The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1879-02-06
The Beard.


pointed. Washington Cor. Boston Her
aid.
The Beard.
Nor many years ago it was hardly
respectable to wear beard, but the
beard movement, resisted and ridiculed
at first, has conquered, and it grows
more and more the fashion to grow on
the face as full covering of hair as
can be coaxed out. "7The beard, "
the natural covering of the chin, says a
very old English writer, "was in an
cient times looked upon not as a
troublesome burden, but as a dignified
ornament of ripe manhood and old
age" Our present generation. howev-
er, cares nothing for "dignifed orna-
ment' in dress, but very much for con-
venience and utilitarianism. It sees in
the beard and, above all, in the mus
tache a natural defense for the throat
and face against the cold, and equally
in warm climates protection of these
parts against excessive heat. Persons
who wear mustaches are said, on good
authority, to be less liable to tooth
ache than others, and it is also said
that the teeth are less apt to decay.
The beard and mustache equalize the
temperature to the parts they cover
with their protection. The sappers
and miners of the French Army, chosen
in part for the size and beauty of their
boards, enjoy an especial immunity
against bronchial and similar evils. It
is related that Walter Savage Lander
was sufferer from sore throat for
many years of his life, but was cured
by the surgeon of the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, who advised him to let his
beard grow. eye shall not round the
corners of your heads; neither shalt
thou mar the corners of thy beard, :"
says the Scriptures in Leviticus. In
ancient times all men and gods wore
boards. The glory and beauty of Jupi-
ter's beard is dwelt upon by Homer,
when the father of gods and men
is first brought into the Iliad. Alex
ander the Great first introduced shay
ing, saying that in his Asiatic Wars
the boards of his warriors "might af-
ford handle to the enemy" 1t be-
came the mark of fine gentleman to
wear no beard in Greece, and dandies
even removed them by "sharp pitch
plasters," as well as razors. Rome be-
gan to shave about $50 years before the
Christian era; Scipio Africanus, the
Younger, it is said, was the first Roman
gentleman of note who shaved every
day. In Caesars time young gentle
men of fashion wore a slight goatee,
but the full beard was only worn in
mourning, or in days of great public
calamity. Cesar Augustus and Nero
were close shaved, but the beard re-
vived again under late Emperors. The
ancient Britons cut off their boards up
on the chin, but wore long, shaggy
hair and enormous tangled mustaches.
A young barbarian in some German
tribes never "reaped his CHM till he
had slain an enemy. The Saxons wore
the mustache; the Normans shaved.
In that wonderful specimen of deco
rative art, the Bayeux Tapestry, worked
by Queen Matilda and her maidens, we
cen distinguish the two Nations every
where by this sign. Of course when
Norman William won the throne the
courtly days of boards were at an end.
King Edward III. in 1927, one of the
handsomest men who ever lived, re-
vived the fashion. He and his son, the
Black Prince, were famous for their
boards. On all the knightIy effigies of
that period 1.-THE beard is forked, and
the mustache is long, dropping on each
side of the mouth" But the hand
soonest royal beard was Henry VIII. s.,
which is celebrated by poets of his
time. France, however, in all ages
has been the fountain-head of fashion,
and France at length went against the
beard. King Henry Nv. of France and
Navarro had very handsome beard,
though he bestowed small time or pains
on it. His son, Louis XIII. assembled
the throne beardless and instantly all
courtiers shaved. It was matter of
complaint against Sully, his fathers
great Minister, that he appeared at the
court of beardless monarch in his
old-fashioned beard. Peter the Great,
DESTROYS of de-Russianizing his SUBJ
jects, imposed graduated tax on
boards. Men of the upper classes paid
100 roubles ($7O) yearly for the privi-
lege of not shaving their boards and
poor people a kopek (about one cent?
apiece. ClOse-shaven faces came back
among our ancestors with. Charles H.,
being another of the things for which
England lad no reason to thank the
Restoration. During the reigns of the
four Georges cropped chins were uni
versal and .thoug h our grandfathers
still sneered at "beardless boys'' as a
figure of speech, they daily labored to
be beardless themselves. Afoat and
ashore, whatever the difficulties of the
operation, officers, soldiers and seamen
shaved every day. During the past
fifty years boards have been first tOler-
ated as eccentric, then accepted as op-
tional and at last have been restored to
fashion and honor. We now hold,
with one of the old bards who cele-
brated Henry Wills beard, that
"A we'll thatched face is a comely grace
And shelter from the cold"
baltimore american.