“SORRY, SIR.  I’VE JUST CLEANED THE IRONS.”]

* * * * *

THE ROOFS OF THE MIGHTY.

At the meeting held recently in the hall of the Worshipful Company of Hatters in Tile Street, the Chair was taken jointly (as in the old monarchical days at Brentford) by the Bishop of LINCOLN and Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT, and among the company were the SPEAKER, Lord RIBBLESDALE, Sir SQUIRE BANCROFT, Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL and Mr. EUGENE CORRI.

The two Chairmen, speaking almost in unison, stated that the meeting had been convened in order that the views of the enlightened might be gathered regarding the proposed revival of the tall hat or topper.  A recrudescence of this form of covering for the hair (or otherwise) was threatened under the name of the Victory Derby, and a paragraph in The Times announced that “so remarkable has been the revival in the silk-hat trade that old men who had gone into retirement in the Denton and Stockport districts are being asked to come back and give what productive energy they possess.”  What the meeting desired to ascertain was the views as to this revival that were held by those empowered to offer opinions.

Lord RIBBLESDALE said that there was no doubt that a tall hat was the most becoming headgear for a gentleman.  But a certain regard for idiosyncracies was important.  No gentleman should take without scrutiny what the hatter offered.  Hats were individual things, and as the character changed and developed so should the hat.  The hat that suited one at forty might be a sad anachronism at fifty.  He himself had endeavoured not only to make his life correspond to his hats, but his hats correspond to his life. (Loud applause.) As the Master of the Buck-hounds he wore, as any visitor to the National Gallery at the present moment might see, at the head of the staircase on the left, a tall hat that was slightly lower than that which he wore to-day, now that he had relinquished that responsible and romantic post.  He urged his hearers to encourage the silk hat revival.

Sir SQUIRE BANCROFT concurred with the illustrious nobleman who had just spoken.  The choice of a hat should be the subject of the most earnest thought, even of prayer. (Cheers.) Not only the shape but the colour.  There were hats that were black and hats that were white. (Shouts of “Hurrah!”) There were even white hats with black trimming. (Sensation.) The older he grew the more convinced he was that an Englishman’s hat was his castle.

Miss DAISY ASHFORD, author of The Young Visiters, said that she was all in favour of the top hat.  No one who had read her famous novel could doubt that.  In the society of Mr. Salteena and his friends to wear a tall hat was always the idear.

Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL said that none of the speakers had mentioned the most essential desideratum of a hat, and that was that it should be too small.  Whether it began by being too small, or became in time too small, depended upon the wearer; but there was something smug and cowardly about a hat that fitted.  It suggested failure.