Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1883 — Men Under the Razor. [ARTICLE]

Men Under the Razor.

Of all the types seen in barbers’ shops probably the man in a hurry is the most multitudinous. He tears open the door, glares wildly around the room at the comfortably-filled chairs, mutters a gentle imprecation, and, with a despaiing look, fires himself out into the street again. Or, if he is not in quite so much of a hurry, he hastily examines the stage at which each patron has arrived in the tonsorial process, compares his time with his plans, asks when his? turn will come as if he didn’t know that would be as soon as the chair was empty, and finally, after fidgeting around and making everybody miserable, he leaves the shop just before “next!” is called. The thin-skinned man is a tender little body and wants the barber to be “O! so careful,” and to play lightly over his cuticle or he may break through. And the barber selects a delicate weapon, goes only “onceover” his victim, and when he with a towel drenched in bayrum, the thin-skinned man starts and shrinks like one who is dosed with a strong hair tonic on a shampooed scalp. The Man-with-a-Tough-Skin rarely deigns to reply to the inquiry: - “Does the razor suit you ?” He wants to be shaved as close as Shylock, “right up to the roots,” and his stubby beard yields slowly to the best steel and with disastrous- effect upon its edge. He is dreaded by the most artistic shaverd, but he does not belong to a small contingent and has to be put up with. The bald-headed man does not cost au establishment much for hair oil, but the muscular energy expended in making the top of his cranium shine like a bil-liard-ball takes off the profits. The highest degree of polish is attained by a rotary motion of the right hand wrapped in a towel while the left hand holds the victim steady. Going asleep in the barber’s chair is" the favorite habit of apoplectic individuals who are not afraid of losing flesh or blood while the tonsorial artists scrape the soap off their faces. They will nod until there is imminent danger of a casual ear disappearing in their blissful ignorance of their environment, and yet the papers have not recently reported any oases of fat men getting their throats out in respectable barbers’ shops. There may have been such cases that have escaped the vigilance of the reporters, but probably they were few in number. A special Providence seems to wait on fat men in barbers’ shops when they sleepily shake their heads at the agile razor as it plays around their expansive countenances.—N. Y. Times.