Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1906-09-18
SHAVING, THE WORLD OVER.
Barberins You Can Feel In Villages
of Spain.

off the beaten path may, IKE Dor
Quixote, find a Mambrino helmet fol
himself, for 1t swings from a staff
over the door Of every wayside bar
ber. An old and worn out basin
does for a signboard; one less old Is
necessary to the shaver's art.
These barber basins Of the penin-
sula are always made of brass
Some of the old ones are fairly ham
mered, but in all the shape Is the
same, a product of public utility an.
swering an unvarying demand.
A half circle is cut out from one
rim large, enough to accommodate
the patrons gullet and Adams apple
Seen in profile the effect of a man
being shaved Is as a st. John the
Baptist whose head had partly slid
off the charger. Thus is it adapted
to the tonsorial methods in vogue In
Spain, and with but slight variations
practiced in all of the villages Of Eu-
rope.
There are no joke weeklies 70
while away the time of waiting; there
are no chairs with complicated gear
to raise and lower the patient, to
swing him around into the light al
his most artistic angle, to tilt him
back to a monotonous view of the
ceiling. Instead the sufferer is plant
ed bolt upright in straight chair,
and throughout the operation his is
the sole responsibility of holding ba-
sin of water at his throat, and If he
spills the suds down upon the front
of his shirt the blame is his alone.
Nor does the difference cease here.
The peasant barber Of Europe re-
CARDS lather as merely an ornate in
cident. He vets his patrons cheeks
and smears them with good hard
soap, we'll rubbed in. Then he uses
his razor to evacuate this cement of
stiffening soap, moistening 1t only
when it is found too hard to work.
The soap is dragged off with little
regard to the feelings Of the sufferer;
the question is never put: Does this
razor pull?" When the barber has
gone his round from ear to ear the
patient takes his bowl and washes up
for himself. When the sharp suds
sting his cheeks he rests content, for
he has had a shave that he can feel.
Despite attempts at long intervals
to make hair on the face fashion,
all the world shaves. The
most consistent advocates Of the
cleanly shaven face are the Indians
Of America. Nature has helped them
out at the beginning, for hair upon
their faces appears only late in life
and then very sparsely. For this rea-
son 1t is not so difficult and painful
as 1t might seem to follow the Indian
custom of pulling out each hair as
soon as it reaches length that will
permit it to be gripped.
Another stock whose beard is late
and scanty provides employment for
a large guild Of BARRIERS in shaving
high. This is seen in the blue rim
which encircles the roots Of any Chi
naman's queue.
Being Mongolian, a Chinese razor is
not like any other razor in
the world. 1t looks like a split half
dime mounted on a stick; but the
Chinese find 1t extremely effective,
and that must serve as a complete
test of its efficiency.
The race that peopled the valley Of
the Nile when Egypt was the home
Of all the worlds enlightenment, shaw
ed so completely that one might in
fer that they had adopted the billiard
ball as the type of beauty, for from
the point Of the chin to the nape Of
the neck not a hair was spared. Here.
though, crops out the military excep-
ton.
The Pharaohs and their captains
seem to have grown a few struggling
hairs on the chin. AT any rate they
wore richly ornamented boxes to COW
er the boards which they may or may
not have been able to grow. So long
as nothing showed but the beard box
upon the chin, any one
might wear the ceremonial and SYM
bolic box, even If he could not raise a
beard to fill it.
Their great rivals for the empire Of
the ancient world, the Assyrians, were
supplied with boards
That they held them in high esteem
may be inferred from the fact that
they carved them upon the effigies Of
their sacred bulls and other gods of
long forgotten theology.
If one may accept the statuary Of
as a safe guide to the
of those early Oriental times
It would appear that the Assyrian
beard was worn in long ringlets. That
may, however, be no more than an ev-
ldence of the limitations of the art Of
the ancient sculptor, who could not
carve hair positively unless he made
1t look like rope. 1t seems hardly
that Nebuchadnezzar and
would submit TO a fash
ion that involved putting their heads
up in curl papers every night
No modern race goes conspicuously
unshorn except the black fellows Of
the Australian bush.
Among the people Of the earth who
shave wholly or in part the utensils
Of the BARRIERS high calling widely
vary. Soap and shaving brush are a
triumph of advancing civilization, the
sybarite's effort to secure his ease.
Some Of the lower races wet the
cheeks with water or the juices Of
fruits or sap of trees. but for the most
part the savage shaves dry.
Such of the native tribes along the
Amazon as shave at all in preference
to plucking out their scanty boards,
prepare their cheeks by swabbing
with the heavy sap of the tree which
Yields the rubber. In tropical Africa
the oil Of the oil palm is used for the
same purpose.
In the East Indies generally the
pulp of the ripe banana is rubbed to a
cream on the cheeks and chin with
the abundant juice which may be
frop, laof cteDn nf the same