The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1907-12-06
BARRIERS ALL sUPERsTiTious.
Left Handed Man a Hoodoo-Firsf
Customer of the Week.

customer OF the WccN.
"Superstitious? | should say yes
They won't admit IL TO any one except
members Of the craft, but BARRIERS are
the most superstitious people in the
world"
The man in charge Of the second
chair at one of the large shops strop-
ped his razor and loquaciously contin-
ued, says the Chicago Record'Herald:
"You see that new man down at
the end OF the chair He just came 10
work here this morning. and he'll have
a nice large can tied TO his coat TO-
night. Why? Because he's left hand
ed. 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 a prejudice that BARRIERS have for
left handed knights Of the razor, Dut
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
a New York shop where there was a
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 il made whether
man shaved with his right or his left
hand.
"One day a runaway horse plunged
through the plate glass window, and
another day a mad dog ran into the
shop, followed by policeman, VINO
killed the beast under the left handed
mans chair. Without any appanent
reason the hot water faucets would get
as cold as ice, and the razors would re-
fuse to work properly. Customers
who for years had been in the habit
of getting shaved three or four times
a week stopped coming, and IL 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 | speak of had red hair, and
that of course. made it 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
10 CT
with his left 'mitt it was all up for
julius. In most shops before new
man is hired he is asked whether he
Is right or left handed.
''Lelt handed men who learn the
trade get on to this after 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
somebody is going to get killed around
here before 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 un-
lucky barber. OF course somebody
has got to shave the first man In,
but you don't see the BARRIERS rush
ing madly up to their chairs and
beckoning to the customer. You'll
see one Of them so for drink of wa
ter, another is too busy reading the
sporting page TO look up, and the
others are all oding something that
occupies their time. Whatever sna!r
the customer climbs into the barber
who runs it is hoodooed for the rest
of the week.
Another popularity about BARRIERS
is that one of the craft can tell a
| fellow tradesman by shaving him, al
though he may never have seen the
man before. The way a barber lies
J In a chair when he Is getting shaved
| and the way he unconsciously as
sists the man with the razor tips
| him off every time. He will 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 will raise his chin
in a way that cannot be counterfeited.
| never missed out on calling the turn
on a barber in my life"