False Hair for Two Millions of Women.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 85, 17 January 1885, Page 5

False Hair for Two Millions of Women.

Tjuork is grief among the French ladies. China has ceased to send hair to France. The- former country has hitherto supplied the great bulk of human hair used in France; and it is a considerable quantity. No fewer than eighty tons are imported annually at Marseilles. The dark rich tresses of tho Italian contadma formerly served in France to repair tho meagreness of nature. But the supply from that quarter has fallen off. The golden-haired Teutonic maiden will not, as she once did, part, for a consideration, with her crown of beauty ; her blond locks which were in request as lav back as Juvenal's time grow scarce. The Spanish peasant girl has never been wont to sell her beautiful hair ; and altogether, as a correspondent observes, "as education extends, it becomes increasingly difficult to persuade young women in Europe to part with their tresses." A little may be picked up in poverty-stricken parts of Brittany or Auvergne, but it is more and more requisite to go to China, Cochin-China, and Japan for this commodity. Unfortunately, as the supply declines the demand increases. Perukes, plaits, and false fronts must be got. To tho making of elaborate coift'eures go elements fcr which thb artist must seek far a field. For tho ladies of Marseilles alone hair sufficient for 27,000 postickes is reserved, and it is concluded that, as a pastiche lasts three years, " 81,000 women in Marseilles — pretty nearly the whole of the female adult population — must bo wearers of false hair in one shape or another." Similar reasoning leads to the conclusion that no fewer than two millions of women annually procure false hair from Marseilles. These figures open up a startling view. Marseilles, though the chief place of import for this article, is not tho only port in France at which hair is received ; it enters elsewhere, both in that country and out of it. What, having legard to these figures, must be the number of those who owo as mnch to their coiffeur as to nature? Eighty tons of perukes, plaits, ! and false fronts taken by Marseilles alone ! What must cities more populous and fashionable, such as Paris, require? What must bo the supply necessary for the wants of the millions of ladies who will have a suitable front, however .scantily they may be endowed ? And in face of all this comes the fact thatjthelasfc sbeamerbut one brought to Marseilles only three cases, and the last only one case, of this commodity. A correspondent wries about the possibility of a crisis in the wig market. But more might ba j. pen than he iorbodes, if the worst came to tho worst, and if every lady had to depend on her own lesources, and a false front could not be had for 'love or money. An ingenious philosopher collected data sufficient to convince himself that mankind was gradually growing bald. The human species which had once been entirely shaggy and hirsute, would be smooth pated in a few centuries ; in a short time it would be reckoned a deformity to be in any other condition. These things, however, are to happen a few centuries hence ; and meantime rise in tho price of chignons, perukes, and plaits would be a serious "complication."