THE HAT PROBLEM.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2615, 26 May 1877, Page 4

THE HAT PROBLEM.

(PEOM THBNEW YOBK IIMES.)

Among- the most fascinating questions upon which profound and subtle'thinkers are in the habit of speculating is the question, what shall a man do with his hat in church P Great, men in every age have grappled with this problem without reaching any satisfactory conclusion. It is true that the Jews have tried to soke it by wearing their hats in the synagogue, but this is a subterfuge unworthy of Christianity, and not much better than Spinoaa'a plan of evading the issue by not going to church at- all. We, in this enlightened and Christian age, recognise thenecessity of going to church, and the dutyi while in the sacred edifice, of put-: ting our hats somewhere,else than on our heads. Where to put them is still as unsettled a question as it was, when Sir Isa'a'ij Newton formally placed it on his famous list of the arcana of nations. Of all the various expedients by which ingenious church-goer,s .have endeayoured to safely dispose bP"the rir hats, there is not one that has not been abundantly proved to be fallacious, "To hold one's hat continually in .one's lap is. practicable only in a Quaker meeting-house, where the H worshippers] remain: seated duriog the entire service, and Jiever use any devotional implements, such as prayer-books and hymn-books.,; jso man could successfully, .balance a hat' in one;hand and-find the Epistle for the twenty-second Sunday after Trinity with the other hand; while to stand; up in order to repeat the Creed or to''sing fa: hymnr with the hat under the left arm would be the. height of absurdity. The hat, then, itnust.be. laid entirely aside duringrdivine service, and our churches, being constructed with exclusive reference to souls instead, of Jbiats, afford no resting-; placesfor the. la,tter. ... „'. '-^A...,. . The! extreme danger of. placing a hat |tl theaisle;immediately outside ; the pew.is universally known. : The first lady that sweeps up the aisle carries with her a confused mass ofdefencelesshats, which are deposited: in the: shape of a terminal moraine in the frontof the pew which is her final g'dal. Of course the bats which have been "subjected to this process srereduced: /by attrition to a rounded form, and rire covered .with : scratches, reminding ofie\ot the marts of ■ glacial actibn on gr(mite bou]3e^s. However interesting'they may be to the geologist, they are of-no further value as hats, and xan rarely be bent, into a shape that wUI. allow, their owners to ' wear them homer f. Inihei days whenexpansive crinolines were in fashion, the fate of the hat/ deposited in the aisle was : still more appalling. When a ; well-dressed lady- passed "by in in its vicinity it disappeared totally from ' human sight. There "are cases on record where "one fashionable' "woman"lias'thus caused^'the disappearance.of 13; separate dats duringjher"passage: from th"e;chufchdoorto a pew in the neighbourhood of ther,pulpit. What'was the final-^fate of those hats .was never ascertained.^ Their owners simply knewthat they vanished at the rustle of crinoline, and left no trace behind. Whetherthey^were absorbed by contactiwith soft kid, or resolved into thin/chemical elements-by proximity to steel, is yet to be discovered; The boldest

merilshf arik from ' making inyeßtigatipns to their fate, and preferred to bear their loss iti sad and dignified silence. Next to; the aisle] a pew-sfeat is the most dangerous position in: which a hat can be plated. Statistics show that but of every 100 hats thus situated, 93 are sat upon by their owners, 60 are sat upon by other people, and only five escape uninjured. It is a curious fact that more men sit down on their hats after repeating .Jhe Creed than after reading the 'Psalms [' or performing anyotliier .perpendic^kr; part, of the. service;, andianqtherl curious fact is the attraction which aijhiafc thus.exposed upon a seat, exerts upon a fat person. Neither- of; these- facts have ever been satisfactorily • explained, although they are matters .of :general,-notoriety. A man may enter a remote pew. in a strange church, and place his hat; on : the seat in position where.it is_possible that; a fat man could perceive it on entering the church. Nevertheless, experience has shown that.-in sixcases.out'of ten—or, to be exact, 6.139 cases—the sexton will show - a fat man into that precise pew within ten minutes after the hat is in .positipn,.while other and further - fat men .will from time to time hover about the. locality, with the evident desire of ascertaining if the hat is still susceptible of further:smashing. There is clearly a law of nature at- work " here which needs to be definitely formulated, and it is discreditable to" /science that this has not-yet been'done. As to putting one's hat .on the floor underneath the seat, no man who fallows this reckless course can expect anything but disaster. If there is a small boy in the pew, he will •infallibly discover that hat, and kick it to the further end of the service. If there is a lady in the pew, a surgical operation will be required to remove her foot from the interior of the hat, while in any event the hat is certain to absorb every partible of d^si^witbin ; aradius of eight feet, apd to fasten itself to the floor with the aid of forgotten Sundayschool gum drop. Neither under the seat, on.'the seatj nor in the aisle can the

worried hat find' rest; and the'"plan of: establishing*; bat pound in the vestibule, where hats could be iipketed and kept during service, would siiriply result in converting a'church into a hat-exchange, where tb,e sinners would seciife all the good hats, and the saints would be compelled "to content themselves with w6rn> out and worthless ones. Thus a severe and Exhaustive process-of reasoning shows that there.is. no.piaee in a modern church where a hat can be reasonably safe. : Hut let us b& thankful that we are at the dawn of better things. A clever inventor has just devised a plan for solving; the problem that has so long baffled the. acutest y minds. He . has secured a? pateDfc for. what' he calls "an improred pew hat-holder." It consists of a sorf of wire cage attaeh^d to the back of the pew, and intended as a recep- ! tacle, which revolves,, and carries its precious freighfrinto a safe and obscure re&es3, whence it is alleged thafc.it can ' 0 ; e withdrawn in an uninjured co^^ it j on at the end of the service. L^ he that .the inventor is not ton sangume , and that his scheme will r-^ exigencies o f the f, ase' ,no can tell how great will be • effect upon the spiritual welfare of the community when the masculine church-goer can dismiss his hat from his mind and give his undivided attention to other, purer, and better themes.