The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1896-04-10

ders are in a great measure due to that
luxury of modern life, the pillow.
The Chinese and japanese use in the
Place of a pillow a little hollowed-in
llock of wood, which, when the sleeper
lies upon his side-the usual position
presses strongly against the lower part
pf the cheek bone, forcing the flesh
toward the outer corner of the eye.
May not the peculiar facial characters
lies of these p~eople-high cheek bones
and slanting eyes-be owing to this
small but powerful agent? Notwith-
standing these races have been in a
state of standardization for ages, dur
ing which time we may suppose these
head rests have been used, the children
yet have these peculiar features in a
much-less-marked degree than their
elders, and, indeed, many of them do
not have the slanting eyes at all INC
only acquire them as they grow older.
If the reader will experiment upon him
self a little with enc of these curious
wooden blocks every doubt will vanish.
The feather pillow is a most fruitful
source of wrinkled, ill-shaped faces. To
it's use-always ably assisted by the
ever-ready hands-may be attributed
the accumulation of most of the flesh
of the face around the mouth and nose,
giving the appearance of high cheek
bones, and forming around the mouth
those concave lines called by the Auto
crat of the Breakfast Table "the paren-
theses"
The next time the reader finds him
self alone in a crowd let him open his
eyes and look about him. In the face
Of those about him he cannot fail to see
deep prints of the hand and the pillow.
There will be many tiny, deep sunken
eyes that have been thrust far back into
the head by frequent hard rubbings.
The crowd will be plentifully pune
tuated with the Autocrat's parentheses,
ranging from the first faint lines on the
faces of the young to the deep folds OF
flesh around the mouths and noses of
the old. But among no other features
will he find such variety of exquisite
ugliness as among the noses. The
noses Of infants are almost always but
shapeless Jumps of soft gristle and can
be nodded into very grotesque forms.
He will see them mashed fiat, tweaked
sharp, thrust upward, pulled downward.
There will be the young man with a
firm and stalwart figure, yet with a face
so hollow that you car almost see the
minis IF froorc IF tho fict hn hoe 1ort
thrust into it about half his leisure mo-
ments since he was a small child. If
you watch him awhile you may catch
him in the act. There will also be the
Individual whom nature has endowed
with a digniied Roman nose, which he
it upward with his handkerchief when
ever his catarrh troubled him, until it
has acquired a saucy, upward tilt. You
will be sure to see the youth with ram
pant ears and you may also see the boy
with his nose turned to one side of his
face. He has a chronic cold in his head
and is in the habit Of frequently apply
ing his nose to his right jacket sleeve.
Who that will reflect can doubt that
if the hand be heavily pressed into the
f1eshy part of the face, between the up
per and lower jaws, for no more than an
hour each day, that hollow cheeks will,
in a few years, be the inevitable result?
The ears, the nose, and the lips may
become disfigured in an incredibly short
time, by k%neading them with the
fingers, and even the forehead and chin,
If begun upon in early youth, when the
bones are more yielding than later in
life, may be made to recede by the fire.
qEent and persistent heavy pressure of
the hand or arm. It is a well-known
fact that a slender waist may be ac-
quired by systematic lacing between the
ages of IL and IS.
A good deal may be done, however,
in the same way toward repairing the
reckless inroads made by the hands
upon the face. If, after long years, you
hav& succeeded in kneading your face
into the semblance of a comic mask,
you may, after more long years, knead it
into something not altogether I'M
comely. Patient and intelligent mas
sage may do something toward round
ing out hollow cheeks, a turned-up nose
a be brought into very good shape in
a surprisingly short time and a short
upper lip will be heightened at the
same time.
It is among children, however, that
the most satisfactory results can be OBJ