The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1871-03-28 00:00:00

Cl VII IZATION AND CHIGNONS.

Is puzzles us sadly to find • place for the molern
chignon in Darwin's "Theory of Developtuent."
Were we all of us once—or, mot, properly speaking,
were our temote ancestors-1 idel A:cideo,„ y_eave
after many led struggler, passed throug : the stage of
monkeys—end is it come to this? Aro We going for.
ward or going beck? Would not the most tricky
matron amongst the Gorillas, the Chimpaeseeo, the
teimegenteep, blush for her human 'endue if she •
could see the apelike tricks they play ? In the works ,
of Upper Nile traveller' we hive seen pictures of the
most distinguished beauties amongst the native tribe':
end here is the result. With scarcely •n teeeption,
the female ideal of perfection, suiong,t t bre," ssvagt
races Is • tower of marten Lair—we:el, filthy.
and hideous—reared up, with the utmost
on the summit of the heath. This adortaie.nt
infinite pleasure. It seems to attract aduiite,
or at lees% they think so. Now, the 111i:eh
female of the year 1871 le in one respect, more—what
shall we lay ?--seonialous than her savage Aster : she
delights in piling up these hairy honouts on her howl ;
but the hair is not her own. What the Atreus° belle
grouts is at least her private property. The Bluish
beauty goes to market and buys it. lihe putts it away
carefully in a box at night; in the the morning she
claps it on her bead, anti walks about thioughout the
day adorned with what she and all her friend. know
te be an imposture. She is trying to make lursalf the
equal of a Nile-woman ; bat her efforts result in (Alum.
At least, the Nilotic feminine superstruette is Immo-
geueus as His ponderous. Every hair of that inoluAreu.
edifice grows upon the African's untutored map.
There, no rude solution of (sentiently between what
Is her own and what is not her own. Part of the
chignon Is not black and the remainder whitey-brown.
There is no tell.tale broad-parting in front by which
the peeving nevus 'meld reason from the known to the
unknown. Rude and unreasoning as he may be he
mse surely guess that hie sable Juliet could scares', be
hen bald in the front of her head, and yet remain
hirsute behind in so very astoulshiog • way. No: the
European woman is only a hue oopyhit of her darker
sister. Mr. Derwin may say what be likes—owe are
going back; WO are not moving forward. As Cevier
snd Owen amid re-construct • huge animal from the
Inspection of a single bone, so do we boldly take our
stand—would that we oould do 80 in reality upon the
chignon, and ;rookies that Mr. Darwin is Angularly
mistaken. We have reached • point at which we are
falling beak upon the tamtesand wapiti the Negro rue.
let the ladles be well assured that these chignons—
three artificial coestructions ere not nioe—they are the
reverse of nice : we had rather not write the ugly
Ujectives iii oonneetion with ladies' names. If the
Evglish girl only knew how her lover dotes upon the
soft glossy hair which she is in the habit of beushiug
so deftly at nights, with little short fascinating jerks
at the end of each application of the brush, she would
never eonwent to sail under such exceedingly falee
celeurs. Has there ever lived a• poet —save, perhaps,
Media or Dean Swift—who eould have written "Lines
on my Mistress's Chignon I" Imagine a young soldier
going Into battle with the lock of • chignon next his
heed! A woman's heir is dear to us, because it is her
own—because it is a pretty pert of herself. "To toy
with Amaryllis in the shade, or with the tangles of
Niesta's hair r Ala,! iliil Murk's hair would
come off in her lover's hands. It is • wig Think,
again, when • woman it no longer young, but hu
reached an age when she may well be content to
exchange the first fervid admiration of love for the
deep affection which she his so well earned, who would
not rather see her with her own soft air—the dear old
portrait filmed In silver—then find her a mere hybrid
Impostor? Who has not read—who doe, not know b 7
hearte—Cowper's beautiful lines upon his mother,
picture? If Mrs.,Cowper had worn a "front," could
those Immortal verse' over have been written? It
Is as easy to think of "Mary in Heaven," with • fifty•
shilling obignon—or, still worse, "Mary in Hueco"
without a chignon—when you had loved her upon
earth with much hair upon her head, No; times
iwy-bushes are distasteful in tie, highest degree to
men. So far as beauty is concerned —absolute beauty—
let any woman take Gemmel of an artist, mid ask
him if she is improved from the ideal point of view
when she has painted end powdered her face—not
without a alight use of enamel—blackened her eye-
brows and eyelashes, reddenned her lips like the lips
of a Ghoul, and finally clapped • beehive of false hair
upon her,attificial head. Let her paint and eolour and
bumirch her-elf a. she will, she cannot tone down
God's picture of forty years ago into keeping and
harmony. hhe Lae put new patches on the old gar-
ments ; she has put new wine in old bottles—and all
the world knows it. By the time oho lies so dis-
Cored her poor face and head, if she will oily put on
a pair of boots with heels, three or four Molina high,
so as to throw her out of all proportion, and, by way
of drapery, take the covering which should have con-
cealed her nook and shoulders, and draggle the produce
after her upon the ground, to wipe up the dirt and
trip up the men, she may be • modern belle; • pretty
or a graceful woman she most emphatic:idly is not.
Fashion is very well in its way; but to be in the
fashion should be to comply with the laws of Nature
and Art—not to be • hairdresser's block or a minim:ea
dummy.