Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1918 — BITTER FIGHTS OVER BEARDS [ARTICLE]

BITTER FIGHTS OVER BEARDS

Tartars and Persians Long in Conflict Because They Held Varying Opinions on the Matter. Before now the wearing of beards has caused a bitter war and made the executioner’s ax cut through many a neck. The Tartars waged a long war , with the Persians, declaring them th-1 fidels because they would not shave their beards after the fashion of Tartary. The Greeks wore beards until the time of Alexander, who ordered the Macedonians to be shaved lest their j beards should give handles to their enemies. The ancient Romans wore beards, but in England they were not fashionable after the conquest until' the thirteenth century and were dis- 1 continued at the Restoration. Peter the Great kept a squad of officers whose duty it was to cut the beards of unwilling citizens by force. Before 1840 shaving was almost universal in the United States. There have been numerous Instances of women with long masculine beards. Margaret of Savoy, daughter of Maximilian I, had a long stiff beard, and a Woman was seen in Paris with a black bushy beard that reached to her waist. At the battle of Pultowa the Russians captured a bearded woman, whom they presented to the czar. She had a beard five and one-half feet long.