River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1885-09-10
wigs in New England.

Wigs have fallen from their high es
tate OF fashion in England, though the
legal profession still retains them,
thinking perhaps with Cumberland in
one of his comedies: There is good
sense in old distinctions. When the
law lays down its full-bottomed peri
wig you viii find less wisdom in bald
pates than you are aware of. y New
England and the rest of America did
not loiter far behind Old England in the
mode of hirsute adornment. John Eliot,
the apostle to the Indians. opposed
wigs as a source of misfortune; and
perhaps the same superstition inspired
some of the Massachusetts Legislators
who in 1875 Illuminated a solemn decree
against the ill-custom of men wearing
long hair like women's hair in peri
wigs, eXhorted moderation in this re-
spect, and threatened delinquents with
admonition, fine or correction. Judge
Samuel Sewall was the Pepys of New
England, but his diary is replete with
aversion to wigs, while that of his
English prototype displays a little of
the vanity of big wig. Sewall noted
two men wearing periwigS when they
were received into the church; a worthy
minister gave him a manuscript trea-
tise against periwigs; he argued earn
estly with young man who had cut
off his hair to put on a wig, saying that
God seemed to have ordained our
Hair as a Test, to see whether we can
bring our minds to be content at his
finding, or whether VIC would be our
own Carvers Lords, and come no more
at him." and his highest eulogy Of a
departed worthy was that The Wei
fare of the Province was much upon
his Spirit. He abominated Perriwigs.'
The Rev. Hugh Adams, of New
Hampshire, was dress-reform
er of the early part Of the last
century, and thus warned his readers
that their scalps would not be safe un-
less denuded of wigs:
Therefore l must adventure to divine,
If reformation can't among you shine
Quickly in wigs and hoops, the mistake S
NINE
If on frontiers food savages shan't dine
Before one years expired
A church of Newbury dealt with a
brother who refused communion be-
cause the pastor wore a wig, and who
asserted that all who wear wigs, I'M
less they repent of that particular sin
before they die, will certainly be
/ damned" A meeting of Quakers in
Massachusetts decided that the wear
/ ing of eXtravagant, supertluous wigs
lis altogether contrary to truth. y
1 Poor Richard declares: Three things
are men most likely to be cheated in
horse, wig and wife. When
Franklin was to be presented to the
King of France a perruquier brought
| the wig ordered for the occasion, and
vainly tried again and again to get it
on the philosophic head. The sage
suggested it might be too small,
but the man of hair threw
down his work and cried out: mo,
monsieur, it is not the wig which is too
small; it is your head which is too
large.
OFT and on wigs have thus a grave
and gay history of some two thousand
years, during almost two centuries of
which they were the glory of all
well-ordered heads. The same neces-
sity that was the mother of their inven-
ton keeps bald heads ever faithful to
them, and they yet disguise the actor
and masker; but their palmiest days
are of the past. One can hardly mag
inc the busy man of the present with a
lion S name of false hair hanging over
his shoulders, and in the future survi-
val of the fittest wigs are like to endure
only as the cover of deformity or iden-
tity, never again to reign as fashion.
o. 4. BierStadt in LipptncoH.