Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 250, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 November 1917 — French Soldiers’ Beards. [ARTICLE]

French Soldiers’ Beards.

No anxiety about shaving is felt by the French conscript when he joins the army, for he is encouraged by the authorities to grow a beard, and, indeed, it is from this fact that he has obtained his nickname of “poilu,” the French equivalent for Tommy Atkins, which literally means shaggy or hairy, says the London Chronicle. The beard was favored in the English army during the Crimean war for the protection it gave from the intense cold of the trenches before Sebastopol, and the apparition of sp many bearded men in England after* the war made beards for a long time fashionable In this country.