PEOPLE'S HATS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4513, 7 September 1875, Page 3

PEOPLE'S HATS.

(From the Globe.) There is probably no portion of human costume which exercises such tyranny over the soul of man as the hat. It is not for us to speak without presumption of the infinite interest which may be presented to the feminine soul by those etherial structures which pass for hats in the "modes," but we are at liberty to discuss our own masculine head-dress as we please, and we generally please to consider it in no very heavenly frame of mind. The world in general, expressing itself in vague but terrorising laws, conveyed by implication in such phrases as " Not fit to be seen," "What will people say 2" " Quite a fright," " A shocking bad hat," and the like, shows a preference for hats that are new, and glossy, and expensive, and uncomfortable. The individual man, when he unbosoms himself in the secret confidence of devoted friendship, or in the reflections of profound solitude, confesses an attachment to old and battered and unpresentable hats. There never was a more sociably popular song than. that with the sad refrain—" Oh, how the times are altered, since this old hat was new !" There never was a more concentrated embodiment of popular scorn for. novel display than the saying which imputed to the man who wore a white hat the crime of stealing the donkey. It might have been a relic of the political scorn of a' bygone era, but for the vulgarity of the charge, which suggests a nearer relationship to costermongerdom than to the Country Party ; but it is recorded in the life of Tom Duncombe, that "Orator" Hunt's white hat "was regarded as almost as significant as the Republican bonnet roivje in the Reign of Terror." The famous member for Preston was not the only Radical leader with a preference for the cJiapeau blanc, for in contemporary history the antique white hat of Mr. Gladstone has furnished parliamentary sketch-writers with as many allusions as the Speaker's wig. White hats are not the only head-coverings that have made their mark in politics. It is not many years since " Bockum-Dolff's Hat" -was the cause of a perfect fury on the Continent, and narrowly escaped the honor of becoming a casus belli. The late Sir James Graham's hat was the innocent cause of a scandal on the first occasion when the House of Commons received a message from her Majesty. When Lord John Russell appeared at the bar to deliver that message, eight-and-thirty years ago, on the 21st of this month, Sir James kept his hat on in spite of cries of "Hats off !" and the Speaker's declaration that "Members must be uncovered," and only removed it after Lord John began to speak. The True Sun of that evening was very severe upon the supposed exhibition of disloyalty ; and it was not until next day that Sir James was able to explain that he had followed the old parliamentary custom of waiting to hear the word " Regina" (or " Rex") before he took off his hat —as the more emphatic mode of showing respect for the Crown. At least, so it is recorded by Graham's biographer, who says Mr. Speaker admitted, " that the lion, mem- | berfor East Cumberland wascorrectinhis observance of the practice of the House ; and he accounted for his own apparent deviation therefrom by his desire to preserve order and to save time." According to a story told by Lord Campbell in his " Lives of the Chancellors," a strayed hat did good service in betraying the undue intimacy of Lord Thurlow with " the first gentleman in Europe." There being a Council meeting appointed to be held at Windsor to consider the Regency question, Thurlow went down before any of his colleagues. After the Council, the Chancellor's hat could not bo found. The chamber where the meeting was held had been searched in vain, when, as Campbell records the incident, " a page came with the hat in his hand, saying aloud, and with great nalvcti, 'My lord, I found it in the closet of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.' The other ministers were still in the hall, and Thurlow's confusion corroborated the inference which they drew." Nor is this the only country in which the hat has played a political part. In the French war of classes the famous chorus of one of Beranger's songs—" Chapeau bas .' chapeau bas ! Gloire au Marquis de Carabas ! " —has produced as great an effect a 3 the tradition of Gessler's hat and Tell's contempt of it has had upon the freedom of Switzerland. It is curious enough, with these incidents in mind, to remember that the Swiss originally brought hats into fashion in France. The first of these articles of clothing made in Paris were manufactured by Swiss people, about 470 years ago ; though it is said they did not come into general use until after Charles VII. had made his triumphal entry into Rouen in 1449, wearing a hat with a red velvet lining and gorgeous plume. Old Stow says the first hats in England were made here by Spaniards in 1510 ; and it appears that high crowns, which were first popular in the days of " good Queen Bess," were out of fashion till 1783, since which time they have held their own, to the intense mortification of all sensible, easy-going people. In these days, when guinea hats are thought but moderate, the student of history may mourn for the sumptuary laws of " bluff

King Harry," who fixed the minimum price ofj a hat at twenty pence. That ordinance must; have been of short life, for, in the court of; Henry's daughter, Raleigh wore a ruby, in the feather of his hat, and fixed the feather with a pearl instead of a button. That sort of headdress, if it came into use now, might justify an embarrassed. Chancellor" of the Exchequer in reviving the stamp duty which was placed on beavers in 1784 and again in 178 d, and was repealed only in 1811. The difficulty wouldbe to levy such an impost without oppression ; for while here and there we may find a man who would be proud to pay a high ad valorem duty on his hat, and brag of it as some infatuated Americans do of their income tax payments, the class whose exigencies condemn them to head-coverings like Sam Weller's "patent wentilatin' gossamer " is large enough to make as great a hubbub as the match-box makers who rendered Mr. Lowe's life a burden to him.