The Opelousas courier., 1884-05-31
HIRSUTE ADORNKENT.
A Short History of Reards-When
Worn and when TabOOeds

Worn and when TabOOed. /
The fashion that governs the hair on a
mans face is Just as tickle and changea-
BILE as the fashion. that rules the cut OF his
coat. 1t has always been SO; there has
always been a significance attached to
boards since men first discovered that ma
ture planted hair upon their chins as a
sign of their manhood. Among many
i nations they were regarded as a sign OF
strength. The natives of Hindostan, al
though they often represent the various
deities of their religion as beardless, to
this day have no respect for the mar SO
unfortunate as to have little or no beard.
1t has always been so in the mysterious
and u%nchanging East. The same respect
attached to the beard among the ancient
Phenicians, Assyrians and Egyptians.
The Arabs dyed their boards many colors.
The Persian kings of old Intervene
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 a 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 a
short chin tuft exactly like that of the
Yankee as represented in pictures-an-
other proof that fashion simply repeats
itself. The ancient Greek wore full
boards before the time of Alexander the
Great. He abolished them as atfordlng
an enemy something to grasp IN battle.
Fighting in those days was hand to hand;
The Germans of two orthree thousand
wears ago allowed their beardsto grow un-
til they had killed a man in battle, when
the fortunate ~victor's shaven cheeks were
envied by his bearded companions. The
Britons of Caesars time wore simply a
large, flowing mustache, while the Danes
and Norsemen were full bearded, long
haired, fierce men. Cesar set the fashion
of shaving among the Romans, or rather,
ordered it. 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.
'tClergymen have always, until recent
4 wears, 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 a shaver face. Thirty years
I later the ascetic Gregory e~njoined a PEN
atty on every bearded priest, There are
! not wanting, however in the long line OF
popes, one or W who were bearded lux
~uriantly. In the twelfth century pubic
opinion ran high against boards. Inc
Vatican forbade them to all classes.
! Even monarchs were compelled to shave;
: Henry l., of England, was invelghed
J against by a priest because he refused
! to use the razor, and the monarch shaved.
: Frederick of Barbarossa had a similar ex-
= pertinent, yielding as gracefully to public
{ sentiment and priestly threats. Louis
: VII, Of France, was refused absolutlon
! unless he shaved, but this threat was not
: executed. Pope Honorius LII. in the
. thirteenth century allowed his beard te
y grow to conceala' a facial tumor, apd
! the men of Europe threw aside thell
razors with a sigh of relief. fol
7 two or three centuries there
after boards were general. All the ne
$ roes, military and otherwise, OF thos
e times wore full boards. Louis Kill. O.
= France and Philip v. of Spain were de
: MED a beard by nature, and ON the &C
cession of these two monarchs razor
came in fashion again. Francis l. Q
D France taxed the boards of priests, ant
fhe college of Sorbonne in 1861 decidet
II that boards and saeerdotallsm were In
consistent. In Henry the Fourth's tim
boards were worn in many different styles
= Still more were popular IN Eilzapetn
y REIGN. when the different social rank
y were each denoted by a peculiar fashlol
= of the beard. There was the forked, tn
Z dagger. the mushroom, and the crescent
= and several equally odd shapes given
= the beard Just before the Stuarts ascende'
= the throne. The beard of that Gay Is t
y be seen in the Vandyke pictures mus
le tache and imperial, both small and leno
Is inc an air of high-born distinction to tn
!, wearer. The beard was highly priced q
IL this time and later. 1t was a theme &c
writers, prose and p~oetical. The work
Q OF eyery sixteenth century writer aboun
&c with reference to it. A gentle
% mans d~ressing-table at that tim
was covered with all sorts {
u instruments, tWeezers, brushes, comb
e. ointment. powder and perfume for ores
le ing his beard. Shortly afterward-aDot
- the beginning of the eighteenth centuI
shaving began. A beardless ] s.
ca the fashion. It spread over the west {
Europe, and for 125 years sm~ooth-shave
sc faces were the rule. In Russia Peter tI
q, Great about this time imposed a tax 9
y, nc boards. Kings and commons shaved vi
~ orously for more than a century, Whe
about 1916, after the battle of Waterloo
military men in England adopted
fashion that had ruled among Napoleon
ess marshals, OF allowing some of the hair 9
their faces to grow. Public oplnle
frowned at it. A mustache was disrep1
lg table, and for twenty years none dared
90 refrain from the razor. Then the swell
er Of the period, about 1880 or 1888, Wo
IN little tufts on their chins. But the ste
ne voice of popular disapproval drove 9
Is this fashion. 1t was not until aDo
at 1850 or later that a mar OAR
40 show himself abroad with an unshay.
face. For several years after that .
! wearer of a moustache was viewed as
person to be avoided, to draw 1T mlidi
n The prejudice against boards, which n
lasted more than a hundred years, o'uI
which the world made mighty progre'
did not thoroughly disappear until j.
his before the war in this country and abo
ids the same time abroad Since D
dozen different fashions have preval!e
one following another and each dlstlI
~, iii not yUnAr #