The bee., 1884-03-15
HIRsUTE ADoRNYENT.
Short History of Reards-When
Worn and when Tab0Oed.

mans face is just as tickle and changea-
BILE as the fashion that rules the cut of his
coat. 1t has always been 50; there has
always been a significance attached to
boards since men first discovered that na-
ture planted hair upon their chins as a
sign of their manhood. Among many
nations they were regarded as a sign of
strength. The natives of Hindostan. al
though they often represent the various
deitics of their religion as beardless, to
this day have no respect for the man so
unfortunate as to have little CT no beard.
1t has always been so in the mysterious
and unchanging East. The same respect
attached to the beard among the ancient
Ph9nicians, Assyrians and Egyptians.
The Arabs dyed their boards many colors.
The Persian kings of old interwove
threads of gold in their luxuriant boards.
The Egyptians venerated the beard.
Priests wore theirs. and SO indeed did
mobiles and slaves alike. Some OF the
Egyptian statues represent men with
their boards in case. There are also
images found Of men without boards,
which are supposed to be those of the
rulers who in this way marked their
lofty station. Man, of tie mummies
found by the way, are OF men wearing
short chin tuft exactly like that of the
Yankee as represented in picturcs-an-
other proof that fashion simply repeats
itself The ancie t Greek wore full
boards before the time OF Alexander the
Great. He abolished them as affording
an enemy something to grasp In battle.
Fighting in those days was hand to hand.
The Germans of two or three thousand
years ago allowed their boards to grow un-
til they had killed man in battle, when
the fortunate victor's shaven cheeks were
enyied by his bearded companions. The
Britons Of Caesars time wore simply
large, flowing mustache, while the Danes
and Norsemcn were full bearded, long
haired, fierce men. Caesar set the fashion
of shaving among the Romans, or rather,
ordered il. Pompey, also, was another
of the very few great characters of that
time whose face was made bare of hair
by the razor With all their civilization
the Romans did not begin to use the
razor till Christianity dawned.
''Clergymcn have always, until recent
years, had the fashion of their boards
dictated, either by church law or by
usage, and even by statute. Pope Leo
III. distinguished himself from the Greek
patriarch by shaven face. Thirty years
later the ascetic Gregory enjoined ii pen
atty on every bearded priest There are
not wanting, however in the long line of
popes, one or two who were bearded lux
uriantly. In the twelfth century public
opinion ran high against boards. The
Vatican forbade them to all classes.
Even monarchs were compelled to shave.
Henry l., of England, was inveighed
against by priest because he refused
to Use the razor, and the monarch shaved.
Frederick Of Barbaros5a had Il similar cX
pertinent, yielding rs gracefully to public
sentiment and priestly threats. Louis
VII, of France, was refused absolution
unless he shaved, but this threat was not
executed, Pope Honorius III. in the
thirteenth century allowed his beard to
grow to conceal q facial tumOr, and
the men of Europe threw aside their
razors with a sigh of relief. For
two or three centuries there
after boards were general. All the he
roes, military and otherwise, of those
times wore full boards. Louis Mi. of
France and Philip V. Of Spain were de
MED Il beard by nature. and on the ac-
cession of these two monarchs razors
came in fashion again Francis l. of
France taxed the boards Of priests, and
the college of Sorbonnc in 1861 decided
that boards and sacerdotaiism were in
consistent In Henry the Fourth's time
boards were worn in many different styles.
Still more were popular in Elizabcth's
reign, when the different social ranks
were each denoted by peculiar fashion
Of the beard. There was the forked, the
dagger, the mushroom and the crescent,
and several equally odd shapes given to
the beard just before the Stuarts assembled
the throne. The beard OF that day is to
be seen in the Vandyke picturcs-a mus
tachc and imperial, both small and lend
ing an air of high-bon distinction to the
wearcr. The beard was highly priced at
this time and later 1t was theme for
writers, prose and pOctical. The works
of every sixteenth century writer abound
with reference to it. A gentle
mans dressing-table at that time
was covered with all sorts of
instruments, tweezers, brushes, combs,
ointment, powder and perfume for dress
ing his beard. Shortly aftcrward-about
the beginning of the eighteenth century
shaving began. \ beardlcss king set
the fashion. 1t spread over the west Of
Europe and for 125 years smo0th-shaven
faces were the rule. In Russia Peter the
Great about this time imposed tax on
boards. Kings and commons shaved Wig
orously for more than century, when
about 1915, after the battle of Waterloo,
military men in England adopted a
fashion that had ruled among Napoleon's
marshals, of allowing some of the hair on
their faces to grow. Public opinion
frowned at it. A mustache was disrepu
table, and for twenty years none dared to
refrain from the razor. Then the swells
of the period, about 1880 or 1885, wore
little tufts on their chins. But the stern
voice of popular disapproval drove out
this fashion. 1t was not until about
1850 or later that man dared
show himself abroad with an unshaven
face. For several years after that the
wearer of moustache was viewed as
person to be avoided, to draw it mildly.
The prejudice against boards, which had
lasted more than hundred years, during
which the world made mighty progress,
did not thoroughly disappear until just
before the war in this country and about
the same time abroad" Since then a
dozen different fashions have prevailed,
one following another and each distinc-
tive. Young men did not wear full
boards until the Prince of Wales set the
fashion two or three years age. That
individual is. really the leader of this