The Aberdeen Democrat. (Aberdeen, South Dakota) 1???-1909, 1904-01-08
WIGS OF B~ARRIsTERS.
The Man Who Makes Them Is an IIno
portant Pillar Of the Law
in London.

-## -Et@EasE 5rHIaEEHa
In the procession of judges and bar
%risters with which the law courts has
reopened the wig-maker plays q con-
spicuous part. Tolstoi has said that in
some plays the maker-up is as great an
artist as the actor; it may be that the
wig-maker is as important a pillar of the
law as the lord chancellor himself, says
the London News.
Wigs, like many other human insti-
tutions, are not what they were. The
old wig had to be made of human hair
of a dark color, and was pomatumed and
powdered every morning. An army of
dresses went down to Westminster, and
there attended Zach to his circle of
clients, with whom he had an annual
contract. 1t was not a particularly en-
joyable occupation, but it 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 all we have
learned are still at liberty to imagine
that it came from the heads of felons the
advocacy of other barristers 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 countenance
by Mr.. Inderwick, K. G. The wigs that
are worn now are made of white horse
hair, with a faint admixture of black.
They do not require to be powdered, and
only once in half a dozen years or SO
need they be recuried. Some half dozen
wfgmakers in and around the Temple
and Lincoln's Inn-many of them re-
lated by marriage, and all of long stand
ing-gown and wig lawyers between
them. 1t seems that there is an opening
for a competitor. The price Of a plain
barrister's wig is G5 5s., but it some
times takes two or three weeks to make.
The head of Mr.. Brie1ess is very care
fully measured, and the lines of his cran-
ium marked upon the most suitable Of
a hundred blocks or more that the shop
contains. The proper surface is then
covered with a trellis of thin silk ribbon,
carefully sewn together at every point
Of intersection. On this trellis work the
wig is carefully built, SO that at last it
fits almost as closely sthe owners scalp
itself. Other Industrious fingers have
prepared long strings of hair woven upon
silk cord-for the crown of the head lit
tie loops, and for the back something
more like cropped hair, and technically
called snap" Hundreds of yards ofthe
two kinds are sewn on to the foundation,
till all is closely covered, and then the
various curls, each very nicely made,
are added. Those two little curls that
dangle down the back (Sir Edward Car
sons wig lacks one of them) are each
made of two sets of hairs, plated like
finge- 5 in prayer at the bend, 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
a silk hat that has lost it's pristine gloss
appears cheerfully in a wig 20 years old.
In fact, an old'wig is often adesideratum,
as it invests the head of its wearer with
an appearance of having a large practice
an appearance that is sometimes con-
trary to the fact. One of the largest of
heads belonging to the legal profession
is that of Lord Alverstone.