Straw Hats Sirs:
This storyunder Miscellanywill, I believe, prove of interest to your readers.
FRANCIS W. CLINTON
New York City
The story, no Miscellany, is as follows:
''The custom of discarding straw hats on September 15 is not a new one. It originated forty years ago.
"In those days horses were outfitted with straw hats to protect them from the sun. In the Brooklyn firehouses on September 15, the fire gong would ring and, with great formality, the horses' straw hats would be destroyed.
"The hatters of that time took up the notion, erected gongs outside their stores, and established the fifteenth as the date when no...
