Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-08-05

Any Old Thing,
cess in business hinges upon the constantly
increasing degree of Tugs they put on; so
that any man who has Is cents in his
pocket for shave can now find amount
of soothing entertainment in a barber shop
that he can get nowhere else for the same
money.
cally revolutionized during the past ten
years. L don't belong to the garrulous tribe
OF BARRIERS. whose converse tional tendencies
were SO skllfully hit off by Mark Twain a
good many years ago-for Mark it is not
generally recalled, was the originator of the
taikative barber: but since you ask ME. I
repeat that the barber of today is as much
OF an Improvement on the porcina SLAM
cash, WaXed-mustache barber of a decade
ago as the electrician of this period is an
Improvement on the arc light carbon filter
OF ten years back. / can easily recall the
time when faStidious men so dreaded tha
manipulations of BARRIERS that they would
permit their boards to sprout until thcy
looked like Wandering Willfes before they
would subject themselves to the dreariness
or barber shop shave and out of their
dread for the barber shops of their day they
would permit their hair to grow raeyedly
over their collars until finally chased TO
barber shops by their wives
What Brought the Chnnge,
The greasy, ill-smelling barber shop.
strewn with dog's-eared pink police ma
pers, and presided over by a dead-and-sone
class or razor and scissors wfelders. who
ate navy plug tobacco in their endeayor
to smother the exhalations of rum that
Wonidn't be smothered, has been practi-
caily wiped out. A few of them NAV re-
main in the outskirts of cities and in small
towns, but their number is growing smaller
All the Time There are certainly very few
OF them left in Washington. That sort of
barber shop wrought almost irreparabIe in
jury TO the barbering business for the men
VINO ran them never made allowance for
the natural growth of fastidiousness on the
par. OF their patrons. They therefore made
no attempt to mend their coarse practices
nor TIC so arrange and tidy I'D their shons
as 10 make them attractive, instead of re-
pulsiVe. to the men who thought they we're
eoliipeiled 70 visit them three or four times
a week 1t was this lack of foresight that
knocked, so to speak. the barbering bust
ness A large proportion of the men who
pad been enduring with more or less pa
tlence the tri-weekly inttiction of dirty
towels and a pervading atmosphere Of
grease, slouchiness and pink aperism at
their pafber shops, finally hit upon the
pliilianl eHpeoient OF shaving themselves
NOW, man who picks up the skill to sue
cessfuily shave himself cannot easily he
Weaned from the self-shaving Dractice
he generally continues to do his own shaw
ing for the remainder of his existence
tHos ABOUT ten years ago, when this self
SHAVING movement began to assume such
large proportions, the boss BARRIERS under
went a period of business depression that
caused them to do whole lot Of tb;nL;n
and the Improvement in the general nate
up OF barber shops and in barbering meth
ods oates from that tme-after however
an immense lot of custom had been lost
that Will never he regained
Until few years ago the very 1ast
place that man who had been eniovtns
himself the night before would think nf
tss3rtlhg 10 the next morning would be a
barber shop; for in his nervous and ob-
Wnat-a-oinerence condition he wouldn't
look to find much soace in the old tir,a
nafoer snop. But the first thing that the
cltlZen OF today does after a night of ex
pansive dining is to navigate to a harbar
shop just as soon as he can get into his
harness in the morning, where he is hot
lowered ana face-massaged and head
rubDed ana Shampooed and bathed in aro
matte unguents and ointments and nhvsi
caliy and mentally comforted until the %
morse FADES out of his countenance. and
he goes forth into the sunlight hraoad
against evil, four-square to temntation "a
blessing the whole species of tonsoria1
artists, from the Barber of Seville dow.
Fact, l assure you. Where did / learn if
all? Never mind. ~
Boss Barber's Experience.
I've handled shears and razors in a good
many Dig towns in this country" went on
the boss barber. land 1 don't think the
barber shop patrons of any of them ara
more particular about their barberinp than
myself when the outfit is busy, and since
I've been handling tools in Washington rye
practically given up the notion that l am
onto any kinks about cutting mems hair
that are worth knowing Before l came
here l used to get show once in a while
to cut head of hair after my own ideas
as to how 1t ought to be done; although for
fact men all over nowadays are becom-
ing pretty finfcal as to their hair cuts But
in Washington I never give a clip of the
shears around a mans head before asking
him just how he wants to have his hair
cut. And. as general thing, the WASH
ington man Is loaded for the question, and.
as often as not gives me list of minute
directions as to how he wants the job done
that makes me wish I had studied short
hand, so as to be able to get 'em all down
in black and white for better guidance
Moreover. the average Washington man
doesn't read his paper while he is getting
hts hair cut. Not any. does he! He is too
busy in his supervisory capacity. He gets
focus on himself in the glass and watches
every snip of the scissors. You talk about
the barber doing the talking! Not In this
town, he doesn't He is too busy listening.
Just bit off there and Trim her q little
on the side and Take very little or the
top and BE sure you cut 1t round in the
blackwell. the Washington barber gets