WEARING THE BEARD.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1039, 21 February 1882, Page 4

WEARING THE BEARD.

This fashion of the apostles, now almost universally restored among men was regarded with deep detestation by one of the merchant princes of Boston whose name for three generations has been held in high honour. He had

once made an appointment with a young artist, being himself confined to his house by infirmity of increasing years. When the artist appeared, his handsome face decorated then, as now, by a full beard, the gentlemen gazed upon him with amazement for a moment, and then, forgetting his business and his infirmity, and with exi ceeding warmth of manner, ordered the young man out of his presence. In 1850 a young man, who had contracted with a highly respectable Pine I street (New York) merchant for 12 I month’s service, was seized with a de- ’ sire to let the hair grow on his. upper i lip. His employer treated it as a \ breach of contract, insisting that it be a great damage to his trade for a clerk “ to exhibit such a heathenish face.” This was the common feeling in banks, insurance companies, and like institutions. But it was especially fervent and intollerant in the Church. One of the members of Rev. Dr. Bethune’s church in Brooklyn, having met with an accident which interrupted his usual habit of shaving for two or ' three weeks, found so little discomfort from the growth of that time that he decided to give it further trial. When he appeared at church there was commotion among the good people, men and women. Several of them waited upon the doctor, after the service, to enlist him against this daring innovation. To their astonishment he had already gone over to the enemy, and quoted Scripture and the Church I fathers in support of the heresy. | “ But imagine,” said one old lady, i “ a Chalmers or a Newton with such lan unsightly growth !” The doctor gently answered : “ When you come I to example, my dear woman, imagine | St. Paul or our Saviour without it, if you cau !”

An attempt to spread small-pox through the United States mails was reported to the Washington postal authorities of January 4th. An undated and unsigned letter post-marked Cincinnatti, was received by a farmer at the Lynn (Virginia) post-office, and in it were two small-pox scales. The letter stated, “I have sent you the small-pox. Go home and die.”

A boy who was a great student, but not much given to practical observation on going with a party to bathe, selected a deep place and plunged in. His companions soon saw that he could not swim, and with difficulty got him ashore. “ What did you plunge in there for,” asked one of them, “ when you don’t know anything about swimming “Oh yes, I do,” he replied; “ I know all about it. I studied it up in the encyclopedia.”