The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-08-15
SHAVING, THE WORLD OVER
BARBERING You CAN FEEL IN
 VILLAGES OF SPAIN.

ae1"t hSyptlhn beard Cases and
 Curled Assyrian LOcI1s--sheIIs, Min
 erals and Grasses Used in shaving-
 Delicate singeing in Africa--Lather
 Substitutes.
 Any traveller in Spain who steps off the beaten path may, like Don Qulxote, find Mambrino helmet for himself, for its swings from a staff over the door of every wayside barber An old worn out basin does for a signboard; one less old is necessary to the shaver's art.
 These barber basins of the peninsula are always made of brass. Some of the old ones are very fairly hammered, but in all the shape is the same, a product of public utility answering to unvary- ing demands.
 A half circle is cut from one rim large enough to accommodate the patrons gullet and Adams apple. Seen in pro- file the effect of a man being shaved IL as a St. John the Baptist whose head has partly slid off the charger. Thus is 1t adapted to the tonorial methods in vogue in Spain, and with but slight variations practtsed in all of village Europe.
 There are no joke weeklies to 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 at his most artis- tic angle, to tilt him back to mono tonous view of the ceiling. Instead the sufferer Is planted bolt upright in a straight backed chair, and throughout the operation his is the sole responsibi- lity of holding basin 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 regards father as merely an ornate incident, He vets his patrons cheeks and smears them with good hard soap, well rub bed on. Then he uses his razors to eX- cavate this cement of stiffening soap, molstening it only when it is found too hard to work.
 The soap is dragged off with little re- gard to the feelings of the sufferer; the question is never put: Docs 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 a fashion, prac- tically all the world slaves. The most consistent advocates of the cleanly shaven face are the Indians of Ameri- ca. Nature has helped them out at the beginning, for hair upon their faces appears only late in life and then very sparsely. For this reason it Is not So difficult and painful as it might seem to follow the Indian custom of pulling out each hair as soon as it reaches a length that will permit it to be gripped,
 Another stock whose beard is late and scanty provides employment for large guild of barbers in shaving high. This is seen in the blue rim which enclrcles the roots of any Chinaman's queue,
 Being Mongolian, a Chinese razor is naturally like no other in the world. It looks like a split half dime mounted on stick; but the Chinese find 1t extre- mely effective, and that must serve as complete test of its efficiency.
 The race that peopled the valley of the Nile when Egypt was the home of all the worlds enlightenment shaved so completely that one might infer 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 exception.
 The Pharaohs and their captains seem to have grown 8 few struggling hairs on the chin. At any rate they wore richly ornamented boxes to cover the boards which they may or may not have been able to grow. So long as nothing showed but the beard box grummed upon the chin and one might wear the ceremonial and symbolic box even if 11e could not raise beard to i'll 1t.
 Their great rivals for the empire of the ancient world, the Assyrians, were abundantly supplied with boards. That they held them in high esteem may be inferred from the fact that they carved them on the eff1gies of their sacred bulls and other gods of long forgotten theology.
 If one may accept the statuary of Mesopotamia as a safe giude to the fashions 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 evidence of the limitations of the art of the an- cient sculptor who could not carve hair positively unless he made 1t look like rope. It seems hardly conceivable that Nebuchadnezzar and Assurbanipal would submit to fashion that involved putting their heads up in curl papers every night.
 No modern race goes conspicuously and completely unshorn except the black fellows of the Australian bush
 Among the people of the earth who shave wholly or in the part the utensils of the barber's high calling vary, Soap- and shaving brush are a triumph of ad- vancing civilization, the sybarite's effort to secure his ease. Some of the lower races wet the cheeks with water or the juices of fruit or sap of trees, but for the most part the savage slaves dry.