Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1881 — THE MODERN HAT-RACK. [ARTICLE]

THE MODERN HAT-RACK.

Diabolical Character o* Tills Heathenish Contrivance. - [From the New York Time*.] No candid man can examine the modem hat-rack without feeling that it is explicable only on the theory of its demoniacal origin. Indeed, the human mind is so constituted that it instinctively refers all the contrivances ostensibly intended for holding hats to the devil, and most of us would confess a belief that the devil makes hat-racks did we not fear the derision of so-called philosophers. Is it reasonable to suppose that any human being seriously designed for a good purpose the combination of braes rods which is to be seen above the tables in certain restaurants ? Ostensibly these rods are intended for temporary storage of hats; but when a man tries to put his hat on a brass-rod rack it instantly falls down again, and brings with it two other hats and a pi’e of newspapers, the former of which upset the caster, while the latter diffuse themselves over the butter and the beefsteak. Nothing but the theory of the active influence of evil spirits can account for this style of hat-rack, and yet it is really inferior in ingenious malignity to the common hat-rack of private houses. This diabolical contrivance is always placed in the dark corner of the hall—a fact which shows that evil spirits are concerned not merely in manufacturing but in placing it. The consequence is that the visitor gropes for it, and, in so doing, infallibly knocks down the overcoats and hats which are already hung upon it. When he is able to perceive it with his eyes, he can find no satisfactory peg. The malicious manufacturer never fails to make the pegs so short that to induce a hat to balance itself upon one of them is a task requiring both time and dexterity. Not content with this, tho manufacturer places the pegs so close together that it is impossible for two adjoining pegs to support each its own hat at the same time. The ordinary visitor learns this truth only by sad experience. He persists in trying to hang his hat on the peg next to that which bears the hat of the head of the house, and it is only after he has knocked the original hat down with his own hat, and then knocked his own hat down by trying to restore the other to its original place, that he perceives the fell purpose of the maker of hat-racks. Only the ingenuity of demons could have combined an umbrella stand with a hat-rack. The object of this unholy combination is obviously to tempt the visitor to deposit his overcoat on the protruding handles of half a dozen umbrellas and canes. The prudent man rarely attempts to hang his overcoat on a peg, for he knows that in so doing he will knock down all the hats. Moreover, it is the practice of the satanic manfacturer to put in the pegs so loosely that the weight of an overcoat when put on any one of them will pull it out. He, therefore, folds his overcoat up and lays it gently on the umbrella handles. In-’ stantly these delusive supports give way. A rattling avalanche of canes and umbrellas strikes on the marble floor, and the betrayed overcoat gathers to itself all the available dirt that has accumulated in the bottom *»f the umbrella stand, while the startled and indignant visitor breaks into language which might well till listening demons with fiendish joy. So notorious has the character of the combined hat-rack and umbrellastand become that wise men never meddle with it. but uniformly place their folded overcoats on the floor in a corner of the hall, and put their hats on their overcoats. Now, if we attempt to account for the hat-rack on any theory which excludes the supernatural, we make a complete. failure. It is in vain for us to ask ourselves why men should make an article of furniture that can accomplish no conceivable end except the exasperation of mankind. The moment we assume that hat-racks are the work of evil spirits they become coherent and intelligible. Is it not, then, a j»ity that the abolition of faith in evil spirits leaves us without any method of accounting for the existence of liat-racks, and compels us to say that we do not know, and cannot conceive, for what purpose they are made ?