The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1899-04-15
! YOUR HAIRS PRETTY LONG, :


kind, enlivened the tonsorial process with
| chat for a while. Then he began to ask
questions. =: - :,
by the way. DOCTOR" he queried, what
/ would be the best and most effective way
os using a razor If you wanted to kill
| yourself or some one else?'
! Place the free end of the razor under
the ear and draw it rapidly down the
crease between the jawbone and the neck:
at the same time use good deal of
pressure was the unsuspecting reply,
| IN this way you would reach both the
jugular- vein and the pneumogastric
| nerve" ..s -, : = - :" :
The barber thanked the doctor. and
when about half way through with the
shaving begged to be excused for a mo-
| ment, and left the room. After waiting
ABOUT a quarter Of an hour the doctor
went on a tour of Investigation, and was
mortified to find that the barber had put
the directions for a sure and bloody sui
eide into practice. One side Of the Door
1eiioW's neck was laid completely open.
ana the deed had been done with the razor
that had been used on the. doctors face
In the old days men Of all trades used
TO travel while learning their craft. in
order TO discover the tricks of their call
ings IN many localities. When they had
oeen on the road a certain number of
years they. We're thought well qualified
Tor their work, and entitled to- be known
as journeymen tinsmiths, or carpenters.
or what not. This practice died out long
| ago In most trades. 1t persisted in the
tramp printer till the typesetting ma
chines came in, but the travelling barber
IS about. the only survivor now left.
| travelling BARRIERS term themselves ton
serial tourists, and the chances are that
your favortte barber has worked in half
the great cities of the land. Most ton
serial tourists are also traders in. razors.
ana some or them make much better in
comes exchanging new razors for "hooks''
and working a day or two at the trade
each week than most BARRIERS who hold
regular chairs. Hooks are old razors
or the broad, heavy type, IN use some
years ago, but now replaced by narrower
ligher blades. Hooks are generally Of
excellent steel, and the tonsorial tourist
Is glad to give a bright new ra zor for
one of the old ones, for he can grind II
down on q ':swatty stone" to about the
size of a modern razor and sell it for az
gOoo price as new one. Some BARRIERS
buy all their razors from the tonsorial
tourists, and "swatty-stoned hooks are
| In great demand In certain of the shops.
Did You ever see a barber drop a razor?
Prooaoly not, for razor dropping in count
ed mighty clumsy trick in any shop and
by any barber. Besides, many of the
craft count 1t an exceedingly unluclky
thing to do. A white-haired barber who
was shaving the writer dropped the razor
one day. and seemed to lose half his nerve
by the mishap. His hand trembled so
badly that, he hesitated to finish the shaw
in. and his voice shook as If he were suf-
fering G. chin, Wi,iles he explained the
frightful things morally certain to befau
a barber who, had been so careless. 49, X
You can ward off the bad luck in only
one way said the barber las he put the
razor back in the case and took out a
fresh one, 'a1na that is never to use the
dropped razor again. I've used Old Tom
a. 49, IL.
five years steady, and it's been my main
standby all that time Now I daren't
handle it any more, and darent sell It,;
for then my bad luck would be worse
than ever I might give it away without
bad luck to myself, but the man I'd give
it to would be unlucky as long as he kept
anc used it. All BARRIERS don't know about
bad luck in razor dropping, specially the
youngsters in the business; but most OF
them that's been at it for good many
years does. There's a heap of unlucky
things a barber can do, but he don't find
out about 'em much before he's middle
aged
Positively one Of the worst things that
can befall a superstitious barber Is to
trust the first customer in the morning.
A barber has been known to lend first
customer the necessary fifteen cents to
pay for shave rather than hang 1t
up" yet BARRIERS we'll up in unlucky lore
the stump to be a subterfuge Of no value
whatever in warding off the demon of i'll
luck.
1.-THE only thing for barber to do in
such a case,' declared the gray-haired
tonsorialist, in a burst of confidence, lis
to put on his hat and leave the shop for
the day. Even then it doesn't always
work. Once when tried that plan went
away and played the races and lost full
two months wages. You see the bad luck
followed me wherever I went"
Here are three bad luck maxims religi-
ously held to be true by some of the older
BARRIERS, though it ought to be said that
most men of the craft nowadays are as
free from superstition as the run of other
folk:
Cut a man on Monday, cut seven before
Sunday. |
A compliment - early in the morning
means grumblings and curses from Gus
toners all day long. ,-..-,-
No tip before Monday noon. means all
sorts of bad luck till Saturday night
In China the BARRIERS are "great people"
for as a nation the Chinese are the most
noteworthy of earthly shavers. A China
man with a bearded face or an unshaven
poll Is a creature rarely seen, and, as
Stunning the population of the Chinese en-
pire to be 400, 100000, quite 1000, ZOO, 900
Chinese faces and as many Celestial pates
have to pass under the hair removing
razor once a week at the least. The bar
bers therefore, form a decidedly important
portion of the whole people. They have
| their guilds and trade unions, and when
| they all combine they can do almost any
| thing they like. E.s.s@
| In spite of this, tradition hath it that
there was a time when by imperial edict
| the BARRIERS were classed so low in the
| social scale that no razor-wfelder was al
| lowed to enter the lists of competitive ex-
animation for official place. After while
they rebelled, according to the story and
their rebellion took the form of a general
strike From Canton to Pekin, from Thi-
| bet to the Yellow sea, no Monaghan was
shaved. The bristly condition of the en-
peror's subjects in circumstances such as
| these soon created a pressure upon his
| imperial ineffableness which caused the
resembling Of the Objectionable edict, and
| ever since that time BARRIERS and the sons
| of BARRIERS have been eligible to the examt-
nations. To-day, Is this story, which is
not, Vonched for, be true a BARRIERS soon
may become viceroy or attain any other
old rank If only he be able to learn the
necessary passages from the writings or
Confusius by heart. ssEt
Although mandarin and other disti1-
guished Chinese are invariably shaved in
private, and generally by personal at
tendants, nine-tenths of all the barbering
| OF China is done In. the publicity of the
street. 1t costs only a cent to be shaved
! anywhere in the interior. of China, unless
you are supposed to be rich, for the price
rises with the customers apparent wealth.
A BARRIERS outfit complete cannot cost
more than the equivalent of 81 or So. The
razor, made in triangular shape, may be
worth a dime The cotton strop isn't
more than half as costly. Besides there
ore O hra &c basin the most expensive part