Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 283, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1917 — TOP HAT SURE TO REMAIN [ARTICLE]

TOP HAT SURE TO REMAIN

Britain’s Badge of Respectability Will Hold Its Place, But Doctors Have Discarded Such Headgear. There have been many serious attempts made to abolish the top-hat. Some of us are old enough to remember one such attempt which was headed by King Edward when still prince of Wales. (It is surprising that there has not been a movement to rechrlsten ft.) The result was a dismal failure.

The truth is that the top-hat constitutes a sort of uniform for state occasions, and, on such occasions the well-to-do will continue to wear it, observes the Medical Press. As the main ambition of the ordinary Englishman is to appear well-to-do and respectable,- the top-hat will persist. To grumble at it is\ characteristically British ; there is no obligation of any sort to wear It if he does noUwish to. The days when a doctor was expect: ed to wear one, merely because he was a doctor/are long since past. People

■were already beginning to realize that a man could be quite clever and helpful in a straw hat or a when the bicycle and the open motorcar came to give the coup de grace to the ■already moribund “topper.” The silk hat has been relegated to its proper place —a place from which it is very unlikely to be dislodged. An automobile alarm invented by a Frenchman consists of a pair of bells that are rung tiy a propeller whirled by the air through which it passes.