Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 89, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 July 1904 — MAN MILLINER IS MERRY. [ARTICLE]

MAN MILLINER IS MERRY.

Keeps Hie Patrons Laughing: and Makes Money by the Device. l%ere is a male milliner in West Forty-fifth street who holds a fashionable patronage because of bis unusual methods, not the least among which Is a trick be has of displaying upon his own bald pate all the bonnets and other headgear he makes for his fair customers. He is short and fat nnd decidedly plain of feature, and the effect of a woman’s bonnet upon him is grotesque in the extreme, but lie never fails to subject himself to the laughter of his customers, believing that It pays. The milliner’s theory is that the art of his creations can be fully appreciated only when they are shown under the most unfavorable circumstances. “A pretty woman,” he tells his customers, “will lend a charm to any hat, and if she is very pretty you will look nt her rather than at what she has on her head. But let me show you the effect of this bonnet upon hie. Now you see It upon me, and if in spite of that fact you can see that it is beautiful it is beautiful indeed.” The fact that the milliner invariably wears a black silk.apron, across the front of which is a row of little pockets containing spools of various colored thread, nnd his waistcoat is usually a mass of pins nnd needles, adds to the ridiculous appearance he presents with, say, a picture hat resting upon his fringe of gray hair; but be bobs blithely around, exclaiming: “Look at that side effect Isn’t that exquisite?” and “Now I am going to turn around so that you can get a back view. How do you like that?” A woman who recently purchased a bonnet from this enterprising milliner says that his method of displaying the art of his creations is certainly heroic, for when she first saw her bonnet upon him she came near refusing it then and there, so appalling was the effect. She studied it a little while longer, however, and eventually came to the conclusion that there certainly was a great deal in the theory of his strange custom.—New York Press.