Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 November 1879 — OBITUARY. [ARTICLE]

OBITUARY.

OEN. JO HOOKER. Gen. Hooker was born at Hadley, Mass., in 1815, and died at Gardon City, L. 1., Oct. 31, 1870 He graduated at West Point in 1837, served in the Florida war, and in tho war with Mexico. Ho resigned his commission in the army in 1853. Ho re-entered the military service at the beginning of the late civil war, and took an activo part in McClellan’s peninsular campaign. Ho commanded a irrand divisibu under Burnside at. tlio battle of Fredericksburg. He succeeded to tho command of the Army of the Potomac. Jan. 26, 1863, aud fought tho battle of Chancellorsville. He resigned shortly after, and was succeeded by Gon. Meade. Ho was transferred to tho West, where lie distinguished himself iu tho series of battles fought around Chattanooga iri November, 1863, hi.s«best-Uuown and most highly apprec aied exploit being the storming of Lookout mountain.

History of Hats. • How few of us ever trace the history of the hat. The felt hat is as old as Homer. Tho Greeks made them in skull-caps, conical, truncated, narrow or broad-brimmed. The Phrygian bonnet has an elevated cap without a brim, the apex turned over in front. It is known as the cap of Liberty. An ancient figure of Liberty in the times of Anthonius Livy, A. D. 115, holds the cap in the right hand. The Persians wore soft hats; plumed hats were the head-dress of the Syrian caps of Xerxes; the broad-brim was worn by the Macedonian Kings. Castor means a beaver. The Armenian captive wore a plug hat. The merchants of the seventeenth century wore a Flanders beaver. Charles VII., in 1469, wore a felt hat lined with red and plumed. The English men and women in 1510 wore close woolen or knitted caps; two centuries ago hats were worn in the house. Pepys, in his diary, in 1664 wrote, “September, 1664, got a severe cold because he took off his hat at dimier;” and again, in January. 1665, he got another cold by sitting' too long with his bare head, to allow his wife’s maid to comb his hair and wash his ears. And Lord Clarendon, in his essay, speaking of the decay of respect due tho aged, says, “that in his younger days he never kept his hat on before those older than himself except at dinner.” In the thirteenth century Pope Innocent IV. allowed the Cardinals the use of the scarlet cloth hat. The hats now in use are the cloth hat, leather hat, silk hat, opera hat, spring-brim hat and straw hat.

The Yery Old Lady of Skye. There is a remarkable old lady in Skye. Widow Macpherson entered upon her 106th year last Christmas. She was born there in the same year that Dr. Samuel Johnson and Boswell visited Syke, and met with Flora Macdonald, the Jacobite heroine, who befriended Prince Charlie after his disastrous defeat at Calloden, in 1746, when the Government reward of £30,000 offered for his surrender did not induce her to betray her trust and. yield up this sole survivor of a fallen dynasty. During this 105 years of Widow Macpherson’s life she was living in a turf hut, the smoke from the peat fire on the hearth finding its way out by every crevice, and giving a luster, as if varnished, to the rafters which support the thatched roof. She has survived six Lords of the Isle, the present being the seventh, Lord Macdonald. She has never been out of the island, and does not understand one word of English, but converses freely in Gaelic. She has been blind ten years, but her hearing and memory are both good, and she is nursed by her daughter Kitty, who is unwearied in her attendance upon her old mother.

A Velocipede Race of 106 Miles. A velocipede race was run recently round the lake of Geneva, Switzerland. The distance, 106 miles, was done by the winner in ten hours and forty-one minutes, which, considering the hilly character of a gieat part of the road, and that a strong north wind was blowing at the time, is regarded as a very creditable achievement. As the entrance fee to Masonic lodges in Turkey is so high that only the richest can join the order, the Turkish officers in Connecticut have unitod with a lodge m the land of steady habits.