Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1874-12-02
Hair Dressing In The Seven.
teenih Century.


"Our old English books of courtesy are
full of reference to the use of the comb.
1t was part of the pages duty to comb
his lords hair directions for combing
your sovereign's hair are given by John
Russell in his "Boke of Nurture" also
by Wynkyn de Worde in The Boke OF
Karvings. The duty of combing, as
culture widens, begins to be treated by
writer's on etiquette as a duty to ones
self, and not merely toward ones lord.
Andrew Borde, in 1857, recommends
the frequent use of the comb /; 'Kayme
your heade oft, and do so dyvirs times
in the dav.' William Naughin, in his
Fifteen Directions to Preserve Health,
published in 1902, prescribes the comb
ing for it's intellectual benefits II
must be done softly and easily with an
ivory comb. he writes, for nothing re-
createth the memory more Sir John
Harrington, in his section on the dyes
for every day. of his School of Saterne,
Q624) gives the simple instruction !:
Comb your hair well with an ivory
comb from the forehead to the back
part, drawing the comb some forty
times at the least. 1t would seem the
preciseness of his advice, that English
gentlemen we're still little slovenly in
in their own treatment of their hair :;
when they wished it to be properly
treated they put themselves under the
hands of the barber. There is little
doubt that the close cropped hair of the
Presbyterian and Independent Round
heads was more cleanly than the long
hair of the cavalier with its artificial
lovelocks. 1t was part of the extreme
protest of George Fox, the founder of
Quakerism, against all the fashions OF
the earlier Puritan sects, who were
masters in England when he began his
to wear his long hair When
he was preaching in Flintshire in 1861
he says that 'one called lady sent for
him.
''She kept preacher in her house.
L went to her house, but found both
her and her preacher very light and
airy. In her lightness she came and
asked me if she should cut my hair.
But was moved to reprove her, and
bid her cut down the corruption in ner-
self with the sword of God. He learned
afterward that this lady boasted that
she had gone behind him and cut of
the curl of his hair At Dorchester
the constable made him take off his hat,
to see if he was not shaved at the top
Of his head they were sure that SO
fierce an opponent of the Puritan clergy
must be Jesuit. The long hair of the
father of Quakerism, like that of the
Frankish kings and chieftains, was ne
often in need of the comb |
and it comes out incidentally, in his /
Journal of the year 1862, that George |
Fox was so careful of personal neat |
ness as to carry comb-case IN his /
pocket. When he was seized by Lord 1
Beaumont and the soldiers in Leices- |
.ershire as suspected rebel, that no. |
Dleman put his hand in my pocket,
,ays Fox, and plucked ont my comb
Ease, and then commanded one of his /
1fficers to search for letters The cav
llier gentry who took the Quaker pa
.riarch for a plotter, were great employ
srs of the comb. The huge peruke
,ame in with Charles H., and fashion
rose among the pallants of combing
heir huge head-dresses in public it is
,ften noticed by dramatists of the Res
ioration. 1t is one of the stage direc-
ionsin killigrew,s Parsons Wedding
or group of fashionable gentlemen of
he year 1868 'They comb their heads
md talk As ladies' use the fan in
heir firtations with gentlemen, SO the
swains of the period welded
he comb in their languishing addresses
% the sheperdesses. Dodsley has a
ong note on his custom in the eleventh
Tolume of his 'Old plays and cites a
number of illustrations. In his pro-
ogue to the second part of 'Almanzor'
md 'Almadide, written in 1910, Dry
len refers to the ostentatious use of
he comb by the would-be wits in the
pit of the theatre. From the epilogue
% the Wrangling Lovers 1867, it ap-
,ears that this free public combing was
distinction which marked off the man
# the town from the dull country
.OuSln