River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1890-04-24
PLEASURES IN BADNESS.
An English journal Gives Some Comrsrs
for Lost Hair.


THAT bald Caesar, the famed Roman
wight" is known to have disliked being
bald. Hence, his detractors declared, his
love of the laurels of victory. Certainly
IL were a seemly thing il our elderly
Generals could dine out and go to the
play Ia such laurels as they may happen
to have won; for badness. though indis-
pensable to young doctor or solicitor,
and highly desirable in a statesman, IL
not coveted by the sons of Mars. A young
physician, in a letter to one of the
papers, very touchingly bewails the
slimness of his purse and the thickness
of his ambrosial locks. The high and
dome-like forehead" which he admired
in the busts and etfigies of Shakespeare,
seems to this youth feature indispensa-
BILE in his profession. Yet he, of all men.
| should have the remedy at hand, and be
skilled in the depilatory art He has
only to purchase or mix the antidote to
those prescriptions for lengthening and
1 thickening the tresses which are adver-
tised in the beautiful decorations of our
hoardings. 1t has been subtly remarked
that many wise and wealthy persons re-
main bald, and hence ii has been in
ferred that the inventions of Mrs. Allen
and others are not invariably SOW
ereign. But, perhaps, the wealthy and
wise are intelligent enough to keep the
advantages which nature or the wear
/ ing of ill-ventilated hats has given
them. They know when they are well
| off, like the poet and orator, c. Licinus
Calvus, who, after the manner of the liv-
ing skeleton, was probably proud OF the
title" The young doctor values head
denuded at about five hundred pounds
year. and, really, If he is acquainted
with his business, he ought soon to pos
sess that shining place." where, as the
elderly riddle quantity remarks, ''there
| is no parting" He thinks that flowing
beard has also its market value, yet he
does not seem to have remarked that
the owners of flowing boards are usually
very bald men. 1t is as If nature could
not support the growth of so much in
| two places at once BY leaving the chin
unshorn the head may be brought, as 1t
seems, into the desired condition. Even
the lower animals, he maintains, have
an admiring affection for the ornament
which he desires, and he illustrates this
by the waggishness of an ostrich. The
benighted bird attempted TO hatch the
head of sleeping Englishman-in South
Africa, we presume. This was flatter.
ing, but embarrassing on the whole, for
the ostrich is bird with a strong sense
of its personal dignity Hell has no
fury like" an ostrich duped, in its ma
ternai instincts especially, nor can one
seriously believe that the Englishman
was the happier for the fowls mis-
placed affection. II the young physician
Is right, we may perhaps expect to see
depilatories as popularity recommended
as the contrary kind of nostrum. But
while dozen advertisers offer to make
the fat thin, nobody has yet discovered
| a way of making the thin fat. Badness,
according to the doctor, is the result OF
fatty degeneration and persons natur.
ally lean can not by taking thought,
degenerate in this desirable direction.
Sitting up late in an atmosphere of gas
may do good deal, and the tall hat of
modern life is also valuable to persons
who covet an appearance of precocious
wisdom. Every kind OF dissipation is
also recommended; but this prescription
has obvious disadvantages, and is even
uncertain. II is not recorded that Mr..
| DOO saw tA anu 4hA- hAAoH
rose in their profession by badness; yet
no young men ever did more to deserve
this gift. To be early gray seems rather
the privilege of poets than of physicians,
if we may Judge by the cases of Shelley
and Ronsard. There is reason TO be-
lieve that Byron would have been bald
had he lived little longer, and it is
matter of curious speculation whe theI
his success would not have waned with
his curls and when his days were really
in the yellow leaf. On the other hand,
he was just the man to wear wig. The
poet, in the following stanza, celebrate,
a sage who, perhaps alone among man
kind, agreed with the young doctor:
'There was an old person OF Bristol
Who had a bald head, and pistol;
He shot at all the Aldermen
Because they were balder men
And then blew out his brains with the pistol"