Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1895-06-14
The MOST WONDERFUL Thing.
a Man Who Had New Experience In a
Farof Country.

A New Yorker who recently returned
TO the city after foreign tour says that
he enjoyed one experience while abroad
the like of which he never before heard
Of During my life in New York, for
40 years, he said, Il have met plenty
Of nice people and seen more acts Of
courtesy and deeds Of kindness than
would fill book 1 have known Of a
skinfint giving money to the needy and
of a passenger in an elevated car resign
ing his seat to a woman, and Of Wall
street man, with Christian symptoms,
and Of a smoker handing his lighted cigar
right end foremost 70 a stranger who
asked a light, and Of a human being
who always had a match when anybody
needed one, and Of 4 woman who would
dote on the beauty Of another without
jealousy, and Of an entertainer who
would cut for his guest better piece Of
the porterhouse steak than he kept for
himself, and even Of a curmudgeOn who
would upon occasion give proof that
there was a streak Of virtue in him All
such things one can safely expect at
times in the world.
But, though have been a customer
at BARRIERS shops in New York for 20
years, l never saw and never heard Of a
case in which a man, who, when II came
his turn to get the chair for a shave, and
when the barber cried Next !! would re
sign his place to any other man in wait
ing. He will stick up for his rights there
against the world. l have seen many a
quarrel, and two or three fights, between
men waiting to get shaved, when there
was a crowd, as to which one came III
first. l was angry myself one day when
a fellow who had been getting his boots
BACKED in the rear of the barber shop,
and whom | had not seen, stepped up TO
a chair which l was about to take and
said he had come in before me. No mat
ter if another man is in a hurry, or II
he must catch a train, or if his wife is
anxious about him because he is too late
for dinner, You won t give up your turn
in the BARRIERS chair on his account
There is one Of his rights a man will
stand up for, and you can see it at the
barber's.
when l went abroad, found the
same thing in England and France. In
London once | asked a barber if he could
not put me ahead, and he answered
sharply that he would not do it for the
Bank of England The Parisians are
polite everywhere except in the barber s
shop when their turn comes, and you
would have to fight a duel if you asked
one of them to let you get shaved before
him because your soup was growing
cold
1T was in my programme, after see
ing the French and English, to take a
trip through the highlands Of Scotland
l saw plenty of historic spots as ! made
my way far up on the Grampian hills,
where the frugal SWANS feed their hocks,
and farther yet, where the fishermen
breast the waves, but would give them
all away for an experience l had when l
reached an ancient town beyond the
Grampians one Saturday afternoon At
the inn asked for a barber, as | wanted
TO 90 to church the next day and must
be shaved. When I got TO the barber's
place, his only chair was filed, and
four or five customers were waiting their
turn In a few moments the chair was
emptied, and expected that one Of the
men would spring into it. Not man
moved The barber looked at me, smiled
and told me he was ready for me. said
to him in low voice that several others
had been there before me L dinna mind
that, he replied. You're a stranger up
here, maybe an American, and the
stranger always comes first wi us l
glanced at the other men as if to apollo
gize or to secure their assent Aye, said
one Of them, the stranger must always
be first here We can wait took the
chair with thanks, and the price Of a
shave was twopence
THE seven wonders Of the world, all
put together, and with the addition
of Cleopatra's needle in Central park,
would not have impressed me as deeply
as l was impressed by this romantic in
cident, never before paralleled in my
experience l have travelled from Boston
to Chicago, from Cripple Creek to New
Orleans, without ever hearing Of a thing
of the kind
IL do not suppose that many Ameri-
cans possess sufficient brain power to be-
heve in the literal truth Of this incident,
yet, for all that, it is true as the Gram
plan hills of the highlands Of Scotland,
where it occurred l have told tho story
to two or three Scotchmen since / came
back TO New York, but they did not
think there was ANYTHING curious or sem