The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-03-10
THE FASHION IN Boards.
Modern Customs a Renewal of the Old
History and Tradition.

The modern habit of wearing a full beard
and moustache, which has come into COM
mon use since the days of the Crimean war,
is but return to bvgone fashion, which
may be studied by the curious on such sub
jectS in any collection of portraits The
main difference between boards of the pres
ent day and those worn by our ancestors
seems to be that their earlier taste displayed
itself in variety of shape and form, which
seems to have changed, even in the same
person, according to the will of the
wearer. For instance, in the Bayeux
Tapestry, King Edward the Confessor is
represented either with beard like bunch
of radlSheS or forkad beard and a long
moustache hanging down, while quite
another sort of appendage adorns his chm
IN painting at Westminster Abbey. Such
illustrations, however, cannot always be
depended upon, since, III many cases, the
artist has finished of the portraits accord
ing to the fashion of his own time, without
regard to absolute accuracy. Thus, there
are portraits, taken from the screen OF
York Cathedral, in which William the Con-
quer and his sons appear with long cork
screw boards, although history and the
Bayeux Tapestry make it certain that the
Normans did not wear them.
Far back IN Scripture history we find
abundant indications of the value that was
set upon beard which the Jews especially
esteemed a great addition to its wearers
dignity, as may be gathered in a note to
Mant's Bible, Isaiah, chap. vii.
The hairs of the head are those of the
highest order in the State; those of the feet
are the common people; the beard, the King,
the High Priest, the very supreme i'll dlgnl-
ty and majesty.
That it has been considered a sign of SOW
ereignty in later days is shown by Beau
mont and Fletcher, where the choice of the
King of Beggars is made to rest upon him
who had the longest and largest beard.
By that beard thou vert found out and mark d
to sovereignty.
Oh, happy beard! but happier Prince whose
beard
Was so remarked, as marked out our Prince,
Not batting us a hair. Long may it grow,
And thick and fair, that who lives under it
May live as safe as under beggar's bush,
OF which this is the thing, that but the type.
An altogether different view was taken of
the matter by writer in the year 1865,
who, in his Free Advice to a Young
Clergyman advised him mot to come into
that Jewish fashion of wearing a skirting
beard round his face; in them it may be
proper enough, but with us openness of
countenance is characteristic Of an ingenu-
Gus mind"
Bulwer, writing in 1873, thus quantity de-
scrlbes the value of a mustache. He says:
1.-The ingenious Montaigne i'll his Essaies,
speaking of one who was won't to find fault
with nature, that she had not made provis-
ion for sweet bag to hang under our noses,
explode the cavill. alleging that his mus
tachoes served him to that purpose in re-
tanning the scent of his perfumed gloves, or
any other sweet, wherewith he had touched
them, which verely is a considerable use
that may be made of this part. | knew q
gentleman of good worth, who, being al
most toothless, wore his mustachoeS thick
and standing up to conceal that lapse OF
visage"
To what extremes such fancies may be
carried was shown amusingly some fifty
years ago by a Frenchman in the presence
of witness well known to the writer His
upper lip was graced by flowing nous
tache of such extraordinary length that il
was his custom before a meal to tie it with
the utmost gravity behind his head, that
| there might be no impediment to the full
enjoyment of his food. Bulwer, whom we
have already cited, speaks in another place
of shaving the chin as a dishonor to nature
and considers it an act not only of indie
cency, but of injustice and ingratitude
! against God and nature; repugnant &c
| Scripture, wherein we are forbidden not tc
corrupt the upper lip and lower the honor
| of the beard, or shave it" and he goes or
| to show that the cutting off persons beard
was considered as a severe punishment.
At the same period, it was held that the
highest degree of spite or malice which
could be offered to an enemy consisted not
only in cutting off the head but afterward
in shavig the beard and fixing the mouth III
grin. A similar sentiment of disgrace
attached, at a somewhat later period, to any
attempt to pull the beard, SO we find a note
I'm m ~ no
by the beard, a common saying in England. >
The being pulled by the beard in Spain is
deemed as dishonorable as being kicked in
England. Archbishop Laud, when advised
to make his escape, replied, eff / should
get into Holland l should have every
Anabaptist come and pull me by the beard. y
The expression to beard a person-that is,
to affront him, or to set him at defiance-is
illustrated by the words in Shakespeare's
King Henry ". part l., act l. II beard
thee to thy face" For this the French ex-
preston was faire la barbe quelqu'un; and
in Italy it was said, ia la barbe ad uno 1t is
difficult to ascertain when the very personal
custom of pulling the nose superseded that
of pulling the beard, but it most probably
was adopted as a sufficiently strong equiva-
lent when the chin became naked and close
shaven, and so afforded no handle for in
tended insult. In the reign of James II Jas
uluCn dS ,OOU was pau ny w illlhUl CdV-
endish, Earl of Devonshire, for this treat
ment of person at court.
That there may be an element of danger
in the beard we gather from a story, given
in "Plutarch's Lives" of Alexander, who
caused his Macedonian soldiers to be clipped,
lest their enemies should make USE of their
boards as handles in the fight. Cesar has
left it upon record that ancient Britons
wore no boards, though they allowed hair
to grow upon the upper lip; and Strabo
bears testimony of an opposite sort, writing
OF Sicily islanders in his time, whose Gus
tom it was to grow boards, goat fashion, in
point below the chin.
A strong proof of the value set upon this
part of their personal adornment by men is
found in the fact that, when the Normans
sought to compel the English TO shave, as
they did themselves, many chose rather to
abandon their country than to lose their
whiskers. That this form of pride was not
confined to comparatively modern days we
know from st. Chrysostom, who tells us
that Persian Kings wore long boards inter-
woven with golden threads, while slaves in
the same country were shaved as a sign of
servitude.
The argument commonly adopted by
those who do not shave is that mature
knows best;n and although many in all ages
have ignored this maxim, or contradicted
it by removing more or less the hairs upon
their face, it seems TO have occurred to none,
except to that most subtle race. the Chinese,
to supplement the gift Of nature and to at
tach with considerable skin false tufts OF
hair to the smooth surface Of their chins