AN EPIDEMIC OF BALDNESS.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 105, 13 May 1901, Page 1

AN EPIDEMIC OF BALDNESS.

Deep depression is settling on Japan, No more does Yum Yum squat in an uncomfortable attitude before an archaic mirror of polished steel and plait the raven tresses. She does this in “ The Mikado,” but she does it no longer in real life, the raven tresses are no more. Premature “ balditude ” has smitten the land 1 of Japan, and from one end to another there is a crying need for those marvellous decoctions which, if all went well, would render baldness impossible’. At first the epidemic appears to have been regarded as legitimate excuse for mirth and the laughter-loving Japanese got a lot of amusement over the spectacle presented by friends who woke in the morning to find their heads, which were well thatched over night, as bald as so many eggs, It is probable that tho spectators were more amused by the sudden change than the victims thereof. But it has begun to attack the fair sex, if it is allowable to use tho term in connection with ladies whose hair is as black as coal or: night or one’s hat, whichever the reader looks upon as the blackest. Hairdressing in Japan is a very serious business. The “ bun ” and 1 the “ bang ” are there unknown, and each lady’s head is almost as much a work of art, a triumph of the tonsorial artist, as the heads of our great-great-grand mothers used to be. Apart from being the centre from which project an infinity of curious ornaments, the really well-dressed Japanoso lady's head demands special care and sho rests it on, a pillow that looks a good deal less like a pillow than an attenuated chopping-block. The Japanese gentleman’s hah- is a very different affair, mqstyesembling a rather straggly blackingbrush. But the strange disease which has spread over the country from Formosa is no respecter of persons, and the ebonhaired musrnee is as liable to its ravages as the Marquis Ito. The Government is doing all it can to check the disease, and has issued, the most stringent regulations as to how hairdressers shall carry on their business, while all the doctors who, can spare-the time'are helping the bacteriologists to hunt for the microbe that is causing all the trouble. They won’t be happy till they get it. In the meantime the public is hopefully buying all the hairwashes that are guaranteed to cpre the - disease, while the oldest inhabitant is raking up memories ’of a similar epidemic that swept oyer the : eounfty eighty years ago, and spoiled theTiair-Gutting business for some time, Theirs are suspicions that his advocacy of a certain jolly made of I seaweed, then used*-with infallible effect,

is riot unconnected with the belief that he is one of the few ‘who still know the recipe,- " r ■ .