Epilogue: On Wearing A Hat

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Title:     Epilogue: On Wearing A Hat
Author: Robert Cortes Holliday [More Titles by Holliday]

There is a good deal to be said about wearing a hat. And yet this humorous custom, this rich topic, of wearing a hat has been sadly neglected, as far as I can make out, by scholars, scientists, poets, composers, and other "smart" people.

Man has been variously defined, as the religious animal, and so on; but also, to the best of my knowledge and belief, he is the only animal that wears a hat. He has become so accustomed to the habit of wearing his hat that he does not feel that he is himself out of doors without it. Mr. Howells (I think it was) has told us in one of his novels of a young man who had determined upon suicide. With this intent he made a mad dash for the sea. But on his way there a sudden gust of wind blew off his hat; instinctively he turned to recover it, and this action broke the current of his ideas. With his hat he recovered his reason, and went home as alive as usual. His hat has come to mean for man much more than a protection for his head. It is for him a symbol of his manhood. You cannot more greatly insult a man than by knocking off his hat. As a sign of his reverence, his esteem, his respect, a man bares his head. Though, indeed, the contentious Mr. Chesterton somewhere argues that there is no more reason for a man's removing his hat in the presence of ladies than for his taking off his coat and waistcoat.

In the more complex social organisms of Europe the custom of lifting the hat to other men whom one thus acknowledges as superiors is much more prevalent than in our democratic country. Though in America we remove our hats in elevators upon the entrance of ladies, a practice which is not followed in England. It was Mrs. Nickleby who indicated the extreme politeness of the noble gentlemen who showed her to her carriage by the celebrated remark that they took their hats "completely off." We express great joy by casting our hats into the air. If I wish to show my contempt for you I will wear my hat in your house; if I wish you to clear out of my house I say: "Here's your hat"; if I am moved to admiration for you I say: "I take off my hat to you." I greatly enjoy seeing you run after your hat in the street, because you are thereby made excessively ridiculous. The comic Irishman of the vaudeville stage makes his character unmistakable to all by carrying his clay pipe in his hat band. The English painter, Thomas Gainsborough, gave his name to a hat. The seasoned newspaper man displays his cynical nature and complete disillusionment by wearing his hat at his desk. A hat worn tilted well back on the head indicates an open nature and a hail-fellow-well-met disposition; while a hat decidedly tilted over one eye is the sign of a hard character, and one not to be trifled with. In the literature of alcoholism it is written that a common hallucination of the inebriate is that a voice cries after him: "Where did you get that white hat?" Upon assuming office the cardinal is said to "take the hat." When a man is conspicuously active in American political life "his hat is in the ring." Whistler topped off his press-agent eccentricity with a funny hat. The most idiosyncratic hat at present in America is that which decorates the peak of Mr. Bliss Carman. The hat-stands in our swagger hotels make a great deal of money; I know a gentleman who affirmed that a hat which had originally cost him three dollars had cost him eighteen dollars to be got back from hat-checking stands. Cheap people evade the hat-boy.

When the present enthusiast for the splendid subject of hats was a small boy it was the ambition of every small boy of his acquaintance to be regarded as of sufficient age to possess what we termed a "dice hat," what is commonly called a "derby," what in England they call a "darby," what Dickens aptly referred to as a "pot-hat," what, in one highly diverting form, is sometimes referred to on the other side as a "billycock." That singular structure for the human head, the derby hat, one time well-nigh universally worn, has now gone somewhat out of fashion and been superseded by the soft hat of smart design, though there are indications, I fear, that the derby is coming in again. When we were young the soft hat was most commonly worn by veterans of the Civil War, in a pattern called a "slouch hat" or "Grand Army hat." Though, indeed, such romantic beings as cowboys in popular ten cent literature and the late Buffalo Bill wore sombreros, and the picturesque Mexican a high peaked affair.

Our grandfathers wore "stove-pipe hats"; and the hats of politicians were one time frequently called "plug hats." This male head-dress even more extraordinary than the derby, books of etiquette sometimes say you should not call a "silk hat" but a "high hat." In London but a few years ago no man ever went into the City with other than a top-hat, or "topper" as they say there. It is said that the going out of general favour of the silk hat has been occasioned in a considerable degree by the popularity of raincoats in preference to umbrellas. If you observe any great crowd in England to-day you will find in it few hats of any kind; it is in the main a sea of caps. The American "dude" and the anti-bellum British "knut" always wore silk hats. Gentlemen at the British race courses and fine old clubmen of Pall Mall affect a white or grey top hat, of the sort which was so becoming an ornament to the late King Edward. The opera hat is said to have startled many persons who had not seen it before. Intoxicated gentlemen in funny pictures have always smashed their silk hats. Some men have worn a silk hat only on the occasion of their marriage. High hats are worn by small boys in England. The most useful occupation to-day is that which envolves the wearing of a "tin hat."

The day in the autumn fixed by popular mandate when the straw hat is to be discarded for the season is hilariously celebrated in Wall Street by the destruction by the affronted populace of the straw hats of those who have had the temerity or the thoughtlessness to wear them. Coloured men in livery stables, however, sometimes wear straw hats the year round. To the habit generally of wearing a hat baldness is attributed by some. And the luxuriant hair of Indians and of the cave-man is pointed to as illustrating the beneficent result of not wearing a hat. And now and then somebody turns up with the idea in his head that he doesn't need a hat on it. There is a white garbed gentleman of Grecian mould who parades Broadway every day without a hat.

It is indisputable that the hats women wear to-day are more beautiful than they have been for generations, perhaps centuries. Yet this fact has met with little expression of appreciation. This present excellence is because women's hats now are the product of intellectual design. In the '80's the idea was entertained that decoration of a woman's hat was increased by attaching to it something in the way of beads or feathers wherever there was a space free. A fashionable woman's hat to-day may be as simple and, in its way, as effective as art as a Whistler symphony; a single splotch of colour, it may be, acting as a foil against a rich mass. Or the hat is a replica, as it were, of the celebrated design of a period in history. But the erudite subject of women's hats should not be touched upon without a salute to that racy model which crowns the far-famed 'Arriet, whose Bank-holiday attire was so delightedly caressed by the pencil of the late Phil May. None could forget his tenderly human drawing of the lady with the bedraggled feather over one eye who has just been ejected by the bar-man, and who turns to him to say: "Well, the next time I goes into a public house, I goes where I'm respected!"

A hat is distinguished from a cap or bonnet by the possession of a brim. The modern hat can be traced back to the petasus worn by the ancient Romans when on a journey; and hats were also thus used by the earlier Greeks. Not until after the Norman conquest did the use of hats begin in England. A "hatte of biever" was worn by one of the "nobels of the lande, mett at Clarendom" about the middle of the 12th century; and Froissart describes hats that were worn at Edward's court in 1340, when the Garter order was instituted. The use of the scarlet hat which distinguishes cardinals was sanctioned in the 13th century by Pope Innocent IV. The merchant in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales had

"On his head a Flaundrish bever hat";

and from this period onwards frequent mention is made of "felt hattes," "beever hattes," and other like names. Throughout mediaeval times the wearing of a hat was regarded as a mark of rank and distinction. During the reign of Elizabeth the caprices of fashion in hats were many and various.

The Puritans affected a steeple crown and broad brimmed hat, while the Cavaliers adopted a lower crown and a broader brim ornamented with feathers. In the time of Charles II. still greater breadth of brim and a profusion of feathers were fashionable features of hats, and the gradual expansion of brim led to the device of looping or tying up that portion. Hence arose various fashionable "cocks" in hats; and ultimately, by the looping up equally of three sides of the low-crowned hat, the cocked hat which prevailed throughout the 18th century was elaborated. The Quaker hat, plain, low in crown, and broad in brim, originated with the sect in the middle of the 17th century. The silk hat is an article of recent introduction. Though it was known in Florence about a century ago, its manufacture was not introduced into France till about 1825, and its development has taken place entirely since that period. In all kinds of hat-making the French excel; in the United Kingdom the felt hat trade is principally centred in the neighbourhood of Manchester; and in the United States the States of New York and New Jersey enjoy the greater part of the industry.

So much for hats.

[The end]
Robert Cortes Holliday's essay: Epilogue: On Wearing A Hat

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