The Massachusetts spy, and Worcester County advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1825-1831, 1825-11-16
HISTORY OF WIGS.


The Mynutes carry on their heads a
board fifteen inches square, with which
they cover their hair, and fasten it with
wax, and it being woody country, they
are often entangled by their head dress,
and when they comb their hair, which
IS only once year, they are a full hour
melting the wax.
The inhabitants of Natal, as we are
informed by Duhalde, wear wigs made
of The fat of oxen from six TO ten inches
high, then anoint the head with pure
grease, which, mixing with the hair,
fastens the bonne:s for life.
But though fhe ancieEts used cover
ings of artificial hair, yet they partook
very little a the character of our peri
wig, and the composition that first en-
titled them to that name was hardly
known as early as 1900. Bndaus de-
scribed one in 1884. The first on re.
cord in England, is said to have been
worn by Saxon, Henry the Eighth 5
fool.
The first that were made, were Sc
heavy that they weighed two pounds,
being fastened On kind of cushion, such
as they knit lace on the cawl, by the
introduction Of which, they were much
lightened, being subsequent improve
ment.
The clergy were long before they
adopted them, and the French clergy
used them first. Cardinal Grimaldi for
babe their use TO the priests, without
dispensatlon or necessity. Monsieur
Ihlger wrote treatise on the subject,
who esteems priests head, under a
peruke, monster in the church, nor
can he conceive any thing so scandaicus
as an abbot with horid counfenance.
aud well turned wig; loss of hair being
thought to arise from disease.
The bar assumed. the wig, about
1860, and, as Alexander Stephens, in
his lecture on heads, humorousIy ana
lyzes il, 'There are special pleadings
in the fore top, pleas, rejoinders, repli-
cations, and demurrers in the turn of the
curls, knotty points in the twist of the
tali, the length of a chancery suit in
the depth of a full bottom; and ser.
jeant's black colt, as much as tells us
that the law is sort of blister plaster,
and never to be used but in desperate
cases"
About the close of the seventeenth
century perukes were made TO repre-
sent natural curls of hair, but in such a
stream, that ten heads would not have
furnished an equal quantity, as flowed
down the back and hung over the shout
ders half way down the arms.
Lofts the fourteenth's wig was so e.
normous, that he was said 10 RIB the
heads Of all his subjects TO cover bis
own and such was the use Of hair ID
England for such compositions, that in
ITO, young country girl got sixty
pounds for her head of hair, and the grey
locks OF an old woman, after death, sold
for fifty pounds, as did wigs in common
for forty pounds.
| In 1920 il became fashionable TO lie
one half of it on the left side into a
club; between 1880 aud TAO bag wigs
came into fashion, and such as were
plated into queue, though till 1880 the
long flowing perules maintained their
ascendency. III 1905 the use Of wigs in
general began TO decline, insomuch
that there was petition from the mas
ter peruke makers, of London and West.
minister, to the King, in which they com.
plain Of the influx of French hair dres.
seTs.
Crocodiles (.alligctors) of South Amsrica
10 the time of great floods, the river
Orinoco oyerflows the wharves of The
city of Angostura, and imprudeDt men
become the prey of the crocodiles, even
in the city. An Indian who was fasten.
ing bis canoe in small creek was seiz,
ed by ferocious crocodile that frequent.
ed those places. The animal took
him by the leg, carried him from the
shore into the river, and remained on
the surface of the water. The cries Of
the Indian brought grea: number ol
spectators, who observed the unfortu.
nate man searching the pocket of hi:
pantaloons for knife. Not being able
10 find il, he seized the head Of the croc.
odiIe and thrust his fingers into his eyes
10 the warm regions of America, ever,
body knows that this reptile is extreme,
ly tender in those parts Of the bod,
which are not covered with scales, such
as the eyes, behind the fore legs, (arm.
pits, the nostrils, and under the lower