53 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



SERVILITY IN DRESS. 



By HERBERT MAXWELL. 



THE further we travel from the origin of our species the less 

 concern does male humanity show to enhance what share of 

 beauty it may lay claim to, or to screen the ugliness it is gener- 

 ally heir to, by grace of garments. Among civilized and well-to- 

 do men, gala costume has no keynote now but respectability — 

 at weddings as at funerals, at garden parties as in Parliament, 

 costume is attuned to harmonize with the hurtful cylinder of 

 sable which the supineness of our great-grandfathers allowed the 

 hatters to impose on them as a headdress, and a hundred hope- 

 less years have but served to bind more tightly on our aching 

 brows. If the chimney-pot hat were comfortable wear — were it 

 sunproof or rainproof, or easily carried when not in use — our 

 allegiance to it might be monotonous, but at least it would be 

 intelligible. But, in plain sooth, it is intolerable in sunshine ; it 

 is so sensitive of rain-drops that an umbrella must be carried for 

 its special shelter ; and when we travel, it is as difficult to dispose 

 of as a murdered corpse. It can not be concealed ; the accursed 

 thing will fit in with no other portion of our raiment, and must 

 be provided with a special case of grotesque and impracticable 

 shape. In wear or out of wear, we can not forget its existence 

 nor neglect to make provision for its protection. Cephalalgic 

 humanity has tried every means to be quit of it, but in vain. 

 The creature has not even a serious name, for no one, except the 

 fiend who frames it, knows it as a silk hat ; schoolboys, with the 

 contempt born of familiarity, call it a " buster " or a " topper " ; 

 soldiers, scornfully, a " stovepipe " ; civilians, realistically, a 

 "chimney-pot." In vain has bountiful Nature provided straw, 

 and human ingenuity fashioned felt : two more perfect sub- 

 stances for head-covering could not have been devised ; but, per- 

 versely, littering our horses with the one, and roofing our barns 

 with the other, we thrust our thinking organs into unyielding 

 towers of pasteboard. In a simpler age we should have made a 

 god of It — prayed to It, sung to It, bowed to It, propitiated It ; 

 but, having adopted monotheism, we are outwardly consistent, 

 and are content to insist on taking it to church with us. The 

 first inhabitant of Mars who visits the earth, and publishes a 

 volume of travels on his return, will probably describe how, in 

 western Europe, the possession of a chimney-pot hat is held to 

 be essential to salvation. 



And now let us dismiss the Hat from consideration (would 

 that it could be as easily dismissed from wear !) with a passing 

 speculation as to the tenacity with which, in its present form, 



