Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1893 — COMPLICATED PROCESS. [ARTICLE]

COMPLICATED PROCESS.

Hare Experiences in a Celestial Tonsorial Establishment. When the services of a Chinese barber are called into requisition by his Celestial brethren, a complicated process is gone through with which would fill au American onlooker with wonder and dismay. Having settled his customer comfortably in his chair, the operator commences by scraping not only the cheeks and chin of his victim, but also the whole of his head, with the exception of one spot on the top of his cranium, from which sprouts the inevitable queue. Having succeeded in shaving carefully around the “sacred lock,” leaving the head in a bright and shining condition, resembling a well-polished billiard ball, the barber begins .to perform upon his customer in a manner which can only be adequately described as “punching his head." This is done by clenching his fist and dealing to the patient several sharp taps or punches with the tips of his knuckles, variei. by a process of kneading or pounding, the barber digging his knuckles into the ill-fated headpiece of his customer in a most merciless fashion. The reason for these heroic measures is that the recipient of the blows finds, or imagines that he finds, his brain cleared and his mind relieved by them; worry, care, depression and dullness dispersed, and'a feeling of lightness, brightness and vivacity induced. As he is probably just recovering from the depressing and enervating effect of an opium stupor, with its strange and dreamful delirium, this result is not undesirable if business has to be transacted. After the punching and pounding process is concluded, the barber at once proceeds to unfasten and unplait the long tail of hair, which reaches to the ankles of the wearer, and having combed, brushed and begreased it —much after the fashion of the long-tressed maiden of to-day—he, with sltow and assiduous carefulness, replaits it, and ties it with a piece of black braid which hangs in two short tails at the end. By this time one would think that sheer exhaustion would prevent the pitiless and persecuting barber from commiting further atrocities upon the person of his mild and lamb-like subject; but no; renewed activity possesses the ruthless, unrelenting hair-dresser, and with frantic energy he seizes the hands of his victim, pulls his arms behind, and co'mmences to twist and turn them u»til every joint cracks, and one would think that his shoulders must be dislocated. The muscles of the arms, and then the fingers, receive their share of attention, after which the customer walks out of the shop, evidently refreshed and invigorated.