Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 July 1885 — With Uncovered Heads. [ARTICLE]

With Uncovered Heads.

The most wonderful transformation acene I ever saw in the matter of hats •was on Fleet street, London, after President Garfield’s death. It became known that the Queen had ordered the great bell of St. Paul’s to be tolled, an honor never before accorded except to the memory of an English sovereign. Fleet street and Floodgate Hill were one mass of hats—tall, black, glistening hats. All traffic was suspended. The old phrase, “a sea of hats, ” was most apt to this scene, and this was literally the Black Sea. Probably no one in the thousands there had ever heard the mournful sound of that great bell. The immense crowd waited patiently for hours. Then came the first low, dull, sonorous stroke of the long-silent bell. Instantly every hat was removed, and the change from a sea of hats to a sea of heads was most magical. • The English crowd stood, while that bell tolled, with uncovered heads, a token of respect for the uncrowned monarch who lay dead beyond the ocean.—De- ■ troit Free Press.