Hanging- up the Hat.

Otago Witness, Issue 2106, 5 July 1894, Page 50

Hanging- up the Hat.

There is a peculiar significance attached, amongst the humbler classes of the West Riding of Yorkshire, to the hanging up by a man of his hat in the dwelling of a young woman for whom he has a fancy. Say that two working lads meet. One will say to the other, " So -ah hear tha's wed Mary Ann So-and-So." And the other will reply, ' ' Aye, ah went an' hung up ma hat at Mary's one day." Ceitain ie is tint a declaration of marriage often begins by the young man hanging up hit hat at the dwelling of the fancied fair one in a demonstrative manner, along with the remark on the part of the young man that he shan t take down the hat till the young woman does so for him.

But, beyond this, a husband makes the treatment of his hat by his wife" the sign of peace or war between them, and the writer has wi'nessed scores of instances of this. Say that a man has what is vulgarly c»lled been "out on the spree." When he arrives at the door, he opens the same and throws in his hat, and then he stands near the portil. Should his hat come flying out again, he knows that it is war bf-tween bis good Hdy and himself, and he probably waits half au hour, and repeats the process, or he goes boldly in nnd faces it out If the hat should be retained, there is a sort of honourable agreement that nothing will be said as to the offence.