WHITE HAT DAY.

Clutha Leader, Volume IV, Issue 184, 18 January 1878, Page 7

WHITE HAT DAY.

<*>: : This is how the American stock brokers amuse themselves on white hat days :— Formal notice had been given early in the week that at noon all summer " tiles" would be " called in," but many of the members either forgot; or j disregarded the warning-, and suffered in consequence. William Heath was the first victim. About 1 p.m. be en- i tered the Exchange in a brown study, j with his thumb thrust in the arm-hole ! of his waistcoat. Tn a moment his tall ! white bat was whirl ing in the air, and ! as it touched the floor again twenty brokers jumped upon it. This sort of diversion was kept up nil the afternoon. Whenever a person entered wearing the prescribed headgear, a shout went up, and generally before the alarmad broker coule run the gauntlet, his hat was crushed out of shape. Late in the afternoon at least one-third of the brokers doing business on tht> floor were bareheaded, and dozens of crushed white hats were whirling in the air or ornamenting the gas brackets. Straw hats were treated even in a worse manner. They were torn apart in many instances, and the floor was screwn with the fragments. A favourite triuk was to approach an unconscious, bareheaded broker from behind and pull a dilapidated white tile down over his face and ears. His frantic efforts to dislodge it were hindered by hundreds of willing hands. One old 'fellow, whose head bad been ornamented with the lining of a dismembered hat by another joker, started a " walk round." The other members formed a rinjr and applauded him vociferously > until the chairman rapped them 10 order. The neighbouring hatters drove a brisk trade in the . evening.