Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1877 — The Blessings of Baldness. [ARTICLE]

The Blessings of Baldness.

When a man makes Uie- qpjxlliug discovery that his crown-piece; i* gradually assuming the aspedt of the renowned Uficle Edwaid’s, he gives undivided attention at his morning toilet to the disposition of his scant “ knotted ami quifibiaed locks.” The Ingenuity by wnlc’i they fire manipulated so ns to conceal the ana of hopeless aridity and the retreat of hirsute vegetation below the snow-line, is often more artistic than the elaborations of a professional hair-dresser, wlmq. summoned to assist In the decoration of A bride. It is said, but we do not know with what truth, that unmarried men make this uiscovery at a later day than those who have added domestic to the other duties and joys of life, but this must be because the latter realize the prayer of Burns, and are able to see themselves as others see them. It is not unnatural that a wife who is assured by a watchful husband that gray hairs have made their appearance among her sliiniug tresses, should mark with secret satisfaction the increased but no longer remunerative application of strange stimulating and restorative compounds to the lid of his vanity-box, anti discern, in the increasing quantity of material supplied each day for the interior of elastic pin-cushions, an assurance ot the inevitable hour when a small and lustrous disk, perhaps of no larger diameter thau a brass button, shall appear upon his crown, the glistening center of an ever-enlarging American desert!. - A discovery of this importance is at once trumpeted to the household and communicated to such near and dear friends as it may be safe to intrust With so rare a delicacy. The poor man may hide the work of the pruning-knife of Time from his business friends and acquaintances, and even successfully conceal it from those who go in and out of lhe sasetuary with him, but to his family the portentous fact of baldness cannot be hidden by any device of tonsorial art. The bachelor, having no monitor but his looking-glass, and seeing only the front of his umbrageous crest, may go on for years as unconscious that he is cultivating a space of cleared land as Uncle Sam is of loss of timber od the public domain. But when, in fumbling around with comb and brush, he perceives that there is a space over which the brush passes with indifference, whether its back or bristle be applied, he, too, accepts the fact, and seeks, like his married fellow, to give as little conspicuity to it as his diminishing revenues will allow. But people who are reluctant to confess their baldness, and indulge in the illusions excited by hair restorative advertisements, do not consider the subject philosophically. It is Thackeray who tells the little page that “ curly gold locks cover foolish brains.” Luxuriant growths of hair are indicative of childhood and savagery. Baldness is a sign of civilization. The Egyptians, with "whom historic civilization commenced, shaved their heads that they might be bald. The Scythians, who herded with their horses were examples of barbarism and - long hair. Nothing so inttch surprises the untutored savage of America in an encounter with the white man, as the discovery, when he draws his scaiping-knife, that'there is no hair by which to lift his trophy of victory. Baldness is not known to barbarism. It is a token rather that men have departed from the infancy of races and individuals. How many of the world’s great men have been as bald as the dome of Mont Blanc ? The old Hebrew prophet, who commanded the bears to come up and devour the children of derision, knew the virtue of baldness and the veneration due to it. He lived among a semi-barbarous people, who had mistaken notions about the absence of hair, but he gave them an awful example of the consequences of deriding it, and they seem to have profited by it. The statues and busts of the philosophers and orators, the poets and statesmen of the best periods of Greek and Roman history, show a majority ot them to have been wholly or partially bald. Julius Caesar himself was as bald as a whetstone, and the Antonines were not afflicted with much hair. Indeed,- from Adam tiniself down to the Adams family, which is in the line of Presidents of the nineteenth century, intellectual force and smooth skulls are physiological concurrents.

There are no concealments about a bald head. You measure it as you do an open countenance. It resembles the naked truth, and there is an honesty about it, a solidity of dimensions, a modulation and undulation of surface, and a positive and impressive character that makes it an object of profound admiration to the sculptor and architect. The barber may shampoo and polish it, but he cannot mar its fair proportions. None of his artistic svhints and capricescan be expended upon it. There it stands, smooth as an apple, massive as a dome, substantial as a rock, and written all over with the evidence of cool reasoning and highest thought. Considered from a proper point of view, the wonder is that civilized man does not rather rejoice in baldness as a token of greater Gevelopment than seek to hide it as an infirmity of nature. Baldness, toss, has its practical advantages. But for his long hair, Absalom might have routed the hosts of Joab, and sat in the seat of his royal father. The cavaliers of King Charles’ time cultivated long hair, but they were no match for the short crops of Old Ironsides, who, if not bald, simulated it, and in so far indicated political and social advancement in civilization. In the narratives of execution by the axe and the sword, there is in nearly every instance some preliminary account of the cutting and clipping of hair. It is rare in history that we hear of a baldheaded man being executed, and who ever heard of one being hung? Baldness indicates wisdom, coolness, deliberation, thought and development of the high moral and intellectual qualities, which phrenology locates in the top of the head. The tonsure of lhe priesthood in the Catholic Church shows the ecclesiastical appreciation of the value of baldness as an aid to spiritual and intellectual expansion. All these and many other comidera lions which will suggest themselves to the reader should lead him to exclaim: “ Rejoice, young man, when the days of thy youth" are over, and wisdom seals thy crown with the seal of nakedness. Rejoice in it as a mandarin in his cap of three buttons, and be happy that the hairs of thy head have been numbered and no longer trouble thee.” Blessed are the bald-headed. — Cincinnati Commercial.