Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 79, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1914 — STORIES from the BIG CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STORIES from the BIG CITIES

Flying Hat Chased by Maiden and Many Men NEW YORK. —There was a short but exciting chase in Times Square late the other afternoon when the homegoing matinee crowd filled the street. The victim of the prank of the wind was a tall, slender young woman who wore a.

slit skirt and carried a huge muff. Her hat was one of the latest effects in straw. It resembled an inverted soup plate, and was trimmed with a. black lace ruffle and a single feather. She was crossing the street going toward the subway entrance when a.' particularly - spiteful gust of wind' caught the hat, lifted it from her head, and sent it straight up into the air. A young man started to the rescue. He followed the erratic course of the hat with his face turned skyward. So did

the owner of the hat They met in a space between two snow piles in the street and the young woman was almost knocked down. Four more men and an elderly woman took up the rescue work while the youth was apologizing to the maiden. All this time the hat refused to come down. It would go soaring 50 feet up and then drop down, only to be caught again and sent upward. The owner of the hat grew very excited, and started on the chase after the collision, waving her great muff above "her head. More men, all young ones, became interested in the pursuit of the runaway hat. Its course lay in a northerly direction, and the pursuers plodded gallantly through the snow in the street. Half a hundred persons gathered along the curb, and ■several newsboys joined the chase. The hat, after performing spirals and other things In the air, finally came to the ground In a snowbank. Half the pursuers tried to capture it at the same time, but it was a newsboy who got possession of it. His reward was a smile.