The San Francisco call., 1904-03-20
IMPOSING WIGS
OF BARRISTERS
English Courts Still Adhere
to POmpS and Forms of
Five Centuries or More Ago
HEADDRESSING BY YEAR
New Styles Now Displacing
the Old and but Few Are
Wearing the Real Thing"

In the procession Of judges and bar
risters with which the English law
courts has reopened the wigmaker
plays a conspicuous part Holstoy has
said that in some plays the maker-up
is as great an artist as the actor. 1t
may be that the wigmaker Is as i'm
portant pillar OF the law as the Lord
Chancellor himself
Wigs, like many other human insti-
tutions, are not what they were. The
old wig had to be made OF human hair
OF dark color, and was pomatumed
and powdered every morning. An army
Of dressers went down to Westminster
and there attended to each OF his circle
of clients, with whom he had an annual
contract. 1t was not a particularly en-
Joyable occupation, but 1t meant a
steady income, which was completely
cut off by the introduction Of the horse
hair wig. We have wondered how the
human hair was procured. and from
ali we have learned are still at liberty
to imagine that it came from the heads
Of felons the advocacy of other bar
risters had brought to the scaffold.
To-day DR.. Tristram, chancellor OF
the Bishop OF London's Consistory
Court, is the only considerable luminary
who wears the old style of wig. though
until very lately he was kept in count
enance by Mr.. Iderwick, K. C. The
wigs that are worn now are made Of
white horse hair, with a faint admix-
ture of black. They do not require to be
powdered, and only once in half a
dozen years or so need they be recurled.
Some half dozen wigmakers in and
around the Temple and Lincoln's Inn
many Of them related by marriage, and
all of them of long tanding-furnish
the gown and wig lawyers between
them. 1t seems that there is an open
ing for a competitor. The price of a
plain barrister's wig is &5 5s, but ii
sometimes takes two or three weeks to
make
The head of Mr.. Briefess is very
carefully measured and the lines of
his Uranium marked upon the most
suitable of hundred blocks or more
that the shop contains. The proper
surface is then covered with trellis
of fine silk ribbon, carefully sewn to-
gether at every point of intersection
On this trellis work the wig is care
fully built, so that at last it fits al
most as closely as the owners scalp
itself. other industrious fingers have
prepared long strings Of hair woven
upon silk cord-for the crown of the
head little loops, and for the back
something more like cropped hair, and
technically called SNAP" Hundreds
of yards of the two kinds are sewn
on to the foundation, till all is close
ly covered and then the various curls,
each very nicely made, are added.
| Those two little curls that dangle
down the back (Sir Edward Carson's
wig lacks one of them) are each made
of two sets of hair, plated like fingers
| in prayer at the end, and thence curved
/ together and so deftly knotted that
not a hair is buckled from it's place.
1t is a long time before the average
barrister comes back for a new wig.
Even the man who does not care to
wear silk hat that has lost It's pris-
tine gloss appears cheerfully in a wig
| twenty years old In fact, an old wig
| is often a desideratum, as 1t invests
the head of it's wearer with an ap-
pearance of having large practice-an
appearance that is sometimes contrary
to the fact. One Of the largest Of heads
belonging to the legal profession is that
of Lord Alverstone.-New York Globe.