Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1890-01-16
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ABOUT WIGS.
Not So Much Worn Now As In the Long
Ago-How One Man Cut His Hair.

Not So Much Worn Now As in the Long
Ago-How One Man Cut His Hair.
Although wigs are still advertised in
the newspapers, they play much less
important part than in the days when
George Nv was king. During the reign
of that monarch an arbiter of fashion is
said to have declared that mo gentleman
wore his own hair after the age of five
and-twenty." Now no gentleman at any
age, or however bald, seems to wear a
wig. 1t used to be said on behalf of wigs
that they saved the wearer from colds,
catarrhs and ophthalmic affections; and
though they were also worn from mot
ives of vanity, it is true that people, or
at least old people, made no secret OF
wearing them. Stories, too, are told OF
men in the prime of life who wore differ
ent wigs on different occasions-light
airy wigs in summer, and heavy massive
wigs in winter. Here there can, obvi-
ously, have been no thought of deception.
As much cannot be said of a gentle
man of our own time, well known in
London, who has a number of wigs, all
of precisely the same shade of color and
of the same general makes, but with
varying lengths of hair. He replaces
week by week wig with short hair by
a wig with hair of longer growth, I'M
til, after the lapse of seven or eight
weeks, he finds it necessary to make pre-
tense of having his hair cut. lie leaves
his club for half an hour, observing
casually that he must visit the hair
dressers, and, after going home and re-
placing his wig by a shorter haired one,
returns as if fresh from the hands of the
shearer.
According to some anthropologists, we
are fast approaching time when civil
lied man will be bald. 1t is, however,
difficult to say whether or not the num-
Der of bald persons is on the increase.
Fifty years ago it was nearly impossible
to make observations on the subject,
since all who were bald wore wigs, while
it was sometimes difficult to distinguish
the wig from natural hair 1t is certain,
however, that savages and semi-barbar-
GUS tribes have plenty of hair.
The Russian peasant keeps his hair at
least until an advanced period Of his life;
and in India it is rare to see either bald
Mohammedan or bald Hindoo. "You
are much before us in civilization" said,
the other day, one of our Indian visitors.
But we possess two things of which a
good many among you are unable to
boast. We have hair and we have
teeth" In simpler states of civilization
than ours men do not lose their hair, but
their hair loses its color. Gray hair must
surely, however, be better than no hair
at all.
Whatever it may be in man, bald
ness in a woman would be something toe
horrible; and probably bald woman, in
an evident condition of badness, has
never been met with. Among the bald
men, heroes, like Julius Caesar; poets
like Eschylus; statesmen and patrons OF
art, like Pericles; brilliant men of fashion
with taste if not a genius for every
thing, like Alcibiadess sages, like Socrate.
may be mentioned. A bald woman, how
ever, is a phenomenon which, though it:
existence may be more than suspected
has never hitherto been seen. Wome1
wear wigs, and, according to M. Theirs
may claim to have invented them; and
after her first youth, there is scarcely
one woman who does not wear falst
tresses of some kind.-St. James Gazette