The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1922-04-17
MUsTACHE CUP IN DISCARD.
No More Hair Oil or Gold Toothpicks
but the Derby Hat Survives.

4 reporter in New York city made
history not long ago by going through
the shops searching for a mustache cup.
The younger set of clerks behaved
knowingly; the older men smiled sadly
and shook their heads New York
crockery harbored not one of them.
Time was when the mustache cup
weighted the Christmas tree and was
presented proudly to father on his birth
day. News columns of the time relate
with circumspect modesty the enthusi-
astic acceptance by the recipient" of
the testimonial of the overseas and sec
ond-handS of our textile mills to the re-
firing member of their craft. of a beau
tifully gold decorated muStache cup.
This was 30 years ago.
In 1861. every young man grew a
beard. In the album of pictures of the
graduating class at Bowdoin college of
1861, with about four exceptions, every
senior wore an enormous beard. These
boards were untouched by cold steel,
They rambled like wistaria all over the
senior premises. The senior valedic-
torian who could crate in Latin. would
tuck his flowing beard in his wesband
and spout CicerO-as one shouts through
a hedge fence.
BY 1850. the hair had been clipped to
the lip. Large mustachcs were fash
ionable. The chap who could grow a
mustache that protruded like the horns
If an elk was somewhat of parsonage.
Bigger the mustache. more of the man.
MuStache did not. however. grow ac-
cording to the weight OF the person. Oc-
casionally very small men lugged around
flowing mustacheS that waved in the
wind behind them. like the wake of a
notorboat. Your father had enormous
liplambrequins Brother Bill had a mess
of parsley under his nose that showed
class. So. some "amooSin cuss' as 4.
Ward would have called him. devised the
muStachc cup, and wonder of wonders.
il caught on So father got one at
Christmas and Willie got one deriSively
from sister the day he began to shave
with fathers razor.
b plain rntistaclfel cup was not an ex-
pensive affair. You could get a good
enough example of art i'll life via the
adorned with gold yurlycues and scroll
work. Five dollars was not an outside
price for the finest The eXcluSiyeneSS
of Father, drinking out of a fve-dollar
cup every meal was enough to demon
strate outwardly who was boss of the
family; hut did not go far enough pri-
vafely. Mother was boSS-after all. II
was a subject Of debate in the village
lyceums. whether the china-bar to the
cup was to keep the mustache out of
the coffee. or the coffee out of the mus
tache.
\ good many things have gone. out
of fashion besides mustache cups. There
is the hair watch chain. l don't be-
lieye You could buy or contract for flu
ture delivery of hair-watch- chain
Hair oil. that cost us good deal in the
aldcn days. is no longer popular. But
I'll say it kept the hair slick. There
was a time when the height of fashion
was to own gold toothpick that screwed
i'm aisl ont of its little gold holder.
Huntcr-case watches with monographs
have rather faded from popular fancy.
Bootiacks are not used much have
ground spices in n mortar and peStle by
the hour for mincemeat and chopped
more apples in a chopping bowl than
young lads of today ever saw. All gone
or nearly SO.
The only thing that is doomed to
survive" as our New York contempt
rary remarks. is the derby hat.-A. G.
s, in Lewiston Journal.