Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1890-03-14
MEN WITH LONG HAIR.
How Warriors of Olden Times Dresses
Their Head Adornment

Their Head Adornment
st. Paul held that 1t was q shame to a
man to wear his hair long, and so he tells
the Corinthians in his first epistle to them.
On the other hand, Huychius, patriarch Of
Jerusalem, A. ID. 600, declared the outward,
visible signs of manly perfection to consist
in an ample beard and in hair flowing down
the shoulders. In remote ages the Per-
SLAMS, who now have their heads shaven,
wore long hair. Darius had a most luxuri-
ant poll. and Alexander, who conquered
him, probably paid few visits to the hair
cutters in the course of his lite. AL
cibiades and his clique Of roues introduced
the effeminate fashion Of ha:r into Greece.
Before their time the Athen;ans were
roundheads, and it is fair to presume that
Aristldes the Just, who did not pride him
self above measure on his devotion to the
graces, sported good crop OF bristles and
ignored a comb.
Herodotus relates that in token Of mourn
ing the Persians were wont to cut of not
only their own hair but the mabes Of their
horses. The same historian tells that the
Ayrlans, being defeated by the Laced9mo-
mans, made a sacr:nce OF their locks, and
vowed that they would remain shorn as long
as they had not reconquered rhyrg.
At Sparta, Lycurgus had decreed the
Plutarch alludes, was never much obeyed.
The Spartans, when they attained their six
teenth year, did as the young Athenians,
and burned their hair upon the altar Of
either Diana or Mars. The fact is, all the
barbarians who used to come from across
the sc as in those tunes wore flowing locks,
and the Greeks had no wish to resemble
them, says the Boston Traveller. Our prim-
tive ancestors, the Britons, and like them,
the Gauls, allowed their hair to grow undis-
turbed. 1t often reached below the waist,
and men like Caractacus must have looked
curious. Conquered by the Romans, the
Gauls and Britons were ANONYMOUSLY
clipped. In his enumeration of the Gallo
tribes led into captivity by Caesar, Lucian
speaks of the Llguses, "now shorn, but ere
while possessed of an abundant mass of
hair.n Those of the Gauls who obtained
their liberation hastened to let their hair
grow again; in order the more to mark the
importance they attached to flowing locks
they took to shaving their slaves.
In France when nooleman was convicted
of any felonlous offense the razor was in
varlably applied to his pate. Clotaire l +,
King Of France, caused his own son, Gonde-
band, to be shorn for conspiring against
him; and, by way of adding TO the disgrace
of his sentence, he INN. ediately afterward
issued an edIct conden.ning to the severest
penalties any one who should by stealth or
violence cut off the hair of an honest man.
The hair question assumed disquletlng pro-
portions in France, for in the year 1901
Pierre Lombard, Archbishop of Paris (whose
head left much to be desired in the matter
of capillary adornment), was prevailed upon
by the malcontents to become their cham
pion. He was a learned and good man, and
Il hn hoh oft
unseemly appearance of his close-cl!pped
crown in the silence of the closet, until he
took up the cudgels like man determined
to win.
The King of France at that time was the
gallant Phillip IL, generally known as Phil
ip Augustus. After giving the matter his
most attentive consideration he signed the
magma charter of capillary liberty, at about
the same time his royal compeer, John OF
England, was making dismal face over
the charter of kunnymede.
Generally speaking, the English follow
the French IN the matter of persona. adorn-
ment, put In this case Jne Ems .:sn were be-
forehand. SO early in the re.En of Henry
II. our plebeian forefathers haI obtained ex
emption from the Obligation of having their
hair cut, and they OBTAINED 1t without much
ado.
We hear nothing more about short hair
until the sixteenth century. From the time
of Philip Augustus &c that of Francis l.
every one, lord or lumpKln, let his hair fall
down his back.
Historians and chron!c!ers speak great
deal about OILS and oiEtments that were
used by the wealthy and noo.e OF the middle
ages, and it appears TO have been pretty
prevalent cusvom to powuer ones locks
with gold dust.
Every one knows how long hair and short
hair had mar ked potcal significance dur
ing the war of Char.es l. against the Pre-
tender. 1t was no joke then to be caught
with bristles in Prince Hupert's camp, and
to have come with curling locGs under
Cromwrll's eye would have Ueen 10 run the
risk of being sent, not to the hair, but to
the headcutter's.
! Charles ii. brought back the fashion Of
long cavalier locks, but these were soon su-
perseded by the towering wigs in troduced
| by Louis XIV. He had very poor head of
hair, thin, lank, and Of dirty buff color,
and his barber devised most voluminous
perique TO meet the emergency. The fash
| ion renamed in use uEtll the middle Of
Louis XIV.'s reign, wien it gave way to
the famous powdered wig. The great re.
public swept away the wigs and many Of
the heads that were in them. 1t was then
| that the plg-tail fashion came in for both
high and low, and lasted long enough to be
remembered by some men of the present
day. Nopoleon l. merci.ess!y cut off the pig
tails of his republican soldiers, and nearly
caused mutiny among the army of Egypt
by so doing Similarly, immense discomfort
was excited in the British navy when the
Admiral abolished the plgtail some seventy
years ago. 50 we come down to the present
| time, when we crafty our individual tastes
in the matter of our heads of hair, unless,
indeed, we are private soldiers or paupers
or convicts, or are put INTO a reformatory.
when, for the general good, we must yield
to sanitary cropping laws.