FASHIONABLE ABSURDITIES.

Southland Times, Issue 1054, 9 November 1868, Page 2

FASHIONABLE ABSURDITIES.

f ■* '" (From the 'Home News.') Chignons still keep their ground as an indispensable complement of that fearful and wonderful structure which lady's head-gear now-a-days exhibits to the curious observer. They have survived " Punch," street boys, the gregarine controversy, considerations of comfort, and suggestions of economy. They exhibit that singular tenacity of life which distinguishes all fashions, particularly those that are absurd ; and which never yields to any such commonplace influence as either taste or good sense. The fashion will go out some day, with crinolines, with tigbt stays, bunches of carrots, on bonnets ; scavenger trains sweeping. up street dust, and all the rest" oft Jthese monstrosities of dress or style that disfigure the loveliest aspect of civilised life. But the vitality of the chignpn suggests a rather curious inquiry. Their use has become nearly universal among modern women ; and what puzzles not a few people is, how is the supply of human hair for the purpose kept up? If onehalf of the of the period contribute from their superfluous tresses to meet the artificial wants of the the other half, it would be conceivable that supply and demand should balance each other ; but if three-fourths of the softer sex take to chigaons — whence would the hair then come ? The " living subject" manifestly could not spare, it ; we must go to the dead. That, it turns out, is exactly what has happened. It is stated, on excellent tonsorial authority, that the " capillary razzias" executed among the peasantry of all Europe no longer suffice, and that the hair of corpses in the hospitals is laid under contribution. That recourse is " a great help," we are told; but it is still insufficient. Europe, living and dead, is pretty well exhausted, and the artist in chignons looks out for new worlds to conquer and clip. He has gone to South America, where he gets black hair in '• whole cargoes," and it is that which at present keeps the trade going. Can chignons possibly survive such a piece of information? We doubt whether the soapless poll of a South American aboriginal, however done up, will long serve to decorate the head of an Englishwoman if she: once knows the. source of .her^adventitiflus tresses. If she still perseveres in a practice which is so repugnant to good taste, to art in its purest form, and to her own natural beauties, we must then fall back on the consolation that the habit will some day come to a dead stop from sheer failure in the supply. When South America is used up, . there is just one other bountiful source of supply — Africa ! Can it be doubted that we will go there next. The generation that can reconcile itself to hair from aborigines of Brazil or Patagonia can hardly be squeamish over the wool of the great negro family.