The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1910-07-01
EDITORIAL CLIPPINGS.
False Hair of Fashion Comes From
the Chinese Dead.

elizabeth Shepley Sergeant in the
July McClure's.)
A new and unfamiliar trade which
springs from the great and increas-
ing demand by women for false hair,
has invaded the tenements of the
Jewish East Side, New York, in the
last two years. This is the manu-
facture of human hair out of coarse
black Chinese hair imported from the
East.
The hair, according TO one of the
United States consular reports from
Hong-Kong, is brought to Hong
Kong from the interior. 1t is either
sold through Hong-Kong export
houses to New YORK dealers, or
bought by purchasing agents from
New York. These large firms in
New York sell the Chinese hair at
two dollars a pound 10 small tene-
ment manufacturers-who in turn,
after it's transformation into soft
yellow or brown switches, resell to
the large firms for six or eight dol
lars a pound. This hair Is then dis
tributed to the retail trade-hair-
d~ressers, department stores, etc. An
ordinary switch, weighing three
ounces sells for from seven to twelve
dollars at retail.
The hair is supposed to be taken
from the heads of the dead; much
of it retains it's roots and seems to
have been pulled out, not cut off.
Living Cinnamon are, OF course, par
ticularly averse to parting with their
pigtails. Stories are current of peo-
pie who have caught 1eprosy or bad
skin diseases from the infected
switches. In one authenticated case
of leprosy in Brooklyn, the doctor
asserts that the disease was caught
from false hair. Although it is very
difficult to disinfect hair adequately,
meteorological experts say that it is
unlikely that leprosy is being
brought from China in this way.
There is a fair chance, however, that
plague germs may be so transmitted
since in China the many bodies of
the plague victims of all classes are
thrown into the street and there
rifed by the dregs of the population.
Where "WiIIow" PIumes Are Made.
elizabeth Shepley Sergeant in the
July McClure's.)
The tying of the flues of willow"
plumes-the sweeping artificial os-
trich feathers of the present fashion
has become during the last two
years a very extensive industry in
New York tenements. The factories
where these feathers are made are
chiefly located in the Italian dis
tricts of the upper East Side. On
some streets the ground floor and
first floor of almost every house is
occupied by small factories and
workshops and during the season
from March to June, and from Sep
TENDER to December-the window
of every factory has a sign in Italian:
women wanted to work in will
low" Most of the curling and dye
ing of the feathers is done in the
factories; but seventy per cent. of
the electromagnetic most lengthy
and monotonous part Of the trade
is done in the tenements.
"Willowing" consists in tying to
every "aue' or filmy strand of a
food ostrich feather two strands
stripped from inferior ostrich feath-
ers. The work is paid for by the
inch; five or six cents an inch in fac
tories, and four or five cents an inch
in the homes for black plumes and
a cent less for white. The inch is
measured on the stem or the original
feather, and therefore involves the
tying of innumerable delicate knots
for each inch of finished work. A
tenement worker cannot make an
Iei"ghteen-inch feather in less than
one and a half or two days. She is
paid s%eventy-two or ninety cents for
this work. The feather sells at re-
tail anywhere from eight and a half
to twenty-five dollars.