At the Sign of the Barbers Pole | Page 6

you
shave without cutting?" "Yes, sir, I'll try," answered the youth. "Very
well," said the duke, while seating himself, and loading his pistol; "but

look here, if you let any blood, as true as I sit here I'll blow your brains
out! Now consider well before you begin." After a moment's reflection,
the boy began to make ready, and said, "I'm not afraid of cutting you,
sir," and in a short time had completed the feat without a scratch, to the
complete satisfaction of the duke. In gentle tones his grace asked,
"Were you not afraid of having your brains blown out, when you might
have cut me so easily?"
"No, sir, not at all; because I thought that as soon as I should happen to
let any blood, before you could have time to fire I would cut your
throat."
The smart reply won from the duke a handsome reward. It need
scarcely to be added he never resumed his dangerous threats in a
barber's shop. A lesson was taught him for life.
The barber of an English king boasted, says a story, that he must be the
most loyal man in the realm, as he had every day the regal throat at his
mercy. The king was startled at the observation, and concluded that the
barbarous idea could never have entered an honest head, and for the
future he resolved to grow a beard as a precautionary measure against
summary execution.
With a barber's shop in Lichfield is associated an amusing story, in
which the chief figure was Farquhar, a dramatist, who attained a
measure of success in the eighteenth century. His manner was
somewhat pompous, and he resented with a great show of indignation
the dalliance of the master of the shop. Whilst he was fuming, a little
deformed man came up to him and performed the operation
satisfactorily. The same day Farquhar was dining at the table of Sir
Theophilus Biddulph, when he noticed the dwarf there. Taking the
opportunity of following his host out of the room, he asked for an
explanation of his conduct, and said that he deemed it an insult to be
seated in such inferior company. Amazed at the charge, Sir Theophilus
assured the dramatist that every one of the guests was a gentleman, and
that they were his particular friends. Farquhar was not satisfied. "I am
certain," he said, "that the little humpbacked man who sat opposite me
is a barber who shaved me this morning." The host returned to the room

and related the story which he had just heard. "Ay, yes," replied the
guest, who was a well-born gentleman, "I can make the matter clear. It
was I who was in the barber's shop this morning, and as Farquhar
seemed in such a hurry, and the barber was out, I shaved him."
The works of the old dramatists and other publications contain
allusions to barbers' music. It was the practice, as we have said, when a
customer was waiting for his turn in a barber's shop to pass his time
playing on the gittern. Dekker mentions a "barber's cittern for every
serving-man to play upon." Writing in 1583, Stubbes alludes to music
at the barber's shop. In the "Diary of Samuel Pepys" we read: "After
supper my Lord called for the lieutenant's cittern, and with two
candlesticks with money in them for symballs, we made barber's music,
with which my lord was well pleased." "My Lord was easily satisfied,"
says a well-known contributor to Punch, "and in our day would
probably have enjoyed 'the horgans.'" We may rest assured that barber's
music was of questionable melody.

SUNDAY SHAVING
In bygone England, the churchyard was a common place for holding
fairs and the vending of merchandise, and it was also customary for
barbers to shave their customers there. In 1422, by a particular
prohibition of Richard Flemmyng, Bishop of Lincoln, the observance
of the custom was restrained.
The regulations of the Gild of Barber-Surgeons of York deal with
Lord's Day observance. In 1592 a rule was made, ordering, under a fine
of ten shillings, "that none of the barbers shall work or keep open their
shop on Sunday, except two Sundays next or before the assize weeks."
Another law on the question was made in 1676 as follows:--"This court,
taking notice of several irregular and unreasonable practices committed
by the Company of Barber-Surgeons within this city in shaving,
trimming, and cutting of several strangers' as well as citizens' hair and
faces on the Lord's Day, which ought to be kept sacred, it is ordered by
the whole consent of this court, and if any brother of the said Company

shall at any time hereafter either by himself, servant, or substitute,
tonse, barb, or trim any person on the Lord's Day, in