CHANGE OF HATS ON ROYAL TOUR

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 91, 11 January 1935, Page 11

CHANGE OF HATS ON ROYAL TOUR

Why Bowlers Disappeared DETECTIVES BOW TO THE MAJORITY I’robably not one among the thousands of people who assembled in the South Island to see his Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester will guess that the party carried with it a deep secret, says the “Christchurch Times”. The mystery gradually developed as the tour progressed through the North Island. When it reached Picton, it was almost complete, and since then it has spread through the entire party. The mystery is, What has become of those bowler hats? New Zealanders arc not, in the main, very conventional folk in the matter of attire, but when Hie son of the King arrived it was realised that here was a special occasion when everything ought to be done according to Hoyle, and so men who had worn soft hate all their lives blossomed suddenly into the novel bowlers, feeling tremendously self-conscious, but altogether correct. But the Duke is not an addict of the bowler bat, nor are the members of his staff, and gradually the official section of the New Zealand party began to return to the more informal and more comfortable headgear. Detectives Hold Out Longest. The detectives held out the longest. To a detective an order is an order, and bowler hats for detectives had been indicated. While the others fell singly and in twos and threes from grace,, the detectives solemnly held on to the unaccustomed badge of complete respectability. As a result, a position was reached where it was quite easy to pick out the detectives among the crowd. You simply looked for the bowler hats, and there they were right beneath them. Apparently it eventually occurred to somebody that the detectives had become the most conspicuous figures in the whole asemblage. That was a thing that the detectives did not like, for the detective is by nature a retiring and somewhat shy individual, and thus to attract public attention was a thing that went much against the grain. Capitulated at Last. So eventually the detectives, too, capitulated, and now there is scarcely a bowler hat to be seen. Certainly Mr. 11. H. Sterling, chairman of the Railways Board, is wearing one, but then he usually does. Therefore there is no; thing notable in that. Somewhere deep down in the bags of the rest of the members of the party there repose the bowler hats. Presumably they will do in the future for wear at races and funerals and other occasions where propriety of dress is an important factor. So far as the Royal tour is concerned, they appear to be done with.