The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1907-10-18

he's left-handed If he remained here
every barber in the shop would quit
before the week was out.
"a left-handed barber is a hoodoo
to any shop, and there's no getting
away from it, You may think that's
only prejudice that BARRIERS have for
left-handed knights of the razor, but
it's a well-grounded superstition, as
old as the trade itself
WED be apt to have all kinds Of
hard luck If that fellow stayed here
any length of time. / once worked
in 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 couldn't understand
what difference 1t made whether a
man shaved with his right or his left
hand
"One day runaway horse plunged
through the plate glass window, and
another day a mad dog ran into the
killed the beast under the left-handed
mans chair. Without any apparent
reason the hot water faucets would
get cold as ice, and the razors would
refuse to work properly Customers
who for years had been in the habit,
of getting shaved three or four times
q week stopped coming, and it was
all due to that left-handed barber.
During all the while he was there not
one OF us won a bet on policy, al
though the porter used to dream some
of the best numbers ever saw. This
fellow l speak of had red hair, and
that, of course, made 1t 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
drifted in this morning, looks to be a
pretty good barber, but just as soon
as the boss saw him strop razor
with his left 'mitt' it was all for
Julius. In most shops before new
man is hired he is asked whether 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 some
body is going to get killed around
here before eight 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 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 beckon-
ing to the customer You'll see one
of them go for drink of water an
other is too busy reading the sporting
page to look up, and the others are all
doing Something that occupies their
time. Whatever chair the customer
climbs into the barber who runs it
is hoodooed for the week.
Another popularity about BARRIERS |
is that one of the craft can tell fei- |
low tradesman by shaving him, al
though he may never have seen the |
man before. The way 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 in differ
emit way than other men who are not
BARRIERS, and when the razor is on his
heck he'll raise his chin in a way that
cannot be counterfeited. never
missed out on calling the turn on a
barber in my life"