Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 153, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1912 — U. S. IS MINUS CUP [ARTICLE]

U. S. IS MINUS CUP

England Only European Nation Without Headgear. Headdress Worn by Breton Women— Every Town in Brittany Has Its Special Variety Pretty Dutch Designs. - London. —There is no such thing as a national headdress in America. Even the millions of immigrants and descendants of immigrants froip countries possessing a characteristic headgear promptly discard any such distinguishing mark during their first week in the new world. Perhaps the fact that the English dominated our early history may account for our lack of peculiar headgear, for England is the only country in Europe which has not a distinctive national headdress.

z lnScotland there survive the Tam o’ Shanter and the Glengarry, the last by the way, an importation from Sweden, where it still flourishes. In Ireland the colleen is not complete without her head shawl or handkerchief and in Wales the maiden clings to her frilled cap and conical beaver. In England a few old fashioned-folk troddle about fragrant out of the way gardens sun bonneted and smocked, but they have no pride in the attire. Their idea of dignity in dress is represented by bonnets rigid with bugles and jet and the stiffest and most rasping of broadcloth suits. When the English laborer spends his money “on his back," says the Queen, he makes a conscientious effort to “ape the gentry.”

The cult of the cap is generally strongest where the cult of dress is weakest. In Brittany, where the sequined and embroidered gala dresses are heirlooms, a woman of the lower middle class seldom buys a whole new dress, and, indeed, wears the same heavy black gown all the year through. The scanty living that can be wrung from Breton soil does not favor the purchase of anything more costly than patching materials. But every Breton town has "its special variety of cap. ( And caps form no small item in the housewife’s expenditure. A waitress in,a hotel at Pont Aven declared that her caps cost 20 francs apiece. The Pont Aven cap is fortunately substantial, being round and generally reminiscent of a coarsely iced wedding cake. It is redeemed from hideousness by two horns which curve gracefully over the main erection and end in streamers down the back. Something akin to it is seen at far famed Pont I’Abee, where Breton dress is at Its brightest. The Pont I'Abee cap is, however, more delicate in texture, being finely

embroidered and devoid of horns. It ties quite coquettishly under the chin and Is finished by a rosette of satin ribbon under the left ear. At the great sardine fishing port, Concarneau, as also at ancient Qulmper, the usual headgear is a plain starched bonnet, which on fete days is laid by for a similarly shaped cap of prettily embroidered net.

In other places Is worn an atrocity of the starchiest cambric with a wide flapping brim extending two-thirds of the way round the crown. Toward the front, however, the brim stops abruptly, leaving the unfortunate wearer’s face to the mercy of the sun. It is, by the way, extraordinary that the Bretonne does not more often fall a victim to sunstroke.