The Crime of Hatlessness Hats are at the moment in
the limelight, but not where they should be, on the head. On Monday a General who happened to be presiding over the local bench at Aldershot police-court read a portentous lecture to a woman witness who appeared without a hat and refused to allow her her expenses—a grossly high-handed action which the witness could no doubt challenge if she chose. Justices of the Peace are most valuable servants of the community, but they can be intolerably pompous and small-minded on occasion. There is no basis in law, and none in reason, for the demand that a woman should wear a hat in court any more than a man. Or, it might be added, anywhere else. Why, and whether, she should be covered in church is arguable, but it need not be argued here, for a police-court is not a church. Two local benches have elevated themselves quite unwarrantably into arbiters of convention in this matter in the last ten days or so. Higher Courts show more sense and- more tolerance.
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