The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-04-15
WHO INVENTED SHAVING?
In Ancient Days a BeardIess Man Had
Little Honor.
Philadelphia Record.

Philadelphia Record.
Who first introduced among civilized men
the tonsure of the chin? The shaver polls
and faces of ecclesiastics date from the
time of Pope Anacletus, who introduced
the custom upon the same literal authority
of Scripture that still causes women to
wear bonnets in churches, that they may
not pray uncovered. Is IL not a little sug-
gestive that women obey this order of st.
Paurs with so much readiness. and yet
invade the ministry of the church, from
which they are explicitly debarred by the
sine qua non, that such an officer must be
the husband of one Wife" Until ''the new
woman" has accomplished this extraordi-
nary feat it seems very naughty of her to
be a Rev But to proceed: st. Paul in
the same chapter asks the Corinthians,
Doth not nature itself teach you that If a
man have long hair il is a shame unto
him?" Pope Anacletus proposed, there
fore, to remove all shame from churchmen
by ordering them to go shaven and shorn
altogether.
The shaving of the beard by laymen was,
however. a practice much more ancient.
The Greeks taught shaving to the Ro-
mans, and Pliny records that the first
Greek BARRIERS were taken from Sicily to
Rome by Publius Ticinius in the 454th year
of the building of the city. The Greeks,
however-certainly it was so with them in
the time of Alexander-seem to have been
disposed to use their BARRIERS word for
pruning and trimming than for the COM
plete removal of the beard and of that
ornament upon the upper lip which they
called the mystax, and which we call, using
the same name they gave to 1t, slightly
corrupted, mustache. In the best days of
Greece few but philosophers wore un-
pruned boards.
A large flowing beard and a large flow
ing mantle were in those times as natural
and essentially a part of the business of a
philosopher as a striped pole is in these
days the sign of a barber.
The idea that there existed a connection
between a mans vigor of mind and body
and the vigor of growth in his beard was
confirmed by the fact that Socrates, the
wisest of the Greek philosophers, earned
pre-eminently the title of the Bearded"
Among races of men capable of growing
rich crops on the chin the beard has al
ways been regarded more or less as a type
OF power. In the worlds history the beard
ed races have at all times been the most
important actors, and there is no part of
the body which. as a whole, they have
shown more readiness to honor. In strict
accord with that feeling the strength OF
Samson was made to rest in his hair The
beard became naturally honored, inasmuch
as 1t is a characteristic feature of the chief
of the two sexes U speak as an ancient) of
man, and of man only in the best years of
his life, when he Is capable or putting forth
his Independent energies. AS years multi
ply and judgment ripens the beard grows,
and with 1t grows. or ought TO grow. ev-
cry mans title to respect. Gray boards
became thus so closely connected with the
idea of mature discretion that they were
taken often as it's sign or cause; and thus
H. was tabled of the wise King Numa that
he was g~ray-haired even in his youth.
To revert to the subject of shaving.
Tacitus says that in his time Germans cut
their boards. In our times. among that peo-
pie, the growth of a beard, or at least of a
good mystax. or mustache, had come by
the year 1SiS to be regarded so much as a
mark of aristocracy that after the revolu-
ton of that year the Germans took to the
obliteration of the vain mark of distinction
by growing hair on their own chins and up
per lips. Hairs have thus been made sig
nifcant in a new way. There is scarcely an
army in Europe that is not subject to some
regulations hat affect the beard and mus
tache. The Jews In the East, especially In
Africa. in accordance with a traditional
superstition, keep them at a uniform level
of about half an inch in length. and cut
them into cabalistic figures, curiously scat
tered about all over the face
The honor of the mustache is cherished
particularly in Hungary, and a length of
nearly half a yard is not uncommon. Sis
| mondi speaks of a Venetian magnate whose
beard was so long that the wearer had TO
| lift it up when he walked to prevent trip
ping over II. The hair of a mans head Is
generally finer than that on the head of
women, and IL left uncut would not grow
nearly TO the same length. A woman's
back hair is an appurtenance entirely and
naturally feminine. Shaving compels the
hair TO grow at an undue rate. In the
course of a year a man shaves off about
af~ oDl N hole inches of heard Gn that a
| man of eighty would lave cut of in the
course of his life a twenty-seven-foot
beard, twenty feet more. perhaps, than
would have sprouted had he left his beard
| alone.
| Sir Charles Bell, in his essay on express
| sion, observes that no one who has been at
| an assemblage of bearded men can have
failed to have remarked the greater variety
| and force of the expression they were able
| 10 convey. What can be more portentouS,
for example, than to see the brow cloud
| and the eyes flash and the nostrils dilate
| over a beard curling with anger? How Ill
does a smooth chin support at any time
| the character assumcd by the remainder
of the face. except it be a character OF
| sanctimoniouS oiliness that does not be-
| long honestly to man. or such a pretty chin
as makes the charm that should belong to
woman only or to a child. Therefore, Ii Is
pertinent to ask why do we shave our
boards. Why are we a bare-chinned peo-
| pie?
IhaN 1A0 aA oHOh tHC @oS - AAc'AA "0N
| given TO him for sufficient reason it will
take but very little time TO show. 1t has
various uses. physiological and mechanical
To take a physiological use first, the fact
may be pointed out that the formation OF
hair is one method of eXtruding carbon
from the system, and that the externa
hairs aid in their own way in the work thai
has been done by the internal lungs. Theil
use in this respect is not lessened by shaw
ing. On the contrary. the elimination OF
carbon through the hairs on the face Is
made to go on with unnatural activity be-
cause the natural effort to cover the CHR
with hair Is increased in the vain struggle
to remove the state Of an artificial baldness
and the production OF hair on the chin Il
at least quadrupled by the use of the razor
The natural balance is destroyed in thiS
way. We have all had too much oppor
tunity for noticing how in people whose
lungs are constitutionally weak. as in PEG
pie with c~onsumptive tendencies, the
growth of hair is excessive, even TO the
eyelashes. A skin covered with downy
hair is one Of the marks of a scrofulou!
child. and who has not been saddened by
the long eyelaShes over the lustrous eye
/ Of the conSumDtiVe girl.