Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1895 — Artist Melchers’ Wooden Shoes. [ARTICLE]

Artist Melchers’ Wooden Shoes.

An American lady traveling in Holland writes that Melchers, the Detroit artist who won the l’aris exposition prize In 1889 and has since enjoyed extraordinary vogue on the continent, is quite unspoiled by the honors heaped upon him. Though he has dined with the German Emperor he still wears a peasant blouse and wooden shoes, on the plea that he is too poor for anything better. When he went to dine with the wife of the Burgomaster of a Holland town he appeared in this costume, and soaked to the skin by a hard rain. He apologized, not for the clothes, but for the fact that they were wet, and maintained that it was the only suit he had. His hostess thereupon provided him with a dry suit of her husband’s.

The early Saxons seldom wore hats and still more seldom caps. Their sole head covering was the long flaxen hair which they cultivated with sedulous care.