Show TilE THE MASCULINE HAT THOUGH VERY COMMONPLACE IT HAS A HISTORY taco Laco anti and Jewels IVoa on the Slats Hats of Dudes Centuries Ago Ago Adam Adam Must Mast Slave Havo Started the Fashion ns as Men SIan Yore Stats Hats In tho Earliest Ages When the tho bill for madams madam's best bonnet comes homo home the man of the family generally makes some wise re remarks remarks re- re marks about his ability to dock deck himself himself him him- self out with witha a stylish hat at little cost and as a rule ho he enters into a along along long dissertation upon the joys of masculine wearing apparel as compared compared com com- pared with the tho fal a fashionable woman i squires in order to keep up with tile procession After all though how little ho knows ol or thereal the tho real history of the tho headgear ho he sees fit to praise so highly Though there is no mention in history history his his- tory of any models of millinery such as adorn the tho feminine head of today today to to- day it is recorded in the tho earliest ages that man wore some sort of covering coy cov ering upon his head head- head nd it is doubtful doubt doubt- ful if a single generation of men evoi lived that did not wear a certain form of hat In early Asiatic times though no particular and separate article was used distinctively for th tho head there was the tho hood a portion of the tho outer cloak that could bo ho drawn up at will to protect from the tho cold and rain From Rome Home wo we all know comes the tho model of the liberty cap that Isas is isas as familiar to most of us as tho everlasting over ever lasting derby This cap was given to those slaves who were allotted their freedom while another style went to the tho graduates and the tho fool scap s scap cap to the poor miscreant who lagged behind in the race for educational honors On Grecian coins ono one can see the tho a stylo of hat that resembles resembles bles greatly the beaver hat of of modem modern mod mod- em ern times It is shaped cone and was evidently made ot of felt or some somo other soft and pliable material for many historians declare that the tho making of felt was not discovered until bt St Clement the tho fourth bishop of Rome anti and of hatters In his strolls as a found that the tho tow that he ho put putT putT- his uis sandals was compacted into a solid substance from the tho moisture and pressure of his feet This hint led to the production of felt though a substance resembling it in evory evory particular is described by Pliny The of the Greeks had a wide brim and was something like the Jho sombrero in its picturesque droop or dashing in itt the wide circles of felt that constituted tho rho Chaucer speaks of the tho hat in these lines linos And fro the tho bench he drove away the cat And laid his und and his hat hat hatIn In many of the tho English museums ire c shown pictures and manuscripts that hat prove that hats were worn by bynon non men m England as far back as tho thu eleventh century The early Britons wore skull caps and also hooded capes apes In tho fourteenth century men wore a curious arrangement with floating ends that was neither pie pic- nor convenient In the tho next lext century the tho soft round hat came camo into nto vogue though at the tho same time timo still narrow crowned forms with a single ingle drooping feather were popular In the tho reign of King Henry the tho Eighth and also in that of Elizabeth ho the masculine headwear was most picturesque the tho various degrees of ornamentation marking the tho then ion and standing of the tho wearer writes Edith Townsend Townsond Everett Inthe in he the Philadelphia Times rime Satin vel- vel velvet vet rot lace and pearls were all worn by noblemen while the button cap indi- indi atod the countryman The Tho beaver was as at first worn only by those of light high degree and to this day is kept largely for occasions of ceremony The plain Puritan hat sans ornament md and the dashing cocked hat led up to he the present era when the tho high silk ungainly tile tilo and the tho stiff premising derby are the tho two distinctive ive tive styles in Whether ho tho next fifty years will load lead to anything any any- thing hing moro more picturesque it is hard to toay say ay but of ono one thing wo we may bo be corain cor- cor tam ain that if fashion demands fuss and leathers for masculine wearing the tho millinery bills of husband and father will rill be as largo large if not larger than these hoso of the tho feminine element in the tho home for vain ol el ome men are aro as their as women and it is cus- cus omand not economical keeps cops them in chock check |