Weekly Arizona journal-miner., 1905-05-31

He is ready to admit that a beard may improve the appear ,nce of face by covering natural de- fleets, that it may guard a sensitive throat against the chilling blast, and that it may add dignity and the ap- pearance of wisdom to features not naturally distinguished. For these and similar reasons boards have been worn from time immemorial, but the cham nion of the naked chin who has come out of the Middle West says that the danger lurking within them more than eounterbalances all these advantages. That danger is germs. The deadly ba- eillus which has come to haunt mod ern society like a hideous obsesslon, turks in the flowing whisker and nes- ties in the close-eropped beard. And partly because doctors are fondest or concealing their lower face in harry visor. and partly because they are most exposed through frequenting sick chambers and operating rooms, to the attacks of the invisible pests, doctors must be the first to aid the reform by clean-shaving themselves.
 It will be interesting to note how many of the profession make sacrifice of their whiskers in response to Dr. Kennedy's appeal. An unbearded doctor is not rarity nowadays, but the proportion of whiskered gentle men praetieing medicine is still over whelming. Many people believe that physicians beard themselves to add to their impressiveness. No doubt this is A vulgar error, one of those absurd beliefs that became current too late for the learned castigation of Sir Thos. Browne. However that may be, the profession is very much attached to it's whiskers, and it is very likely that pr. Kennedy will shout his slogan, "Whiskers must go!" many and many times before they actually take their departure.
 The world has always entertained | peculiar illusions on the subject of whiskers. To single out one curious notion, they somehow or other have come to be regarded as the outward sign of valor. We picture the great fighters of the world as ierce-looking men bearded like the pard. The Vii kings who swept the northern seas had great ropes of hair on their faces. The Huns and the Lombards and the olden warriors who tumbled the Roman Elm nire in the dust knew no touch of razor And so on through the centuries
 The veterans who won campaign af' ter campaign for Frederick and Napo leon were shaggy faced men. The re lation may be entirely accidental; the look of ferceness which beard SC often imparts may have been mistak en for the quality itself. And yet growth of hair on the face seems 1T some mysterious manner to affect tho most good-natured character.
 It is not many years since a scien tist who has lately attained great dis tinction in the world of electrical in yention illustrated this truth while h' was teaching in one of the colleges of San Francisco. His pupils learned to gauge his humor quite accurately by studying the condition of his face When clean-shaven he was jovial an( forbearing, and discipline relaxed hel stern features for a day. But wher he entered the lecture room with black bristly growth frowning on hi
 face, gloomy silence and careful at tention fell upon his students, for they knew his unshaven mood was danger ous.
 It is very probable that these sam' pupils established a faulty relation of cause and effect, The whole no tion of regarding Don Whiskerando
 as valiant fellow may be pure fal lacy. Certainly it has received rud
 shock since the full-bearded Cossack
 have gone down in defeat before tn
 Japanese, who are either clean-shavel
 or very tenuously provided with whis
 kers. If the hirsute ornament of tn
 masculine face has been tricking tn
 world with an arrant fraud, the tim
 is ripe for exposure. No one deserve
 credit for bravery merely because h
 spurns shaving soap. The agitation
 of the subject started by Dr. Kenned, with the weighty authority of the low State Board of Health to back him may not result in the sweeping rC form he meditates, but if it correcr
 erroneous ideas on this side issue O the matter it will not have been a
 together useless.