The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-23

hare on the face as a newel post. If the postage stamp tells the truth. there wasn't one of them had whisker to his name. When Washington crossed the ice. thereby beating Eliza to it by 70 yards there were soldiers In the same nine-foot row boat with him, all with bloody bandages around their heads put according to the chromo that used to hang over our parlor mantel, ana every body else's parlor mantle, for that mat ter. every blessed one of them had Just come from the barber's with his bay rum. his German cologne and his talcum poWder fresh upon him. But none put smooth-faced Americans on guard to- night said somebody just before the battle of something, and they had to do It. They didn't have any other Kind In stock. And through that awful winter at Valley Forge the patriots may have had no shoes for their feet, but they all had inc price of a clean shave, twice over. with the tonic rubbed well into the scalp to prevent falling out and ba-dness. See any American art collection
 We got along very well through the days of Webster and Clay and Calhoun and other smooth faced statesmen, but along about the middle of the last cen tury A wave of whiskers swept through the unhappy country and what was the result? Why. the country split up so fine that it took four years Of lighting to get the scraps TedSSclliplSu'
 .Yes. Larry, north and south, the youth and chivalry of the land sue c1lmbed to the infuriating chin Whlskers and ere long the Southern Smilaxes ana Spanish Mosses of Dixieland were at the throats of the Trailing Arbutusses and the Human Honey-suckle Arbors Of the north. and Nvice versa Look at any da- geurrotype dating back to those dear old haired over days of 1850 and see if I'm not right The classiest dresser Of that period was the party who could sprout himself into the closest imitation or an impenetrable forest. seen through heavy drizzle of brilliantine. Peace was never restored to our distracted land until the bayonet wore out and the razor again came into it's own.
 .,Since then, inch by inch, we've been driving the chin whisker back to its lair. It's a still Haunting itself in communi- ties where people eat their scrambled eggs for breakfast with a hurried over hand stroke, and want to save the shirt front and where the necktie Is yet regard ed as an expensive luxury. But In the great centers of civilization we've got It on the run for no matter what others may say, I would attribute the downfall of Gin and Alb to popular displeasure with the way they garnlsueu lheii ie- spective entrees.
 But what looks to me like the surest sign of its doom is the fact the chin whisker has got to be comedy stuff. Some people think a pair Of white spats worn by the Family Lawyer are the most comical thing known and some insist that there's no comedy value like a red bandanna handkerchief pinned to the coat tails of an eccentric Rube character; hut the best authorities on the drama are beginning to agree that for sure fire comedy. the chin whisker, particularly the magenta or cerese whisker, is even more humorous than 0 line about Osh-, lxosh ar Kalamazoo, and has always been regarded as the funniest there is.
 "so now, when no up to date comedy production is complete without its set of pink chin whiskers I look to see the whisker .aisappear from everyday life all together"
 .sWhv so9" asked the House Detective.
 "Recause." said the Hotel Clerk, q notice when thing gets very common on the stage it ceases to pc common any where else"