Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1885 — Antique Fashions in Hair. [ARTICLE]

Antique Fashions in Hair.

Among the Greeks and Romans, cutting the hair was a great dishonor. Hence, prisoners of war and qlaves who had committed any'offense had their, heads shaved or hair cut. Tbo patrician ladies were their hair long, and were as prohd of it as were Jewish women. The Greek and Roman men, like the Hebrew men, wore their hair cropped close. This formed a principal distinctionbetweeh the dress of the two sexes. A few days previous to marriage the Grecian lovers cut off their hair and consecrate it to the favorite gods. It was customary among them to hang the hair of Ihe dead on the door of their houoes previous to burial. They also tore their hair, or shaved it, or cut it off, when mourning fbr their deceased friends. When this sacrifice was made, the tresses were consumed on the funeral pyre of the corpse. The ancients imagined that no person could die till a lock of hair was cut off; and this act, they supposed, was performed by the invisible hand of death, or Iris, or some other messenger of the gods. The hair thus cut off consecrated the person to the infernal deities, under whose jurisdiction the dead were supposed to ba Whatever the fashion was with respect to the hair, slaves were hot allowed to imitate the mode of their masters. The hair of the slaves was cut in a peculiar fashion, which was instantly changed when they obtained their freedom. Our ancestors, the old Britons, were proud of the length and beauty of their hair, and were at much pains at dressing it. Some of them carried this pride to an extravagant height. A young warrior, who was taken prisoner and condemned to be beheaded, requested that no slave might be permitted to touch his haip, which was remarkably long and beautiful, and that it might not be stained with his blood. Not content with the natural color of the hair they used washes to render it still bi’ighter. One of these was a composition of lime, tallow and ashes of certain, vegetables. As the length of their hair, was considered a mark of dignity and noble birth, various arts were used to promote its growth. The Britons shaved their beards, but not their moustaches, which they allowed to grow to a considerable length.

The Gauls esteemed it an honor to have long hair. When Julius Csesar conquered them he made them, as a token of submission, cut off their hair, the cropped head at that period being the peculiar badge of slavery. The hair was worn short by the nobles in France from the time of Clovis: but as they became more civilized or less martial they allowed their hair to lengthen. In the time of Francis the First long hair was worn at court; but that monarch, proud of his wound, himself wore short hair, in the Italian and Swiss fashion, which soon became general. In the reign of Louis XIII. the fashion of wearing long hair was received, and as it became desirable to have the hair curl, the wigs were also restored. Then followed the era of hair powder, periwigs and perukes of enormous dimensions, which were swept into oblivion by the fierce democracy pf the French Revolution. The Jacobins restored natural'hair to its'-natural use.

Artificial hair is of very remote origin. Historical records are extant which prove that it was used by the Egyptians, Greeks, Homans, and Carthaginians. The trade in human hair was a regular traffic with the Homans. The favorite blonde hair of Germany was largely imported ihto Rome in the ■ days of Ovid; and those Roman dames who did not wear wigs, and yet wished to conform to the fashion, powdered their hair with a kind of gcfld-dust. Dyeing the hair was greatly practiced among them. The Homan ladies delighted to pile up their hair tower-like on the top of their heads, while they had several rows of curls arranged formally around the sides, and sometimes pendant curls in addition. Hashlon also regulated the style of wearing the hair among men in the later days of Rome. A boy’B hair, for instance, was cut for the first time at seven years of age, and agai n at fourteen. —From the Barbers' Gazette. *

The Rise of Sam Jones, the Evangelist, Sam Jones was a 5-year-old lad, too young and too small for even the primary class, when the principal of the school at Oak Bowery, Alabama, received him in his own room among the big boys and taught him his a-b-abs at leisure. Sam early showed a fondness for declamation, and was appointed a speaker for commencement, and repeated a parody on the well-known “You’d scarce expect one of my age To speak in public on the stage.” When Sam was called he was wrapped in sweet sleep, lying on a bench at the rear of the stage, regardless of time and the occasion. The teacher, rubbing the lad’s face with a wet handkerchief, lifted him to the table on the stage, when Sam, wide awake and not in the least abashed, spoke bis piece, to the great delight and amusement of the audience. The closing lines were: In coming years and thunder tones The world shall hear of Sammy Jones. Thirty years after this event this same teacher, now of Atlanta, wrote a postal to Sam, quoting these lines, and adding: “If you are my Sam, come to see me." Sam went at once, saying as he walked in with extended hand, “Howdy? I am your Sam.” —Nashville Christian Advocate.