Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1869-12-17
Nyandot Count Republican,
Concerning ChignOns.

The monstrosities which the fell
fend of Fashion inficts upon the
feminine world, and the follies to
which that deity inspires it's vota-
ries, have been the theme Of satire
and ridicule from the earliest ages.
A recognition of "style," a desire
to follow "the mode" in dress, ap-
pears to be an inborn characteristic
of the fairer sex. Even the coal
black ladies whom explorers meet
in the interior wildernesses of Africa
have fashions of dress of their own
which almost compete in ridiculous
ness with the latest Partisan modes.
It is our firm belief that feminine
fashions came in with the fg-leaf,
and that the grand-daughters of Eve
We'd with each other in the size and
arrangements of their leafy cinctures
as sharply as do our modern bellies
in regard to the size of their painters
and the height Of their boot-heels.
So it has ever been since the fall of
woman, so it shall ever be until the
millennium shall restore the golden
age to the world.
But while we do not ever expect,
in spite Of the efforts of Miss
Bloomer and similar Quixotic indi-
viduals, to be freed from the slavery
| of Fashion, we must protest with
especial energy and JUNCTION against
some Of its more grotesque and de-
forming infections. And Of all of
the monstrosities of fashions femi.
nine, commend us especially to that
wad Of false hair, attached to the
female skull by some device which
the male kind is not expected to
comprehend, and whose name, i'm
ported, like the abomination itself,
from France is Chignon. So long
as the aid of Fashion is invoked to
add to beauty and increase its
charms, there can be no objection,
but when, as here, that power i'm
poses upon women-part of whose
business it is to be Beautiful pos
tive and disgusting deformity, it
becomes time to protest. A woman's
hair, naturally and tastefully arran
ged, is one of her greatest beauties,
and poet and painter have testified
from time immemorial TO it's value
as an adornment. The have testi-
fed, too, to tho ways in which it
should be worn. Ben johnson
sings Of
"Hair loosely flowing, and a face
That makes simplicity grace.''
and Horace, in his most famous ode,
caps the climax of Pyrrha's fascina-
tions by describing how she unbinds
for her lover her yellow hair. Guido
has taught US the inspiration Of the
hair in the golden locks Of Beatrice,
Cenci, and Raphael in the loose
tresses of the Madonna. But never
did poet or painter dream Of the
abomination of the chtgnon. That
fashion has no origin or excuse in
art. The Grecian Bend claims to be
reproduction Of the classic pose of
the Venus of Milo; but the chignon
finds it's ante.type in the fashions Of
female Hottentots and the negresses
of interior Africa, who wear their
greasy and matted hair in fearful
and wonderful agglomerations upon
the backs and tops Of their heads.
Les eztrenes Sc toueoent, and our
finest ladies of Avenuedom nearly
equal the bellies Of Central Africa in
the extravaganza in which the hair
is arranged.
But the African beauties have the
advantages over our lady friends in
one respect. The Ethiopian cAtg-
non has the virtue Of being made
from the hair of the wearer, while
the anomalous object which the fair
ones of civilizations affix to their
heads is made up of the stolen hair
of others. The revelations which
have been made in regard to the
way in which the "switches," the
"rats' the 'ehfgnoms,'' and the other
articles of female hair dressing are
made up ought to Danish them from
any head which has a thimblefull of
brains in it. To this delectable
football called the chignon come
contributions of hair in which the
pedicu1us cdpitus-to use a term
which will not shock the ear polite
has had free range, and tresses cut
from the putrefying corpses Of the
dead. The idea is horrifying enough
in itself; but the teaching of science
that hair of this sort when worn is
fatal to the growth of the wearer's
own natural growth of hair offers q
further and more conclusive argu-