The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-10-02
HAIR JEWELS
PEOPLE STILL ORDER MEMoRI-
 AIS OF THIS KIND.
Fad to Be Revived-Decline of What Was Once a Great Trade-Fashion From Paris-How Chains and Other Ornaments are
 Made.
New York Tribune.

The old. low buildings that run like isthmuses from one island skyscraper to another on the lower end of Manhattan conceal many a queer occupation ana quaint employment The manufacture Of hair jewelry Is one of those trades which has lasted over from an earlier period. With the exception of some work done in Chicago, all the hair jewelry now used, not only in this country, but in the Spanish countries to the southward. is made in two little upstairs rooms down in old New York.
 Lower New York has witnessed the rise and passing of many great bus mess. built with infinite care and labor taste. When the taste changed, nothing under Heaven could preserve the busi- ness, and now and then tragic changes have been interwoven with the closing up of the accounts.
 Hair jewelry was once a great trade In this city. There was one man who did a business of about $4o0,oo0 year in it. Forty girls were busy all day the year around in his workrooms, which filled three floors of a large building, and as many men were occupied in fashioning the gold mountings. When the Christmas season approached. and orders came thick and fast. the girls. working over time on 'piecework, could make $40 a week.
 Today the mans daughter sits in one hlllS IOOIi up lWO dilu Stlll uldhcS hair jewelry. The little room is ample for the business. and one operator can usually fill all the orders with ease.
 The fashion came Out of Paris in 1S60. and for twenty years 1t fiourished in America. But the taste changed; the man failed Id his daughter, who had been brought up in luxury, was left to carry on wavering ghost of the former bus mess, for the industry has never actu- ally died. Pounded upon fashion, 1t has
  curls still come through the mail to the little upstairs room; thin shreds of silver. pathetic in their suggestion of age; long locks of pale gold. clipped from some baby head, lying on its pillow of immor- telles. Still, at Christmas time the or ders come in from nere and there, all over the country: from little New Eng land villages, from lonely ranches on Western plains, from the rushing streets of New York; for. although the fashion has changed, people still die and leave behind those who mourn.
 Emblems of Mourning.
 There Is a funeral atmosphere in the little room, Quaintly commingled with the vanitiss of the world-brooches and baby's locks. watch chains and Willie s curls. bracelets and Bessies hair.
 On the walls are those same things on her parlor wall and that one stlll finds in the spare bedrooms of old-fash- toned village homes. There are the weeping willows and the gravestones made of hair and framed; the wreaths, the kneehng female figures, the baskets full of flowers, of all the oolors that come in hair. Incredible as 1t may seem, people mourned thus up to recent times in the South. It Is only within a few years past that orders stopped coming wall pieces, et prices ranging anywhere from $5 to $55.
 These devices" as they are called in the trade, are still ordered occasionally from Cuba and South American coun- tries. The Spanish have always been es- pecially fond of this hair work. and have never ceased to wear the hair jew elry. They Nike that which employs s'de- vices best; brooches of mother of pearl, set in gold. in the oid-fashioned oackgrcvind a tiny wreath. almost incred- ibly fine and delicate, the leaves and flowers made of hair. To make these lit- tie devices" the hair Is subjected to a treatment which attaches 1t to a very thin foundation material. Then tiny cut ters, shaped in the form desired, are used, and the completed design is ap- piled to the mother of pearl. A small portion of hair is sufficient for this A tiny lock, too, Is enough to put little bands across the top of a ring, or to fill in one side of a small heart-shaped lock- ct. or to put a little device in the top of a bracelet But 1t requires more to make a watch chain, which Is one of the most frequent orders, Probably the vest chains and fobs made of hair ex- ceed in number any other article of hair jewelry
 A curious order came in the other day from man in an inland town. who sent in three kinds of hair, and demanded that his chain be made in three pieces yellow, black and gray.
 How Chains Are Made.
 A person ignorant of hair jewelry would be mystified at first to recognize the ma terial of these chains. It makes a thick. silky cord, which may be woven in any one of fifty different patterns. Woven hair makes a ve-Hable material, which might be used for a variety of purposes. It Is material soft and yet wlry, more like a stiff silk net than anything else. To make 1t, little wooden tools called "knippels" are employed They are some to a round, revolving table, with post protruding upright from the center. The punches or strands of hair run from the bobbins to this upright. and the operator walks around the table and braids the hair. From ten to fifty hairs are at- tached to each Knippel, according to the pattern. and these hairs must be exact lv counted and made of the same length. This is for what Is called the fine work, " for rings and pins. For the heavier chains lead bobbins are used, and in all five different machines are employed.
 It is a tedious job, and when the old operators who learned the bushes in it's heydav are gone 1t Is hard to tell where new ones will be found. Girls nowa- days will not learn the trade. The dark eyed little woman who runs the busi- ness tries them now and again. but by the time they have counted 100 hairs she generally sees the ends of their petticoats vanishing down the stairway. The spirit of the age is against counting hairs, and ', ore is not enough in the business to pay for a long and tedious apprentice, Ship. The work requires great skill and