The Mena weekly star., 1897-01-20
THE BEARD IN HISTORY.
Pogonotomy. or the Gentle Art of Self
 Shaving.

y. n f~
 Shaving.
 The practice of pognonotomy, the aarbers say, is every year becoming more and more widespread. Pognonot- omy is what the Greeks used to call the gentle art of self-shaving. Some people shave themselves because they wish to save time, others to save money. But the fashion of going smooth shaven is steadily increasing, and it is quite probable that within another five years beards and mustaches will be still less in vogue than they are to-day.
 The decadence of the beard among civilized races and the reason for it's disappearance are interesting things to trace. Long ago a luxuriant beard was thought to betoken a high degree of holiness or wisdom. Even now the believers of the Koran reverence the beard, and swear by that of their proph- ct But it would seem that in this very idolatry of the beard lay the cause of its downfall, for the possessor of a handsome beard was prone to vanity, and was likely to spend so much time in decorating it that he ran the risk of neglecting more important matters. So the church and state, then closely icined, declared againstit. The French swells of less than 200 years ago used to crimp their boards, twine them with threads of gold and hang them with pearls. Philip of Valois, who was one of the leaders of fashion of his day, used to tie golden acorns to his beard. The result was the popes and monarchs began to issue bulls and edicts against birsute appendag as, sometimes with temporary effect, and sometimes with none at all. Pope Leo TX and Gregory VII. mathematical the beard, and this means that thcv cursed it, root and branch, for a papal anathema in those days was some thing sweeping and terrible.
 In the army the first reason for abol- ishing the beard was that of cleanli- ness. Up to the time of Alexander the Great the Greeks were bearded peo- pie, but that ruler made every one of his Grecian soldiers shave. The Romans, too, made shaving obligatory in the army, and there were few boards or none among the civilians. The beard was then considered to be the characteristic feature of the barbarian. The first Roman whom history records as having shaved every day was Scipio, the conqueror of Africa. In later times Peter the Great of Russia made an at tempt to banish the boards from his half-civilized dominions, but achieved ,lx- afa in4< time even endangered his throne by the maintenance of his decree. Wll- liam the Conqueror was another great commander who would have no boards about his court or among his soldiers. In France in 1858 all the lawyers were forced to go clean shaven, and eight years later the clerks lost their boards by law.
 And so the barber's trade has grown, but now they themselves acknowledge that their ranks are swelling faster than those of their customers. In times of financial prosperity the barbers' pc ckets bulge with coin, but when business is depressed, they say, their customers by the score shave them selves.
 No one would think of making the modern barber a hero of romance, like the barbers who fit through the pages of the Arabian Nights" or .'Gil Blas." IL would be hard to fancy that the ancestor of the man who slaves you to-day and tries to force on strangers all sorts of tonics for the hair and other costly and impossible things was per haps he who inspired the shears that subdued Samson.-N. Y. Sun.