The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1907-04-26
LEFT HANDED BARRIERS.
What One Of the Tonsorial Craft Has
10 Say About Them.

70 Say About Them.
"Superstitious? | should say
yes They won't admit it to any
one except members Of the craft,
but BARRIERS are the most supersti-
tious people in the world"
The man in charge Of the second
chair at ono OF the large hotel shops
stropped his razor and loquaciously
continued:
"You see that new man down at
the end chair? He just came to
work here This morning, and he'll
have a nice large can tied to his
coat tonight. Why? Because he's
left handed. II he remained here
every barber in the shop would quit
before the week was out.
"a left handed barber is hoodoo
to any shop, and there's no getting
away from it. You may think that's
only a prejudice that BARRIERS have
for left handed knights of the razor,
but it's well grounded superstition,
as old as the trade itself.
"We'd be apt to have all kinds Of
hard luck if that fellow STAYED here
any length Of time. I~once worked
in a New York shop where there
was left handed barber, and almost
every day an accident would happen
to some of the others. We told the
proprietor where the trouble lay,
but as he was not a barber he could
not understand what difference it
made whether a man shaved with
his right or left hand.
zone day a runaway horse plung-
ed through the plate glass window,
and another day mad dog ran into
the shop, followed by a policeman,
who killed the beast under the left
handed mans chair. Without any
apparent reason the hot water fau-
Gets would get cold as ice and the
razors would refuse to work proper
lly. Customers who for years had
been in the habit of getting shaved
three or four times a week stopped
looming, and it was all due TO that
left handed barber. During all the
while he was there not one of US
won bet on policy, although the
lporter used to dream some of the
best numbers | ever saw. This fell
low / speak Of had red hair, and
that, of course, made il worse. We
finally induced the boss to fire him,
and just as soon as he was gone
things began to get good again.
"Now, this fellow on the end, who
i-:fted in this morning, looks to be
a pretty good barber, but just as
soon as the boss saw him strop a ra-
zor with his left 'mitt' il was all off
for Julius. In most shops before a
new man is hired he is asked wheth-
er he is right or left handed.
Left handed men who learn the
trade get on to this after awhile,
and then they switch to the right
hand-that is, if they can make
good with the right. I'm scared to
death that somebody is going to
get killed around here before s
o'clock tonight, when his 'nibs' will !
take off his coat and take it away
with him.
"Another superstition among bar
bers is that they don't want to
shave the first customer that comes |
in on Monday morning. That's a
sure sign of poor business all week |
for the unlucky barber OF course |
somebody has got to shave the first
man in, but you don't see the bar
bers rushing madly up to their
chairs and beckoning to the custom
er. You'll see one of them 60 for a
drink of water, another is too busy
reading the sporting page to look
up, and the others are al doing
something that occupies their time.
Whatever chair the customer climbs
into the barber who runs it is hoo
dooed for the week.
Another peculiarly about bar
bers is that one of the craft can tell \
a fellow tradesman by shaving him,
although he may never have seen
the man before. The way a barber
lies in a chair when he is getting
shaved ard the way he unconscious
ly assists the nan with the razor
tip him off every time. He viii |
turn his head from one side to the
other in a different way than other
men who are not BARRIERS, and when \
the razor is on his neck he'll raise
his chin in a way that cannot be (
| never missed out |
on calling the turn on a barber in
nv life ~-Chicaro Record Herald.