Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1879 — Fashions in Beard-Wearing. [ARTICLE]

Fashions in Beard-Wearing.

English spies who penetrated into the Norman camp before the battle of Hastings brought back word that the Normans were mostly priests and shavelings. Harold laughed and said these priests would prove good men of war. It seems that the habit of entirely shaving the face thus prevailed among the Normans, while even the dandies of the English court wore mustaches, and the less fashionable people probably did not shave at all. In England only priests were shaved, whereas in the Greek Church priests set more store by their beards than did even Julian the Apostate'. If Peter the Great fined all bearded men, our Elizabeth also raised money by taxing beards. It was in her reign, however, that the beard was clipped into as odd shapes as a Dutch boxwood bush, while the more distinguished courtiers dyed theirs a bright red color. The beard was valued at 20 shillings in that old English law in which everything had a price, while the thigh, if- broken, could be paid for by a fine of 12 shillings. The free wearing of the beard in private life was long thought “un-English”—that is to say monstrous. It was connected with revolutions and Leicester square. The reform, the liberty to -do as people please, is almost an affair of the last thirty years. Comparatively few people find it necessary to present themselves with what Macaulay “gave the person who shaved him,” namely, “three cuts in the chin London News.