HAIR TORTURE.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 20, 30 October 1871, Page 3

HAIR TORTURE.

(from tiie “daily news.”) The fashion of* pyramidal, castellated, or curvilinear designs for the female head has reached such a pitch that the artistes who undertake the building of the structures are compelled to put out of the way the natural covering altogether, and in fact, would prefer to work upon a pate as bald as a coot. It is the practice with many ladies who cannot afford the constant employment and supervision at their own residences of the coiffeur, to contract with a firm by the twelvemonth for the inspection and decoration of their polls. Matters have gone so far, that the most imposing wealth of locks have been hired for special occasions, so that we are, in fact, returning to the primitive elegance of the wig. The attempt .at concealment is becoming weaker and weaker. And while the female head is thus exhibiting a relapse into the cauliflower period, the male sconce is being denuded of its hirsute possessions by a custom for which it is

difficult Lo find a precedent. Our young men are shorn like convicts or prizefighters. They look often as if they had only just recovered from an attack of brain fever, or from-serving out a term of hard labour at Pentonville. Our.mcn of of fashion have a fancy for clipping the hair short, and bringing it down low on the forehead. This they imagine prevents them from being mistaken for people of mere intellect, er for those who may live in one way or another by their wits. They conceive it is requisite that they should make an artificial effort to appear stupid, as if Nature had not been bountiful to them in the same direction ,They pay the compliment of imitation to a species of Skye terrier or poodle. No doubt the fashion could be traced to some beetle-browed dandy of sufficient importance in his set to influence those about him, as the Archduchess Isabella, did the courtiers who patronised a colour known as LTsabeau, or the Isabella, in honour of a quaint vow made by the great lady not to change her dress until Ostend was taken by siege. We do not know whether tin? ai i of private hair-working as an ornamental pursuit is likely to be attractive or not. Certain it is, that hairdressing is becoming far too complicated for amateur superintendanc?. Few ladies’ maids now offer themselves as qualified for a task that wa3 formerly a regular branch of.their busines.'.The artiste must be either smuggled into the house, or visited when required. His presence upstairs is denoted by the odour of a mysterious fog, which pervades the corridors a short time after his admittance. As for the result, who shall venture to pass no opinion, when the weight of men’s opinion for hundfeds of years, directed on the same point, has never had the least perceptible influence ? We can only observe that gentlemen are not free from the trammels of vanity or fashion as to the outside of their heads either. At any rate, we have come to this—as we do not wear our own hair or wear very little of it, we are thinking of making a drawingroom pastime of working into patterns the hair of other people. What was intended by Nature for our comfort, our glory, we must convert to the uses of Berlin wool.