File:OLD HEADGEAR. (1910) - illustration - page 129.png

English: Illustration from page 129 of OLD HEADGEAR..

Image reference: "47"

Caption: "OLD HEADGEAR. Quote: "Next to the covering for the feet, the most important article of outdoor wear is the headgear. In the old times a majority of the people went bareheaded; and even now hats are often worn for appearance rather than from necessity. Except in very cold weather, there is little difference in the temperature within doors and without, and one does not feel it necessary to wear a hat in the open air. There are still people who go about bareheaded except in midsummer and midwinter. With European clothes we naturally wear hats, but with Japanese clothes there is no such invariable custom. However, the habit grown with foreign clothes has passed on to the national dress, and now bowlers, wideawakes, chimney pots, Panamas, straw hats, and caps are in their season to be seen everywhere. The hats used in the old days served as sunshades no less than as mere head-coverings. Of these the black-varnished, wooden hat, shaped like a flattened cone, which was worn by the military class, has entirely disappeared. Street-vendors and pedlars still wear in the summer heat large, flattish, round hats of bamboo-sheaths, which are light but very fragile, while mushroom-like hats of spliced bamboo covered with white or black cloth are extensively worn by coolies. A rush-hat deep enough to cover the whole face but with a peep-hole for the eyes, which was formerly worn by samurai out of employment to avoid recognition, is now worn for the same reason by fortune-tellers at the roadside and by prisoners under trial on their way to the law-court. Convicted prisoners, however, wear the mushroom-hat.""