-fash-toned. numbered ortho lox sizes.

Tlmt a hat should fit the head c-r--rcctlv is important, not only for the sake of app ,-tr-n e nrd comfort, but -ho for th- benefit of the hat itself. A !*nt. be it too small or too largo, is ronstantlv being strained while on the nead. and when bring removed; in consequence it soon loses its ori'dnal shape and smart appearance. Every man should theref we ho most particular to g--( a h-t that cx.-i tlv fits.' and he will find it will keep its original shape much Irngor as well a- looking smarter when worn.