THE WOODEN HAT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3081, 12 May 1881, Page 4

THE WOODEN HAT.

Somewhere about the yenr 1780, a travelling millwright, footsore, and with the broadest Northern Doric accent, stopped at the engine factory of Boulton and Watt, and asked for work. His aspect was little better than one of beggary, and Boulton had bidden him God speed to some other shop, when, as he was turning away sorrowfully, Boulton suddenly called him back. "What kind of a hat's yon ye have on your head, me mon P " " It's just timmer, sir." " Timmer, me mon; let's look at it. Where did you get it ? " " I just made it, sir, me am sel." " How did you make it ? " " I just turned it in the lathie." " But it's oval, mon, and the lathie turns things round." "Aweel! I just gar'd the lathie gang anither gate, to please me. I'd a long journey afore me, and I thoct to have a hat to keep out water, and I hadna muckle silver to spare, and I made me ane." By his inborn mechanism the man had invented an oval lathe, and made his hat, and the hat made his fortune. Boiilton was not the man to loose so valuable a help, and so the after-famous William Murdoch, the originator of locomotives and of lighting by gas, took suit and services under Boulton and Watt, and in 1784 made the first vehicle impelled by steam in England, and with the very hands and brain cunning that had befoi'e produced the "timmer" hat.— Boston Journal of Commerce.