The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-09-21


 Number of Men Who Shave Them
 selves.
 Newspapers seldom mention us ton- sorial artists except to have fun with us," complained the reflective barber; land yet some changes have take place within the last twenty-five years which are worthy of serious consldera- tion"
 Name 'em," grunted the fat man in the chair.
 "Well, to begin with, there was an artist in New York who made for tune,' continued the reflective barber. That, surely, is departure from the old order of things serious and start ling enough to pass beyond the pale of on top. Better try rub with our Ehlorescent Hair Compeller. Oh, about the man who got rich. He was a Bavarian and spoke no English. He owned a shop of his own downtown, not far from Wall street, and because everything was so clean, although the shop was modest enough, a great many of the swell crowd, which is to say, brokers and such used to come to him for the removal of their superiluous boards and hair He was nice look ing young fellow extremely quiet and reserved, as are most all tonSorlal ar lists, although your comic papers won't have it so; and as he did not speak English the popular supposition among his customers was that he did not understand it. All he spoke was German, and very little of that.
 Now. down in Wall street, there was a man who never had time or money enough to go to the ordinary tonsorial parlor and have his face manipulated, because time was money with him and the necessary fifteen minutes for a shave he could cash in at about $100. So he was pleased with modest no-English- spoken-he Fritz, and used to have. him around to his of- flee every morning to keep his beard under It was snap for Fritz, for the trick was worth $1 a shave, so he made no moans about being called away from his shop and paid great heed to the Wall street mans patronage.
 "As Fritz spoke no English the great Wall street mans confidential clerk
 
 was. used to come in at the time ap- pointed for shaving for chat with the boss about the business of the day; and so financial schemes and transac- tious which meant thousands of dol lars to those who understood English were fully and freely discussed before Fritz But Fritz had ears for the English language, even if he couldn't t express himself in that tongue. In fact, he understood English better than many of his countrymen who think they express themselves tluently, but he was reticent on this point, and the great Wall street man never knew. One day Fritz showed his modest sav- ings into a flyer in the street which flyer was founded on information that had passed between his Wall street patron and the junior partner. It was a success, so he followed it up the next day. Within a year Fritz announced that he would abandon the shaving of others to allow others the pleasure of shaving him. He was going to return to Bavaria he said, taking with him the S45, 900 or $50000 he had accumu- lated in Wall street. And he did. understand from the letters he occa- sionally sends back to this country that he is fairly adored as million aire. and that all the tosorial artists in Bavaria are trying to raise the price of a passage in the steerage in order to come here and do as Fritz did
 Anything else?" enquired the fat patron.
 q should say so, but cheer up; the
 t11py1 in 10 vaudeville performances, responded the reflective barber. Just gaze upon me. You wouldn't think there was anything remarkable about me, would you, at a casual glance? But there is. I am an American, and the Americans in the tonsorial business in New York are so few and far between that our lot is a lonely one. Formerly it was just the other way. All the business in the hands of the Americans, black and white and the foreigner who tried to get in had mighty hard time of it. Perhaps you have remarked this your self, How many tonsorial parlors can YOU find to-day with an American at their head, or even at their foot? You can count them all on your fingers I'll warrant, and not bother the thumbs in the calculation It's the same way with the colored folks as it is with the white. Formerly the great majority of white tonsorial artists came from New England. Native New Workers and Western men never took kindly to the art, for some req son or other which is worth investigat- ing by your sociologists, but from Massachusetts and Connecticut came nine out of every ten white tonsorial artists who worked in the metropolis. From the South came the colored bar bers. Down there is was. and is still a great distinction for negro to be a barber, and he was elevated by his calling to a high social plane, But presto! like the swift extinction of a candle in a breeze both colored and white artists have disappeared Hard ly outside of these sections of the city most frequented by negroes can you find a colored tonsorial artist and as for a shop composed of nothing but straight American barbers, that is something which positively does not ex- ist in Ne wYork to-day.
 "How many American barbers do v,u think therc are here now?"
 Not more than two in every one