The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1907-02-20
me shop would quit before the woo

the shop would quit before the weo,,
| was out.
"A left-handed barber is boodoo >,
any shop, and there's no getting ,v.o,.
from it, You may think that's only.
prejudice that BARRIERS have for ,af,
handed knights of the razor but 49,.
well grounded superstition. as oil,
as the trade itself
wed be apt to have all kinds ~,
hard luck if that fellow staved houa
any length of time. 1 once worked i,
New York shop where there was d,
left-handed barber, and almost evar.,
day an accident would happen to SOM,
OF the others. We told the proprietor
where the trouble lay, but as he was
! not barber he couldn't underst,o,
what difference it made whether a ma,
shaved with his right hand or his Iaf,
hand.
"One day runaway horse plunged
| through the plate glass window. AMI
another day a mad dog ran into tb..
! shop. followed by a policeman who
| Killed the beast under the left-handea
! mans chair. Without any apparsn,
| reason the hot water faucets would
get as cold as ice and the razors would
refuse to work properly. Customers
who for years had been i'm the habit
of getting shaved three or four times
! week stopped coming, and it was all
due to the left-handed barber D,rinc
a WI hn
us won bet or policy. although the
porter used to dream some of the hest
/ numbers l ever saw This fellow
speak of had red hair and that. Of
| course. made it worse. We finally
induced the boss to fire him. and lust
as soon as he was gone things began to
get good again.
NOW, this fellow on the end. who
drifted in this morning, looks to be =
pretty good barber. but just as soon
as the boss saw him strOp a razor with
his left 'mitt it was all up for Julius
In most shops before a new man is
hired he is asked whether he is a right
or left-handed.
Left-handed men who learn the
trade get on to this after a while. and
then they switch to the right hand
that Is. if they can make good with the
right. I'm scared to death that some
body is going to get killed around here
before o'clock tonight. when mis-
.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 I'M
lucky barber. OF course somebody has
got to shave the first man in, but YOU
don't see the BARRIERS rushing madly
up to their chairs and reckoning to the
customer. You'll see one of them go
for a drink of water, another is too
busy reading the sporting page to
look up. and tine others are all doing
something that occupies their time.
into the barber who runs it is hoo
dooed for the rest of the week.
Another popularity about BARRIERS
is that one of the craft can tell fell
low tradesman by shaving him. al
though he may never have seen the
man before. The way a. barber lies in
chair when he is getting shaved and
the way he uncOnsciOusly assists the
man with the razor tips him off every
time. He will turn his head from one
side to the other i'm different way
than other men who are not BARRIERS,
and when the razor is on his neck he
will raise his chin in a way that can
not be tOunterfeited. l never missed
out on calling the turn on a barber in
my life