of Noah, or some of his sons, the idea to build an umbrella!

Although here in America the umbrella means nothing but an umbrella, it
is quite different in some of the far Eastern countries. In some parts of
Asia and Africa no one but a royal personage is allowed to carry an
umbrella. In Siam it is a mark of rank. The King's umbrella is composed
of one umbrella above another, a series of circles, while that of a
nobleman consists of but one circle. In Burmah it is much the same as in
Siam while the Burmese King has an umbrella-title that is very comical:
"Lord of the twenty-four umbrellas."

The reason why the people of London ridiculed Jonas Hanway was because at
that time it was considered only proper that an umbrella should be
carried by a woman, and for a man to make use of one was very much as if
he had worn a petticoat.

There is in one of the Harleian MSS. a curious picture showing an
Anglo-Saxon gentleman walking out, with his servant behind him carrying
an umbrella; the drawing was probably made not far from five hundred
years ago, when the umbrella was first introduced into England. Whether
this gentleman and his servant created as much merriment as Mr. Hanway
did, I do not know; neither can I tell you why men from that time on did
not continue to use the umbrella. If I were to make a "guess" about it, I
should say that they thought it would not be "proper," for it was
considered an unmanly thing to carry one until a hundred years ago when
the people of this country first began to use them. And it was not until
twenty years later, say in the year 1800, that the "Yankees" began to
make their own umbrellas. But since that time there have been umbrellas
and umbrellas!

[Illustration: LORD OF THE TWENTY-FOUR UMBRELLAS.]

The word umbrella comes from the Latin word _umbra_, which means a
"little shade;" but the name, most probably, was introduced into the
English language from the Italian word _ombrella_. Parasol means "to ward
off the sun," and another very pretty name, not much used by Americans,
for a small parasol, is "parasolette."

It would be impossible for me to tell you how many umbrellas are made
every year in this country. A gentleman connected with a large umbrella
manufactory in the city of Philadelphia gave me, as his estimate,
7,000,000.

This would allow an umbrella to about one person in six, according to the
census computation which places the population of the United States at
40,000,000