56 
NATURE 
| Mov. 17, 1881 
Orders for Hats from Messrs. Lincoln and Bennett in 1855, 
1875, 1878, and 1881 
; l l is) é 
Sizes. | 64] 6§|6})6%| 7 74| 73/78) 73/3] 2 
=== a fee Remarks. 
5 | >| [a 
ference [in |°% 2t}\2r§| 22 22§)22})234/233) 5 S 
. fin. la | 
| 
1855 r]/2/4/4 | 4|4]2| x 22 72k te 
” | 2 12 735 5 
ei sh i ; Average shrinkage 
18 2 6/6 2 24/699 ) about 4(‘or4), orrather 
ue z I= 12 682 | more than one size, 
> I 2 2 I | Ys | | + 
1378 - 1| 3 8 : 6/2 |24 631 -6}%¢ which amounts to } 
4 1/3 3 3 le | 126% ( | Circumference of head 
1880 } r4}4)|2 | I | 12 643 Pera eaiS by nearly 
| | an inch. 
| | | ( These are all livery hats 
1 Zi6)3).6|5)=2rz 24 623 jand are exciuded from the 
| averages. 
lots of roo each sold by him in 1880 averaged respec'ively 6°89 
and 6'92, or a mean of 6905. Thus the shrinkage since 1862 
appears to be about o'r of the technical scale usually employed 
by the trade, of which 0'125 (4) represent a difference of one size, 
but a difference in the circumference of the head of &ths (=0°375) 
of aninch. Therefore the above o'1 deduced by Dr. Beddoe from 
Mr. Garlick’s figures represents a shrinkage in circumference of 
over 4 of an inch, which agrees pretty closely with my previous re- 
sult of ‘‘ nearly 4aninch” from Mr, Castle’s data. (3) While in 
Scotland during the summer of 1880, Dr. Beddoe learned from the 
principal hatter in Glasgow that his experience fully corroborated 
what has been stated, so that the diminution appears not to be 
confined to the southern portion of the kingdom. (4) Mr. 
Mordey, hat manufacturer, of 159, Blackfriars Road, London, 
wrote me on February 22 as follows :—-‘‘In answer to your 
inquiry I beg to say that my experience tells me that men’s heads 
have decreased in size during the last twenty years. Twenty 
years ago the circumference of men’s heads ran from 21} to 233 
inches. At the present time the size is from 21 to 223—mostly 
21 to 223. This decrease is so general that we do not make big 
sized hats for stock, but only as ordered, and very few then.” 
(5) Another hat manufacturer writes :—‘‘ Fifteen years ago the 
usual sizes of hats in England were from 6} to 73, and even 74 
was not uncommon, but now if a 72 hat were wanted we 
should have to make a block purposely.” This may be sufficient 
evidence to show the probable accuracy of those who assert the 
fact of shrinkage in the size of hats, and it only remains to add 
a few words as to the possible cause. To the somewhat obvious 
suggestion that the practice of wearing the hair more closely 
cropp d might account for the difference, Mr. Castle, a; a prac- 
tical hatter, replies that the effect of this would be scarcely per- 
ceptible, and further urges that the less the head is protected by 
a cu-hion of hair, the easier must be the fit of the hat, to prevent 
friction and ensure comfort. The same view is taken by the 
manufacturer quoted in paragraph (5), who writes, ‘‘ this solution 
of the matter is inadmissible.” Another suggestion is that the 
mode of wearing hats has changed, and the present style admits 
of a smaller size. On this point Mr. J. C. Withers, hat manu- 
facturer, of 80 and 81, Castle Street, Bristol, who has been in 
the trade upwards of thirty years, writes as follows:—‘‘I am 
well aware that the size has considerably decreased within the 
last twenty to twenty-five years, but I attribute this entirely to 
the manner in which they are now worn, which is far more 
forward on the head than formerly. If I were to wear my hat 
as my grandfather did I should take one quite a size larger. 
When I was first at the trade I well remember that all hats had a 
cloth patch sewn on the under side of the brim at the back for 
the purpose of taking the friction off the coat collar, and thirty- 
five years ago we never made a hat without one.” This explana- 
tion, I confess, sounds plausible ; but though I well remember 
the cloth patch, so far as my memory serves it scarcely seems to 
me that the mode of wearing the hat has sufficiently changed 
within the interval (fifteen to twenty-five years) stated by the 
various authorities quoted to be adopted as offering a solution of 
the problem. In Pudlic Opinion for May 28, 1881, is a letter 
on the subject signed ‘‘F. J.,” which concluzes thus: ‘‘ This 
really does not account for the change, as hatters can testify. 
Twenty-five years haye made little difference in the way of 
wearing hits, and it is during the last twenty-five years that the 
change has taken place.” By Dr. Beddoe’s kind permission I 
am enabled to add a curious list of the sizes of hats worn by 
| in the hair and the position of the hat at the present day. 
several eminent men, which was sent to him by Mr. Garlick, 
who obtained it from a friend in London :— 
Lord Chelmsford ., 63 full. | Earl Russell ... ... 74 
Dean Stanley ... .., 63 Lord Macaulay ... 73 
Lord Beaconsfield ... 7 Mr. Gladstone ... 72 
H.R.H. the Prince of Mr. Thackeray ... 73 
Wales... ... ... 7 full. | Louis Philippe 72 
Charles Dickens ... 74 M. Julient ... .. 
Lord Selborne As yh. Archbishop of York §8 full. 
John Bright ... .... 73 
In conclusion, to quote the remarks on my paper of a writer in 
the Bristol Daily Press, ‘‘In future the familiar “expression, 
borrowed from Milton, of an opponent ‘hiding his diminished 
head,’ will possess a special significance. Fuller alludes, in his 
dissertation on ‘Natural Fools,’ to persons whose heads are 
“sometimes so little that there is no room for wit, and some- 
times so long that there is no wit for so much ro°n,’ so that, 
possibly, a slight diminution in the cranium is not an unmixed 
evil. There is, at any rate, no marked deterioration in the 
mental faculties, so critics may still find themselves in the 
position of the rustics who gazed in wonder at Goldsmith’s 
village parson— 
«© And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew 
How one small head could carry all he knew.’ ” 
If the diminution of heads, as well as of hats, be established, 
does it imply a diminution of the amount of brain, or only of 
the size of the cranium? F, F, Tucketr 
Frenchay, near Bristol], November 12 
I BELIEVE that hatters’ measurements of the head can only be 
accepted as mere records of the change of fashion, and that 
they are of little anthropological value. Thirty years ago close 
cropping of the hair was confined almost entirely to soldiers, 
grooms, and prisoners, and it was popularly considered a badge 
of servitude, or worse ; but now, thanks perhaps to the Volun- 
teer movement, and to the discontinuance of hair-cutting as a 
punishment in prisons, the military style of wearing the hair is 
almost universal among young men; hence smaller hats are 
required now than formerly. I find that long and short hair 
make a difference in the circumference of some heads of nearly 
half an inch. Again, our nightcap-wearing fathers and grand- 
fathers were very much concerned about the temperature of 
their heads and ears, and they were accustomed to press their 
hats well down to keep them warm. Now they are worn 
much higher on the head, asa glance into any old print-shop 
window will ow. Travelling-caps, and caps worn by boys, 
were forme:!y provided with lappets to cover the ears, but 
these peculiarities have long since disappeared, and caps of 
an undress military character, or felt hats, stuck on the fof of 
the head, have taken their place. Mr. Hyde Clarke, in his 
letter in your last week’s issue (p. 32), says that he has observed 
that the ears are lower down now than formerly, and he thinks 
this a proof of degeneracy of race; but the ears only appear 
lower because the hats are higher on the heads, and in any case 
it could be no proof of degeneracy, because the lower the ear 
the bigger the brain. But the chief reason for the falling off in 
the dimensions of hats in the present day is the accession to the 
hat-wearing community of a very large number of small-headed 
persons, such as clerks and shopmen, who formerly did not wear 
hats at all; and, on the other hand, the defection of a large- 
headed class, the clergy, who have given up tall hats and taken 
to the use of soft felt ones. The only way hatters’ measure- 
ments could be made available for anthropological purposes would 
be to examine the statistics of one class, say the professional, who 
have always worn hats, and then allow for the change of fashion 
If 
it is really the case that the heads of the present genera‘ion 
are smaller than those of the last, we must look for the cause, 
not in tight-l-cing, but in the diminished size or the de- 
formity of the female pelvis, for it is this which is the 
gauge of the heads of the people. Male isfants are longer, 
| heavier, and have longer heads than females, and at the time 
| of birth a greater destruction of males takes place in conse- 
quence. In Europe the proportioa of infants born alive is 
105 males to 100 females ; but if we include the stillbirths, the 
proportion of the sexes is 150 males to 100 females, showing 
| that there is a sad loss of some of the finest physical and 
| probably mental products of our race by the mere mechanica] 
1 A most remarkable head, 7] X 73. 
