The Republican journal., 1871-12-21
Bear Faced or Bare Faced?
"He could distinguish and divide
A hair, 'twiXt south and southwest sid

| ingly well written and interesting COM
munication on the subject of the wearing
of boards. 1t occurs to us, however, tina,
there is something to be advanced on the
other side of the question raised. The
remark of Judge Kent, it may be said
was made in reference to the inarticulate
mumbling of witness, whose mouth
was overhung by q dense growth that
seemed to bw the passage of all intcllgi-
Bile southland dropped, like many SINH
lar humorous remarks from him, without
any thought that it would be reproduced
or remembered. 1t was a witticism OF
the Judge, not dictum of the court.
The first, and doubtless the strongest
point made by N. in favor of wearing the
full beard, is that nature intended it as a
protection to the face and throat, from
dust and cold. But it so happens that
those men who live in a condition nearest
to nature, and most exposed to severe
climates-the North American Indians,
the Esquimaux, Laplanders, Patagonians,
&c.-are beardless. The races of heavily
bearded men girdle the earth in the tenn
perate zone Providence has made a
mistake in locating either the boards or
the men who wear them. The natural
respirator of the moustache is superseded
by one of magnetzed steel, which unfail-
ingly arrests the metallic particles in
grinders of cutlery. And long lived I'M
moustached members of all the dusty
trades are plentiful. On any raw day in
our streets may be marked full bearded
men wheeling with asthma and bron-
chitis, or hacking with cough, while shay
en- men pass with no faint of throat or
lungs. And again, if our correspondent
be correct, nature is unjust to the larger
part Of the race-to children whose weak
" state demands projections, and to wo-
men whose almost constant indoor life
makes occasional exposure the more dam
gerons.
Moses and the authority of the Bible,
as well as the practice of the ancients, are
likewise appealed to by n The books of
Moses contain many regulations enioined
upon the lsraeltes, mostly from sanitary
motives, some Of which relate to the hair
and beard Probably the one insisted up
on with the most stringency is that Of cir
cumcision. Shall the full bearded like
wise be circumcised? The gods were
bearded" True, the heather gods We're
and so far as the example of the heath
en- should go, it is with n Again
And if the illustrations in the family Bible are
not to be received as authorities in point let
some irreverent stickler for close shaving re-
present the apostles with smooth faces, at the
risk of causing multitudes to doubt the authori-
ty OF the entire book.
1t is doubtless true that the disciples
generally were bearded Certainly Peter
who denied and Judas who betrayed the
Savior were. But by the same authority,
John, the best beloved, was smooth faced.
And as for the angels-than whom man
was made but little lower-has any paint
er ventured to put a moustache on one
We are assured that all the hairs of our
head are numbered, but not that our
boards are. Samsons strength resided
in his flowing locks. and Delilah might
have shaved him till doomsday without
weakening a muscle. The gray hairs of
the patriarch were to be brought with
sorrow to the grave, not his beard. The
quotation from Leviticus Thou shalt rise
up before the hoary head and honor
the face of the OLD man, en1ons
the respect due to old age, without
regard to the full beard But greater
than Moses commands: "Ionor thy ia
Their, md thu nother"-in one half OF
which, at least, the beard mast be dis
pensed with, and may in the other. Ms
quotation from Leviticus, "+ Meth
er shalt thou mar the corners of thy
beard,' is scarcely ingenious. The en-
tire verse is this:
eye shall not ropnd the corners of your
heads, neither shall thou mar the corners of thy
beard"
If one portion commands that the full
beard shall grow, the other makes the
same provision for the hair, and bearded
men must be likewise long haired. DR..
Smith, however, in his Bible Dictionary,
says-"Nor is it possible to decide with
certainty the meaning Of the precept re-
garding 1.-the corners of the beard
"History informs us that an insult Of
tered by a Gaul to the beard of a Roman
citizen ON. Papirius) led to great slaugh-
ter" says NJ, but it would doubtless have
been equally resented had the Gaul pull
ed the nose of NJ. Papirius al am Ro-
man." made all the person equally sacred
Again says N
1t cannot be contended that soldiers should be
smooth faced
Full of strange oaths and bearded like pard"
The true spirit of this quotation, which
is more apparent when read with the con-
text, is the ridicule of blusterers, and loud
mouthed vaunters of themselves Your
swaggerer and bully is always coward.
When sudden emergencies call for'daring
deeds, these are not the men that per-
form them. If woman OF child is to be
rescued from a burning house, some
quiet, retiring man, whom often no one
suspected of heroism, does the deed.
1.-THE world knows nothing of its greatest
men" Our correspondent, himself SOL
der, knows how hospitals and returning
transports, and the ranks of deserters,
were crowded with those who set out
with proclamation of the fearful deeds
they were to do. The model soldier of
Maine in the late war, was not "bearded
like Pard," nor s'full of strange oaths'
but quiet student of divinity and
college professor-who fought the war
all through with almost disabling wounds,
till the last gun was fired at Appamattox.
There was never more desperate fighting,
no more true soldierly qualities shown
than when the smooth-faced English