Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1906-10-05
The Vanity of Men -.

Man generally piques himself that
vanity in woman springs from a de-
sire to please him, but he can plead
no such excuse for his own predilec-
tion for dress. In the beginning he
had recourse to personal adornment
was under no obligation to satisfy
her esthetic taste. He was merely
following nature, which has always
made the male the exponent of ply
steal beauty-witness the lion, the
stag, the peacock.
If it had not been for the strange
tendency men have always exhibited
to initiate the dress of the military,
it is possible that the custom of shaw
ing would I've hav e been introduced
among Europeans. In early times it
was the badge of slavery, a survival
OF the prehistoric custom OF marking
slaves by mutilating their bodies.
After>a gradual softening of manners
had put an end to the former cruel
practices, shaving the head and the
beard was reSorted to as a means of
distinguishing the servants from
their masters. Under such circum-
stances the significance Of a smooth
face was Of course enough to prevent
the spread of shaving among freemen,
and it was not until Alexander the
Great discovered that the boards Of
| hiS cold 10 nc q ff0rla1 fDD p,ruariart ,
grip for his Persian enemies in battle,
and on that account ordered all his
soldiers to shave, that the custom
gained any vogue at all. The remark
able success that Alexander and his
armies achieved made it an honor to
be considered a soldier, ana so civil
ians seeking to gain a little reflected
glory also began to shave.
Our own experience in America has
been just the reverSe Of this. Most Of
the boys and men who served through
the Civil War, having no longer, of
course, the reason for shaving that
the ancient Greeks did, and finding
1t an irkSome and uncOngenial task
amid the turmoil Of camp life, ceased
to make use of the razor, and return
ed to their homes with luxuriant
boards. Once more the civilians be-
gan to initiate, and the result was
the flowing mustache, the military
goatee, the square cut chin beard,
and all the rest of the styles so preva-
lent thirty years ago. The disappear
ance Of these facial adornments in
latter days has been due to the wide
spread demand for young men,. The
man of sixty began to realize that
without his deeply dropping mustache
he would look fifty. His pride, how
ever, his respect for the worlds opin-
ion, caused him to fear that to shed
it altogether would have made it too
apparent that he was trying to appear
young, so he did the next best thing
and had it stubbed.
HISTORY OF WHISPERS.
An honest history of the beard
would lay open an undercurrent Of
petty vanity in many of the worlds
greatest figures. Henry VIII, for
instance, shaved until he learned
that Francis I. of France wore a
beard, and then he laid aside his
razors and his strops forever. Even
the gentle Sir Thomas More had a
beard which was his joy and his pride.
When he was on the scatfold and
the headsman was about to lift the
fatal ak, Sir Thomas halted him say
ing. "Wait till l put aside my beard,
for that has committed no treason"
Again there was the celebrated Bis
hop of Clermont, who was appointed
to that office shortly after the Council
of Trent, and who precipitately fled
his bishopric one Easter Sunday
morning rather than suffer the loss of
his beard. What faults Of feature in
the good bishop, a %retreating jaw, a
fat neck, blubber lips, or what not,
might have been revealed through
the agency of the scissors and razor
we know not, but that the conceal
ment of such facial flaws has always
been to a greater or a less degree the
motive for the growth of boards is
certain.
In Mexico and other Spanish coun-
tries the hat has for centuries been
the object of mans vanity. The Gus
tom found its origin in the days when
the Hapsburg power was supreme.
One of the most cherished privileges
that the old grandees enjoyed was
that Of wearing their hats in the pre-