It is known as the cap of Liberty. An ancient figure of Liberty
in the times of Antonius Livius, A.D. 115, holds the cap in the right
hand. The Persians wore soft caps; plumed hats were the head-dress of
the Syrian corps of Xerxes; the broad-brim was worn by the Macedonian
kings. Castor means a beaver. The Armenian captive wore a plug hat. The
merchants of the fourteenth century wore a Flanders beaver. Charles
VII., in 1469, wore a felt hat lined with red, and plumed. The English
men and women in 1510 wore close woollen or knitted caps; two centuries
ago hats were worn in the house. Pepys, in his diary, wrote: "September,
1664, got a severe cold because he took off his hat at dinner;" and
again, in January, 1665, he got another cold by sitting too long with
his head bare, to allow his wife's maid to comb his hair and wash his
ears; and Lord Clarendon, in his essay, speaking of the decay of respect
due the aged, says "that in his younger days he never kept his hat on
before those older than himself, except at dinner." In the thirteenth
century Pope Innocent IV. allowed the cardinals the use of the scarlet
cloth hat. The hats now in use are the cloth hat, leather hat, paper
hat, silk hat, opera hat, spring-brim hat, and straw hat.

* * * * *

=Sponges.=--The coarse, soft, flat sponges, with large pores and great
orifices in them, come from the Bahamas and Florida. The finer kinds,
suitable for toilet use, are found in the Levant; the best on the coast
of Northern Syria, near Tripoli, and secondary qualities among the Greek
isles. These are either globular or of a cup-like form, with fine pores,
and are not easily torn. They are got by divers plunging from a boat,
many fathoms down, with a heavy stone tied to a rope for sinking the
man, who snatches the sponges, puts them into a net fastened to his
waist, and is then hauled up. Some of the Greeks, instead of diving,
throw short harpoons attached to a cord, having first spied their prey
at the bottom through a tin tube with a glass bottom immersed below the
surface waves.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

A YOUNG CENTENARIAN.

LADY (_with an eye for the picturesque_). "How old are you, little boy?"

LITTLE DARKY. "Well, if you goes by wot mudder says, I's six; but if you
goes by de fun I's had, I's most a hunderd."

A NEW SERIAL

BY GEORGE MACDONALD.

A brilliant serial story by GEORGE MACDONALD, with