The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-11-07
TiIden and reform -Destructi on
of the public credit, financial
disasters, and wholesale ruin!
from the New York World.]
The FIeShIy School of Rarhprs,

Ihe competition among the BARRIERS of New
York has become so lively that it may possibly
endanger the noses of customers. 1t seems
that there are some twenty guerilla practition-
ers in the city who have reduced the price of
shave to five cent? and supply the customer with
glass of beer or cigar to beguile the tedum
of the operation The indignation of the regu-
lar BARRIERS against the sharp practices of their
professional brethren who persist in cutting
prices as well as faces, is intense, and they de-
clare war against them to the hilt of the razor.
They have wbetted their anger so keenIy that
nothing but the destruction of the fve-cent
shops will take the edge off their resentment.
They are determined to brush aside all opposi
ton. Their rivals have no inclination to throw
oil upon the troubled waters. They declare
they will beard the Barber's Association in its
den and dye thousand times before they sur.
render. Without splitting hairs on the matter,
we may say that the real issue involved in this
barbarous war seems to be this: Is intellectual
entertainment to be preferred to creature COM
forts? The regular practitioners have never
offered to those upon whom they Were exercis-
ing their skill either beer, coffee or cigars.
They had no desire to lull them to forgetful-
ness with an opiate. They choose ra Their to
solicit their senses with the charms of refined
and elegant conversation, and make them OBJ
livious of physical discomfort in dream-like
intellectual employment. Who cared how his
nose was tweaked while listening to distin-
gulshed tonsorial expert expatiating on the
prospects of the Presidential canvass? Who
would notice slight slit in the lobe of his ear
while his soul was wrapt 10 the contemplation
of the glores of our autumn weather as pic
tgIed by the artist of the lathering brush?
Who would sigh for the loss of a pet mole,
when the knight of the razor was descanting to
him on the freedom of the Bosphorus and the
future fate of Europe? Thus the old fash
Toned BARRIERS may be denominated the
aesthetic school; and for a member
of it his mere manual skill with the
brush and razor is his least costly endowment
1t is in his vast and varied misinformation, his
charming misuse of the parts of speech, his
wreathed and sweetly-entaDged profuSion of
the flowers at rhetoric, his cheerful persistence
in capturing the attention of the wearled audi
tor, that his chief professional value lies An
automaton, thing of cog-wheels and clock.
work, might be made to shave a mar, but inf
mite are the tact and impudence that go to make
up barber. The upstart BARRIERS we can only
characterize as the 1eshly school, Catching at
the material spirit OF the age, they have &C
quired a little manual dexterity, and for brill
liant conversational entertainment they propose
to substitute low animal satisfaction. They
cast aside culture and depend upon the cigar,
the schooner of beer for attracting customers.
The low rate of their charges may make them
popular for time, but their neglect of long and
costly preparation in the requirement of the
graceS of conversation must eventually prove
their ruin. A barber of the old school can, in
pursuance of the threat of the association, set
up beside new school rival and serve his Gus
toners for nothing, merely depending on max
ing superior profits out of his hair dyes and in
vgorators which his silvery tongue persuades
his victims to purchase.