A Shocking Bad Hat.

Cromwell Argus, Volume V, Issue 241, 23 June 1874, Page 7

A Shocking Bad Hat.

(From the Danbury News.) We learn from newspaper slips and private letters of a rather ridiculous occurrence in Norwalk, Ohio. The hero is a prominent and much-respected deacon —Deacon C., we understand. .The other Sunday he started for church with an old hat on his head. It was an easy hat, and the old gentleman enjoyed it._,lt appears there are pegs to hang hats on in the churches there. Re thus disposed of his head-gear on reaching the church, and took his seat with the congregation. When the service was over he lingered as is customary and proper for deacons to do. He finally reached the-porch, and stopped for his. hat, and any respectable citizen can imagine the horror he experienced on beholding but one hat left, and that a most dilapidated and scandaloua-lookihg article. He could feel his blood boil within him as he thought of the mutton-head who owned it, and had walked off withJbis glossy beaver instead. He said out aloud that the owner of that hat was ja mutton-head, and ground his deaconisHMieel into the floor, and felt much relieved bjrjso doing. Then he tied a handkerchief about his head because the old hat was much too large for him, and he could not wear it, even if flesh and spirit had not revolted against the spectacle. He told the sexton that that hat must have been built in a dry dock, and the only thing that troubled him in the 'matter was how a man with a head of that size got into the church anyway. Then he stalked majestically homeward, with the red handkerchief wound about his head, and the detestable hat held at arms’ length ahead of him, and altogether forming a spectacle that fastened the attention of every beholder. , Arriving home, he extended the obnoxious article towards his wife, and waiting an instant for her to take in the awful enormity of the offence, he explosively shouted, “ Look at that villainous rag 1” The lady looked at it, and was astonished. “ I don’t wonder you are sick,” he howled morosely ; “itmakes me sick to think of the bullhead who owns such asmoke-stack, palming it off on me, and taking my new heaver for himself in mistake! <he ground this out with withering sarcasm.) A pretty mistake I must say, when His miserable rag is big enough to cover a cart, and filthy enough to make a crow sick.” “But that’s your every-day hat,” asserted his wife, in still greater astonishment, v,-t *-My hat!” gasped the amazed deacon, staring at her, with hia eyes half way out of their, sockets, and then laughing hysterically, and shivering from head to foot. “Certainly it is,” persisted his wife, “and here is your best hat,” taking that article from its accustomed place, and holding it out to him. ~. , . ! Without a word the miserable man sank Into a chair, and after staring blankly at his wife for a moment, slowly said : “The ways of Providence are past finding out; rub my head, Matildy.”