Evening star., 1927-10-17

Ladies' who daily see their husbands s
cheeks swathed in lather may think,
from various exclamations escaping
the foamy mouth of the lord of the
household las he formerly was ,called),
that the process is one of pain.
It Is true that upon occasion the
morning shave is anything but bliss
full. Such an occasion is when the
razor (modern form) slips sideways,
cutting a neat cash in the covering
of the manly jawbone.
Daddy swallows few mouthfuls of
lather as he righteously attempts to
express his proper indignation or
razors in general and of safety ra2ors
in particular, with a few maledictions
directed at the whole general process
Of shaving.
Another such occasion Is when the
blade which one left the previous
morning in a supersharp state is found
to be incapable of cutting hot butter,
than which nothing more incapable
can be imagined in the ordinary run
of daily living.
Shaving as a necessary art, how
ever, is not to be judged by these mis-
haps, which might occur in the best
households, and do, indeed, often oc-
cur, especially when one is in hurry.
Haste makes waste" is nowhere
better exemplified than is shaving, eX-
cept that the reading should be re-
vamped to run:
Haste makes a cut.
The jolly grin of the gentleman
shaving with So-and-So's heavily ad-
vertised soap is, therefore, no lie. but
the proper perturbation of a daily
event in the life of most of the male
inhabitants Of these United States,
Great Britain and many other coun-
tries.
All over the world every morning
some millions of male beings get out
the old safety razor, or the new safety
razor, or the old straight razor, or
the new ditto, and begin the right
pleasant task of heWing away the
growth of beard that appears there.
At first blush it might seem thank
less task indeed, since it must be re-
peated again tomorrow morning, and
so on and so on for the rest of ones
natural life. But, then, there are any
number of things that must be re-
peated daily, in which category falls
this Of the shave, without which no
man can feel at ease in the company
Of his equals, his peers or his interiors.
To go to work with a clean shave
Is Of more Importance, perhaps, than
to be decently dressed, or to have con-
f1dence in ones breast, or to be ca
pable, honest and the possessor of
other qualities rightly determined by
the common consent of mankind to be
necessary to success in the true sense
of the word.
To shave or not to shave Is no ques-
tion at all, except upon mornings when
one feels low in spirits or fondly
thinks that the shave given the old
jaw last night will look well today.
1t will not; it never does. But some
times inertia fools a man into pre-
senting himself before the world las
is" This he sorely regrets before the
day is over, but he never learns, and
will repeat next month on the next
rainy morning.
X y X \
The joys Of shaving are both mental
and physical. From both the intel
lectual and physical standpoints the
first essential of good shave is a
sharp razor. After all, 1t is the blade
one does the hair cutting with, not
the shaving brush or the soap. 1t is
in this as in smoking-what does one
smoke, the pipe or the tobacco? Why,
the tobacco, Of course.