The Progress. [volume] (White Earth, Minn.) 1886-1889, 1888-03-10
FASHION In Boards.
Modern Customs Renewal OF
Those of Olden Times.

History and Tradition of the Subject
What the Poets and Other Writers
Have to Say About It
The Chinese.
The modern habit of wearing a full
beard and mustache, which has come
into common use since the days of the
Crimean war, is but return to by
gone fashion, which may be studied by
the curious on such subjects in any
collection of portraits. The main
difference between boards of the
present 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, &C.
cording to the will of the wearer. For
instance, in the Bayeux Tapestry,
King Edward the Confessor is repre-
sented either with beard like bunch
of radishes or forked beard and long
mustache hanging down, while quite
another sort of appendage adorns his
chin in a painting at Westminster Alb
hey. Such illustrations, however, can
not always be depended upon, since,
in many cases, the artist has finished
off the portraits according 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
Conqueror and his sons appear with
long corkscrew boards, although his
tory 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 q beard, which the Jews
especially esteemed great addition to
its wearer's dignity. as may be gath
cred in note to Mant's Bible, Isaiah,
chapter vii.
The hairs of the head are those of
highest older in the State; those of
the feet are the common people; the
beard. the King, the High Priest, the
very supreme in dignity and majesty.
That it has been considered sign of
sovereignty in later days is shown by
Beaumont and Fletcher, where the
choice of the King of Beggars is made
to rest upon him who had the longest
and the largest beard.
"By that bearI thou vert found out and
mark'd for 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 tn ok and far. 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 a 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 skirting beard round the
face; in them it may be proper enough,
but with us openness of countenance
is characteristic of an ingenious
mind"
Bulwer, writing in 1878, thus quaint
1y describes the value of mustache.
He says: 1.-The ingenious Montaigne
in his Essaies, speaking of one who
was wont to find fault with nature,
that she had not made provision for a
sweet bag to hang under our noses,
explods the cavill, alleging that his
mustachios served him to that purpose
in retaining the scent of his perfumed
gloves, or any other sweet, wherewith
he had touched them, which verely is
n considerable use that may be made
OF this part. I knew gentleman of
good worth, who, being almost tooth
less, wore his mustachios thick and
standing up to conceal 'at lapse of
visage."
70 what extremes such fancies NAV
be carried WAS shown amusingly some
fifty years ago by a Frenchman in the
presence of witness we'll known to
the writer. His upper lip was graced
by a flowing mustache of such extraor-
binary length that it was his custom
before a meal to tie it with the utmost
gravity behind his head, that there
might be no impeachment to the full en-
joyment of his food. Bulwer, whom
we have already cited, speaks in an
other place of shaving the chin as a
dishonor to nature, and considers it an
act not only Of indecency, but Of in
justice and ingratitude against God
and nature; "repugnant to Scripture,
wherein we are forbidden not to COR
rupt the upper lip and lower the honor
of the beard, or shave it;'' and he
goes on to show that the cutting off
persons beard was considered as a
severe punishment.