St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-10-07
Some Statistics About the
Men Who Skin and
Scalp You.
The Wages That They Get
and the Work That
They Do.
The Necessary Qualifications
for a Good Journeyman )
Barber.
A Story Which Will Interest
Those Who Shave and
Get Shaved.

Speaking of BARRIERS, 1t can be truth
fully said that Minneapolis has some of
the best and some of the worst ones in
the entire United States. There are i'll
this city about 125 shops, or ''tonsoriaI
parlors," as some people put it, and in
these shops there are in the neighbor-
hood of 600 people employed. While no
reliable statistics upon the subject have
ever been collected, it is safe to say that
from So, 1000 to $4,000 is annually spent
i'll them. This may seem large amount.
but when one considers that each jour
neyman barber receives from s. to $50
if he works on a salary, and that the
proprietors are fast becoming well off
if rot wealthy, it must be admitted that
the figures are not too large.
The barberiDg trade is not such one
as most young men of to-day would
choose for a calling, as there is neither
fame, fortune, nor good living IN It
But there are always BARRIERS enough
to supply the demand, and no doubt the
condition will always remain the same.
To become good barber man must
possess good nerves, for nervous man
has no place In BARRIERS shop. If his
hand is at all shaky he cannot do good
work, for he cannot draw a razor With
a good clean sweep over the face OF a
customer. If he is of the nervous order
he will soon find that all the men he
shaves leave his chair bleeding from
various and sundry cuts, and cherish
ing a wild desire to kill the man who
tortured them so. The trade is not an
easy one to learn, by any means; of
course, a man may be able to cut the
beard off of customers face, and to
clip his hair after fashion, but to be
real artist. man must
BEGIN,-AT THE BOTTOM
work ND and then keep full abreast Of
the times. He must learn to tell at a
glance how man will look after his
hair is cut or his beard trimmed, and
then do the work so that the customer
will have no cause to complain upon
arising from the chair and viewing him
self in the mirror.
1t is not hard matter for a journey
man barber to become the owner or
small shop by any means, and the city
is full of such places, run by men who
only short time ago were working Tor
some one else at salary which event
ually meant starvation. Of course for
a iourneyman barber to become the pos
SCISSOR of magnificent shop, with all
the mirrors and fixtures that go to make
up firSt-class establishment. is an ex-
tremely difficult matter, and but few
attempt it, being content to be ''bossH
in two or three-chair shop, where for
10 cents you can get your chm scraped.
THE FIRST-CLASS SHOPS
in Minneapolis are few and far be-
tween, there being but few here. In
such places the price charged for a
shave is ID cents. and for hair-cutting
25 cents. The second-clasS shops
where you can get as good a shave as
at the first-class shops are numerous.
In these places you pay the same as at
the first-clasS places. Then there are
the 1O-cent shops, but these places are
patrOniZed mainly by men who do not
care to 90 into firSt-clasS shop. As a
general rule, the patrons of those places
are men who work hard for living,
men who get shaved when they can get
money enough to have it done, and men
whose only home is some cheap lodg-
ing house. The proprietOrs of such
places generally allow towel to every
ten or twelve men,, while IN
the first and secOnd-clasS shops
the same towel is never used over once
before going to the wash. There are
five barber shops in Minneapolis where
) cents is the price charged for shaving
and ID cents for hair cutting. They do
a fairly good business, having for Gus
toners .'hOboS' and the lowest of the
foreign element here. There are four
barber shops here owned and operated
by women. All are nice places, and
man cannot get a better shave in the
CITY than there. Those shops have a
big run, and the owners are coming
money.
The condition of the journeymen
BARRIERS in Minneapolis is far above
that of the men engaged i'll similar oc-
cupation in other cities. True. their
hours are somewhat long. lie ing from
Z a. m. to p. III. every day except Sat
urday, when the hours are from a. III.
until midnight. Up to two years ago
the condition of the BARRIERS here was
almost one of slavery. The hours
were even longer than at pres
ent, and they were obliged
to work nearly ali day Sunday. The
Sunday work did not set well upon the
jOurneymen, however, and it was
through their efforts that a state law
was passed prohibiting Sunday labor.
There were test cases, it is true, but.the
journeymen finally came out ahead.
The shop owners were satisfied to have
it that way, as but TWO OF them maze
any fight against the law.
THE WAGES OF MINNEAPOLIS BARRIERS
are not alarmingly high, but they are
higher than in many other cities the
size of Minneapolis. In most of the
shops the wages run from 81 to Sl2, and
in only few do the men get any more
direct from their employers, But in
some of the shops, particularly the
West hotel and Nicollet house shops,
the workmen do not depend entirely
upon their salaries. In these shops the
BARRIERS depend largely upon tips"
which sometimes run as high as S15 per
week. This is, of course, all ''easy
money" and generally goes as easy as
it comes. A barber seldom leaves a
place of this kind, and when he does it
is generally to open shop of his own.
The number of married BARRIERS in Min
neapoIis is comparatively Small. But
few of the jOurneymen care to risk sup
porting a family on low wages, and
then a married man has not the same
opportunity for roaming over the
country that a single man has. The
BARRIERS union here is strong one, and
has done much good for the members.