The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1850-08-27

ms eyes would nave sustained the anathema
had he worn no protecting cover for them But
beard, be il ever so dense, appears TO afford
no such protection to the physiognomy of the
Eearer; at least it cannot shield it from the pene-
| tratng chances and denunciations of the fair. Is
| this magnanimousa Is it merciful? Is it lust?
Let the answer be given in candor and after proper
| inquiry and reflection
"The prejudice against the beard /" saws a writer
in the Democratic Rsuie,r, "gven by nature as the
| peculiar ornament and one of the Chief outward
visible distinctive signs of the male human is one
| OF the most unreasonable and unaccountable we
ever heard of, and as matter of course is violent
| and virulent in direct proportion to its want of
foundation. What is most strange in il is that the
prejudice is strongestor rather has been for il is
very fast disappearing against the moustache the
| first sign of manhood which appears. The chief
| reasons assigned for this dislike are that nous
taches are a foreign appendage, and that beard
| has barbarous appearance Absurd reasons and
as untrue as absurd. We take the style of our
| dress, our equpages, our furniture, our arnuse
| ments and even our etiquette OF society from the
French; and our coats bonnets, carriages and sofas
might be equally well attacked as foreign. But if
these hair hating patriots will but look at the por
traits of our Puritan, Huguenot, and Cavalier fore
fathers, they will find their faces well provided
with the manly beard and in those who are shaved at
all, they will find that the mousache is left As to
| the barbarism of boards, it has only been among
savages and semi barbarans that the custom of re.
moving the beard has obtained any permanence
They have plucked out, burnt Off or cut away their
| boards from time mmemorial; but the polished
Greeks and Romans, the Italians of Italy's bright
est days in arts, arms, and literature the
| the Cermanu. the Fronch, and our ancestral Eng
| lish, from their rise down to and past their golden
age, have ali worn boards. Shaved faces only made
their appearance with other artificial merericious
| and ridiculous fashions introduced in the corrupt
courts of Louis XIV, the Regency, and Louis XIV
| OF France. As soon as France had purged herself
of her oathsomeness by the horrors of her revolu-
ton, these fashions began TO disappear and boards
| to resume their places. One other objection is
| brought against boards with combination of seri-
| business and fun which makes it seem perfectly
| overwhelming; and joke based upon it is always
sure to set the pit of theatre in commissions of
| laughter; 1t Is that they make man look like
monkey or goat. Unfortunately for this, it is
one of the chief distinctions between the man and
| the monkey, that the man has beard and the
| key has none. The monkey is well provided with
| hair on every part of his body and limbs but Ma
ture, apparently conscious of the fearful similarity
between men and monkeys, has left the latter with
smooth faces yet men of late years ungratefully
remove their distinctive mark, and seem deter
mined to prove the truth O! Lord Monboddo's opin-
ion, that they are but monkeys, with their tails
worn off. As to the poor goat fool he is thought
he has sense enough to leave his face nature
made it, and not to seek to improve upon her. As
to the dandysm of beard, which sacrifices more
! to fashion, he who lets his beard grow as nature
has made it, or he who, merely because other peo-
| pie do the same, daily spends and loses half an
hour Of pain and vexation in soaping and scraping
his face that he may make it unlike any thing ever
created? for the face OF shaved man is neither that
! Of man, woman, or child, as nature made them.
Truly, ladies who wish 10 do so, may worship their
husbands without any violation of thc second com
mandmcnt for they certainly do not bear likeness to
any thing in the heavens above, the earth beneath
or the waters under the earth; saving always a
tailless monkey, if such thing there be. This re-
minds US Of the reply of young bearded man
to a senior, thaved to the eyelde, who asked him.
with some asperity why he wore all that hair on
his face. Il do not put it there, sir, and until one
whom think wiser than lie who did, advises me
to cut it of, shall let it remain The other did
not attempt to answer the argument"
| upper, whose Prorerbidl Philosophy and Crock
| Of Gold have won for his opinions the approval of
the fair, docs not regard the beard as an unneces-
sary uncomely covering for the human face.
We will quote him also:
Shaving" lac says, els a species Of insanity
that has afflicted in all ages and deprived
him Of natures best adornment in every country
under heaven. So contradictorily too as thus: the
Spanish friar SLAVES all but rim round his head
which rim alone sundry North American abort
gines determine TO cxtirpate; John Chnaman nour-
ishcs exclusively long cue, just on that same inch
Of crownland which the p. p. sedulously keeps as
bare his palm; all the orientals shave the head
and cherish the beard; all the occidcntals mmo-
late the beard, and leave the honors Of the head
untouched. Then, again, the strange successive
fashions in this same unnatural unncedful dcpila-
ton; look at the vagaries of young France not to
descend also 10 savage men and their clumsy she'll.
scropings; and 10 devote but little time to the vo.
luminous topic Of wigs, male and female, cavalier
and caxon, Marlborough and monstrous maccaro
ni-from tho plated Absalom looking pcriwg Of
a Pharaoh in the British Museum to Trueftt's last
patent self adjustcr. OF all these folics and their
root razor, might show the manifest absurdi-
ty We might argue upon Eastern stupidity as
caused by thickness of the skull, such thickness
being the substitute for thatchy hair suggested by
kind ill., used Nature the hot brains best protcc.
ton we might upon the average shecpsh-
ness Of this peaceful West, as due to having shorn
the lion Of his name, Phobus Of his glory man of
his majestic beard. Then the martyrdom II is toma-
ny, who stoically day after day. persist in scratch
ing to the quick their irritable chins and after all TO
little better end than the diigent earning Of tooth
aches, carachcs, colds sore throas aud unbccoming
blank faces. Habit, IL is true makes us deem that
comfort, and our better halves (or those we would
fain have SOY think that beauty which our fore.
runners Of old time would have held plague, a
Disgrace, a dcformty, a modification; rrisoned
PauPcrs in the Union think il insuiIerablc hard.
ship 10 go bearded, and King David = ambassadors
would have given their right cycs not to have been
shaved; so much the slaves Of custom.
Sheffield also, il is equally true, is a town that hu
name men would not wish to ruin; by they
OF Sheffield live, and shaving Is their substance
But, as in the Of the smoother and softcr Sex
we arc convinced that the wand Of fashion would
presently convert their hctcrodox antbarbal pre-.
Judiccs so, in the case of hardor-warc Sheffield,
while We hope to live TO see razors regarded as m.
hquarian rartios, (evcn a wachman's rattle, or
the many capped coats Of the semi extinct class
Welleria coscbmancnsis now some time be-
Gomez still we desire all possible multiplication to