CUTTING THE BOY'S HAIR.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3081, 12 May 1881, Page 4

CUTTING THE BOY'S HAIR.

There is no use in fooling around about it. When a boy's har has become long, and bleached, and scraggy, and full of burrs and feathers, it is time to cut it, and the inevitable must be faced. The boy doesn't want it cut, of course. No one ever had a speaking acquaintance with a boy who thought the time had arrived when he could part with enough hair to stuff a sofa pillow. They must be coerced, and kind and broad promises are thrown away. Coercion is the only method. 1 let my boys run about so long, and then when I get a spare half-day I play barber. There is no appeal from my decision. When

I come out flat-footed I carry my point or die trying. " Young man, you can get ready to have your hair cut." " Next week ?" "No, sir; now!" " With a buzz saw ?" " Yes, if the shears won't do it." " Won't you draw blood ?" " I may have to." "If you won't cut my hair I'll bring in 'nuff wood and coal to last all winter, and I won't ask for a light when I go to bed." " Come out her and make ready." I never take any chances on a boy. I have an old chair bolted to the floor, and then I bolt tho boy to the chair. I fix him so that he can move neither band nor foot, put a soft gag in his mouth to prevent a neighborhood alarm, and begin work. The first step toward cutting a boy's hair is to put in ten minute's hard work with a currycomb. If he hasn't been running around loose over two or three years this tool will be found sufficient to take out the snarls, buttons, and articles previously mentioned. A basket is placed behind the chair for them to drop into, and they can be, decoratad with fancy pictures, made to serve as parlor ornament. When the boy's head is ready for the shears, brace your feet and shear away. Shear front, back, top, and sides without inference to lines or angles. The object is is to remove hair. There is no use of any conversation, not even when the shears find a piece of wire and refuse to cut it. _ The boy wouldn't know how it got there if you asked him. He has had his head in cellars, garrets, barns, fence-corners, barrels, boxes, and all sorts of nooks, and such extra attachments are no surprise for him. No one should be less than half an hour robbing an average boy of his capillary substance. Any attempt to hurry the job will result, in overlooking a lot of shingle nails, the missing screwdriver, or something which may damage his Sunday hat. My average is thirty-five minutes, and I have only two minutes left, after being able to see that he has a scalp. It then takes an additional ten minutes to look over and identify him as the same boy I began on. His neck has grown longer, the size of his ears increased, and the whole shape of his head is altered. When I teel sure it is my boy, and not the son of some neighbor who has skulked in on me, I brush him off with an old broom, crack his head three or four times, draw the bolts and remove the gag, and then hold the door open for him to shoot into the back yard. lam a loving father in all else, but "when I cut a boy's hair I am a stern old Roman of the first water.