Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 March 1877 — The Hat in Church. [ARTICLE]

The Hat in Church.

Of all the various expedients by which ingenious church-goes have endeavored to sately dispose of their hats, there isnot one that has not been proved to be fallacious. To hold one’s hat continually in one's lap is practicable only in a Quaker meeting-house, where the worshipers remain seated during the entire service, and never use any devotional implements, such as prayer-books and hymn-books. No man could successfully balance a hat in one hand and find the epistle for the twenty-second Sunday after Trinity with the other hand; while to stand up in order to repeat the creed or to sing a hymn, with a hat under the left arm, would be the height of absurdity. The hat, then, must be laid entirely aside during divine service, and our churches, being constructed with exclusive reference to souls instead of hats, afford ao resting-places for the latter. The extreme danger of placing a hat in the aisle immediately outside the pew is universally known. The first lady that sweeps up the aisle carries with her a confused mass of defenseless hats, which are deposited in the shape of a terminal moraine in front of the pew which is her final goal. Of course the hats which have been subjected to this process are reduced by attrition to a rounded form and are covered with scratches, reminding one of the marks of glacial action on granite boulders. However interesting they may be to the geologist, they are of no further value as hats, and can rarely be bent into a shape that will allow their owners to wear them home. Next to the aisle the pew seat is the most dangerous position in which a hat can be placed. Statistics show that out of every one hundred hats thus situated sixty are sat upon by their owners, thirty-five are sat upon by other people, and only five escape uninjured. It is a curious fact that more men sit down upon their hats after repeating the creed than after reading the Psalms or performing any other perpendicular part of the service. And another curious fact is the attraction which a hat thus exposed upon a seat exerts upon a fat person. Neither of these facts has ever been satisfactorily explained, although they are matters of general notoriety. A man may enter a remote pew in a strange church and place his hat on a seat in a position where it is impossible for a fat man to perceive it .on entering the church. Nevertheless, experience has shown that ia six cases outj»f ten the Sexton will show a fat inatr'lSto that precise pew within ten minute? after the hat is in position, while Ather and further fat men will, from time to time, hover about the locality, with the evident desire of ascertaining if the hat is still susceptible of further smashing. T here is clearly a law of nature at work here which needs to be definitely formulated, and it is discreditable to science that this has not yet been done. As to putting one’s hat on the floor underneath the seat, no one who follows this reckless course can expect anything but disaster. If there is a small boy in the pew he will infallibly discover the hat, and kick it to the further end of the pew within the first thirty minutes of the service. If there is a lady in the pew, a surgical operation will be required to remove her boot from the interior of the hat; while, in any event, the hat is certain to absorb eveiy particle of dust within a radius of eight feet, and to fasten itself to the floor with the aid of forgotten Sunday-School gum-drops. Neither under the seat, on the seat nor in the aisle can the worried hat find rest, and the plan of establishing a hat-pound in the vestibule, where hats could be ticketed and kept during the service, would simply result in converting a church into a hat exchange, where the sinners would secure a# the good hats, and the salute Would be

compelled to eoatent themselves with worn-out and woithlam ones.— Boeton Trunecript.