Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 October 1875 — The London Human-Hair Market. [ARTICLE]

The London Human-Hair Market.

For one prime natural product the emissaries of fashion must go to Mincing Lane. Judging from the quantities in which it is imported this article must be in considerable demand. The “ lot” with which we are more immediately concerned is lying in Cross Lane, and weighs some 5,000 pounds—a tolerably large consignment of an article which is—well—not necessary, perhaps, but apparently finds customers enough. It is human hair. The great bulk of it comes from China, is black as coal and coarse as cocoa-nut fiber, but of magnificent length. Many a Chinese head has been shorn to produce these tons or material, to be sold in lots of two cases (of about 400 pounds each), and expected to realize about half a crown a pound in this wholesale transaction. Skilled experts are weighing and feeling the long tresses, but soon leave them to investigate the various shades and qualities of one bale of choice European, worth ten or eleven times as much as the Chinese. Whence comes this ? From Germany mainly—from Russia and from France sometimes. Here lies a heap of samples culled from this valuable bale, with the weights of each color carefully attached. With what variety and richness of hues glow these long, fine silk tresses; ranging from the deepest brown, through every shade of ruddy auburn and sunny chestnut, to the purest gold and fairest flaxen. What a monument of self-abnegation is here! what a picture of self-sacrifice! for when woriian parts with her hair she performs an act far more trying than when she parts with her jewels. That maiden must be poor indeed who parts with her crowning charm for a few shillings. Legends to the contrary notwithstanding, how can she get more than a pitiful sum, when a choice bale, after passing through the hands of the shearer, the local merchant, and the importer, and paying cost of transport, will fetch no more than seven-and-twenty shillings per pound? The blond madchen whose superb tresses I hold in my hand did not, I apprehend, get much for them; perhaps a few florins; little enough, according to our estimate of money, but yet sufficient to keep the wo>f from her mother’s door for a little space. But this silken crown, which brought its original owner so little, must pass through many hands before it adorns the still handsome head of Lady Barepoles, who is not quite the woman she was when Barepoles became tlie captive of her bow and spear in her first season—but is yet a leader of fashion.— AU the Year Bound. Columbus was a mild, sweet-disposi-tioned, but exceedingly thoughtful boy, as I remember him at school. When we boys were out playing he would sit and weep for hours over the incompleteness of the maps of the period. He felt as though something was wanting. He wasn’t satisfied with three-quarters of the globe, such as was employed in the schools at that time. He pined for the other quarter. I recollect his borrowing a quarter of me on two or three occasions. He used to tell us we were a continent out somewhere, and that when he got big enough he meant to run away frftm home, go on the canal and discover it; but we only laughed at him, little thinking that he would yet give his name to the State capital of Ohio. I lost all traces of Christopher until years afterward, when the telegraph brought the announcement of his having discovered America, which, up to that time, had successfully eluded the most persistent efforts of our best discoverers.— Montana News. In what place are two heads better than one ? In a barrel.