The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-11-17
RAZOR'S DEVELOPMENT.
BLADES ARE NOV EASILY MADE BY MACHINERY.

Der and His PartOn-The RazOr's
 Principle Three Thousand Years old.
 American inventors have come to the assistance of the man who slaves him. self, and in doing so have made the first great change in a process which existed before authentic history was written. Standing with his razor and strop. shivering before his mirror in the early hours of winter morning, the average citizen has little time or inclination to reflect that he is grap- bling with task which taxed the pa- tience of men who lived scores of cen- turies ago. But he may take comfort in the thought that in all ages the peo- ples most advanced in civilization have valued the razor and waged war on the beard. The ancient Egyptians. whose dress was of the scantiest, were never theless scrupulous in shaving, and some archaeologists have maintained that the hairs of their heads as well as their boards were sacrificed to their intense love of personal cleanliness.
 Among the Greeks the beard was at all times regarded with veneration, but the clean-shaven men finally set the fashion. Diogenes expressed his opin- ion when he remarked to a young man
 whose face was clean shayen: T am afraid you think you have great grounds to accuse the gods for having made you a man and not a woman
 Diogones, however, was an untidy creature, as far as can be judged after so many creatures, and his opinion on questions of dress could hardly have
 been considered an expert one by the dandies of Athens. Instead of the tire
 some old philosopher, the gilded youth
 of ancient Greece probably followed as
 their leader Clesippus, the fine son oi .Chabrias, who, tradition says, was ac-
 customed to shave himself three times a day.
 As the razors of those days were
 probably not remarkable for theil
 keenness, the life of Grecian Beat
 Brummel must have had it's draw
 backs. As early as 300 B. c. barbers
 were imported from Sicily to Rome tand the practice of shaving came rap. idly into favor. That the first Roman to be shaved daily was the great Scipic
 Africanus is a fact which has beer used with telling effect against those
 misguided persons who hold that 2 well-grooned man is of necessity emp.
 ty-headed
 T., y,,a,.o 1,,o55,,t, ti,,,as, tl,5 ,,o+i.,as, < Europe have allowed fashion to deter. mine this question as it has that of ev. 1 ierything connected with mankind's ap. pearance. Louis XIII and Louis XIV came to the throne of France wher children, and their loyal subjects were too polite to allow themselves anything which the sovereign had not, and g smooth chin became the mark of a pol. l.ished man. In general, as civilization progressed long boards fell into disfa. vor In his enthusiasm for progress ir every direction, Peter the Great deter mined that his Russian Boyars must 1 dispense with their cherished boards This was as great a grievance to the Slav patriarchs as the loss of money o1 their more lucrative honors With the development of standing armies, sig nificance of another kind was attached F to mans hirsute appendages Fol years a clean-shaven chin and long lnustaches were the distinguishing marks of soldier, and it is only com paratively recent that mere civilians have ventured to adopt this style. On the other hand, the mustache is to-day the sign of gentleman on the conti- nent of Europe. T must let my mus tache grow before I go home" said a young Belgian the other day, feeling his upper lip, which had been clean shaven during his stay here. tIf ] don't my people will ask me if I was a coachman or a waiter in America. J
 While fashion has been juggling
 through the centuries with mans ap. pearance, the manner in which her de. crees have been carried out has not un. til very recently been materially al tered. The method recommended by Pepys in his diary of 1862, of trim. ming ones self with punice stone which learned of MT. March, and ] found it very easy, speedy and pleas. ant" has not come into common use What the Egyptians used to rid them.
 selves So carefully of their boards VI do not know, but in Etruscan tombs archaeologists have found razors .; flint and bronze which must have beer I placed there as early as 900 B. c
 Bronze razors of peculiar shape have been found in the British Isles Cortes found the Aztecs didigentlS chopping off their boards with pieces oi a natural volcanic substance known as
 obsidian, which must have been ever
 worse than the flint. and other extra ordinary substitutes for steel have
 been adopted by suffering humanity. It remained for American inventors to upset the customs of the centuries in order to help the man who yields g razor. The first step was designed
 merely to protect the unskillful and, placing the blade in sort of cage, tht
 safety razor was made. Then King c
 Gillette, recognizing the fact that the average mans greatest difficulty wher
 he slaves is the sharpening of the ra.
 zor, bent his energies to the production of blade which could be used ten, if. | teen or twenty times without losing its edge. His first attempt was made h5 grinding a watch spring to an edge. | worked well enough to encourage hin