The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1863-10-16
THE TRADE IN HAIR.
Curious Customs tile Peasant No
men Of France Sell their Huir. {.

A writer in an English magazine describes
the trade in hair which is carried on in some
Of the departments of France. He says:
"This singular traffic exists exceptionally
in two or three districts, but in parts of
Western Normandy, and especially in Brit
tany, it is carried on with vigor. In the
NIorbihan, Finisterre, and the Cotes du Nord
it is regularly accepted system, and three
fourths Of the peasant women of those de-
partments apply it resolutely.
s'It is not because their hair is particu-
larly long or fine that the Bretonnes have
taken up this trade; they have no more Of
it than their neighbors. Wet weather and
buckwheat bread, which are two specialities
Of Brittany, cannot be supposed to contrib
ute to the production of halr any more than
the hydromel on which the fathers get drunk
affects the hirsute properties Of their progen-
iture. Indeed, the male Bretons are not
very large bearded race; it cannot be said
of them, as it is of some of the huge-whis-
kered Alsatians, that their faces look like
four penny piece in gooseberry bush. 1T
is not from their geographical position, or be-
cause their names end in &c, that the women
of Brittany have become the purveyors Of
the raw material of wigs, but solely because
they have adopted the thing as habit, and
that they are, with few exceptions, the only
! female inhabitants of France who will con-
sent to the sacrifice Of their locks. The
sacrifice is, however, less real with them
than it would be anywhere else, in conse-
quence of the shape of their caps, which
entirely hide their head, and would show
no hair if it existed.
'But while all the Breton caps possess
this distinctive popularity, they assume in
detail a thousand forms; nearly every village
has its special variation, which, though too
delicate to strike strangers unpractised
eye, is still sufficient to enable the natives
to. distinguish the locality it halls from. 1t
may be that the shorn females console them
selves for the privation of their legitimate
head covering by this prodigious diversity
of starched coiffures.
''The trade in hair is carried on by the
country hawkers, who go about from cottage
to cottage inquirlng for crowns TO shave
But the Bretonnes are suspicious, and gen
orally prefer to take their merchandise to the
towns. Those who have hairy goods to sell
come into the markets and station themselves
in corner which is especially reserved for
the class of transactions they have in view,
just as other particular spots are respective
ly appropriated to dealings in butter, hay
and bullocks. Some chairs from the neigh
boring wineshop are placed there, and on
them sit the candidates for shearing, waiting
for buyer. Some of the more important
hawkers are polite enough to provide then
lady customers with a tarpaulin shed, but
this attention is very rare.
"When the traficking parties get face to
face they haggle for hours over the price to
be paid for the offered crop. The woman
takes off her abundant cap and the tight
coiffe of white calico which is bound round
her head, untles her knot, lets fall her hair,
and then expatiates, always in a tone of in
dignant reproach, on the merits of the hair
which nature has given her. The hawker
of course depreciatcs its qualities. You
call that hair he says; why, it isn't longer
than ducks feathers; it is almost as fine
as barley straw, and it grows as thick as ap-
pie trees in an orchard. would be ruined
if I were to buy such stuff The woman
shrieks back: Now yon know that my hair
is much better than that of Yolande Kero-
kckodcc, which you bought on st. Johns
day two years ago, and for which you paid
two cotton handkerchiefs, ten yards black
binding, and packet of pins, and l won't
take less The hawker finally consents to
ruin himself, but he refuses to accept the
precedent of Madame Kerokekodec, who, as
he well remembers, had hair as long as the
cord of well, as soft as curdlcd cream, and
as shiny as the Projects boots. '
''Until very lately the payment was never
made in money; it was solely composed of
articles from the hawker's pack; but the hair
sellers are now beginning to insist on cash,
and the hawkers mournfully say that the
trade is going to the dogs, because they can
now only make one profit instead of two.
The price of an ordinary shock of hair is
from eighteen pence to two shilings; if it
be first transaction, the crop luxuriant and
virgin of the scissors, it may get up to the
fantastic sum of four shillings, but that is
an ideal rate Of which the neighboring coun-
try would talk with bitter envy for subse-
quent months. l,a
GAS soon as the treaty is concluded it is
executed. The buyer brings out a forlnida-
BILE pair of shears, gathers up his victims
falling locks, and prepares TO give first slice
a quarter of an inch from her crown. But
the patient won't have that at all; she bounds
from her chair in boiling indignation, and
insists that at least an inch shall be left all
over .lai' af nsae d afs rs g /