Elizabeth daily monitor. [volume] (Elizabeth, N.J.) 1868-1880, 1869-05-14
GIisabetB 5aiIp siaonitor,
PUBLISHED AT 155 BROAD STREET, BY
]. MADISON DRAKE.
"TO DYE OR NOT TO DYE"

Henry Ward Beecher discusses this
subject in the New York Ledger, at
some length. He says: It is asked,
"Does not God make the hair black
or gray ?"
God does it, to be sure but in no
other sense than He gives collie after
cucumbers, indigestion after excessive
eating, constipation after sedentary
habits, rheumatism after exposure to
cold and moisture, and premature age
to men who have overtaxed themselves
Does anybody think it wrong to take
medicine, as if it were an interference
with Divine Providence q? Still more
pat is the question, Fought he not
wear it as it grows ?" How about cut
ting it, then ? Has he right to med.
die with natures length OF hair, but
not with her color ? Is it wrong to
comb and part the hair II nature is
to be strictly followed, how sinful the
race has become by wearing clothes !!
No man was ever born with trousers
on.
There is a vast deal of nonsense
springing from incorrect notions of
Nature. Men are born into life with
power and faculties susceptible of in
definite development. The results to
which education brings men are really
part of Nature, as are the faculties
themselves. An acorn is no nearer to
Nature, than is the oak tree which
springs from it. A gardener may by
skill and patience produce results in
vine which would never have been
reached, if it had been let alone. But
no gardener has power to do more than
to develop what God had stored up in
the vine. The susceptibility to devel
opment is part of Nature.
If education has been wisely conduc-
ted, men and societies of men are more
natural in highly civilized state than
they were in savage condition.
Men talk of conforming their diet to
nature What is nature What is
her bill of fare Is the first thing
which child eats any more natural
than the after food for the adult ?
Are not the Gonveniences and refine
ments of life as really natural as the
rude and vulgar habits of barbarians 3?
He is the nearest nature who pushes
the fartherest away from the seed form
in which he began. Otherwise, educa-
ton is crime against nature
But let us go back to hair dye. If a
man is young, and from some peculiari-
ty of constitution or by reason of sick
ness, prematurely gray, whether he
shall dye his hair or not is a matter
of his own. If he will be the happier
for it, let him do it. If his wife will
be made any happier, in the name of
love let him dye. Family happiness is
a great blessing to purchase at so small
a cost as bottle of hair dye.
But is it seemly for an old man to
put on the appearance of youth, and
not to meet his fate bravely =? This is
question OF good taste. For ourselves
we prefer gray hairs. A buckish old
gentleman of seventy five, returning
every month from his barber with CLOS
sy brown locks, is not our style of man
hood. But if he likes it, he might do
things far worse. We admire the brave
ry in a woman by which, at thirty five,
she carries her locks full of silver. And
yet, if her happiness may be promoted
by hiding the early gray, we see no
reason for criticism.
We are in favor of bald heads, and
also OF wigs and foupees. We are in
favor of wearing our own hair, and just
so much of borrowing your neighbours,
to exc out out scanty supply, if one
chooses t o do it. In short, let every
one have liberty of hair
1t would, however be terrible to leave
men to full liberty of dress, and not to
leave their neighbors free to poke fun
at them. But as long as we are free to
laugh, men may be safely left to the
largest liberty of costume. Shame is
more general and active restraint in
this world than conscience or reason.
A laugh can do what an argument can
not.
One indianapolis firm shipped 261,-
470 dozen of eggs within five months.