At the Sign of the Barbers Pole | Page 3

years:--
"Rove not from pole to pole, but step in here, Where nought excels the shaving but--the beer."
Another barber headed his advertisement with a parody on a couplet from Goldsmith as follows:--
"Man wants but little beard below, Nor wants that little long."
A witty Parisian hairdresser on one of the Boulevards put up a sign having on it a portrait of Absalom dangling by his hair from a tree, and Joab piercing his body with a spear. Under the painting was the following terse epigram:--
"Passans, contemplez le malheur D'Absalom pendu par la nuque; Il aurait évité ce malheur, S'il eut porté une perruque."
The lines lose some of their piquancy when rendered into English as follows:--
"The wretched Absalom behold, Suspended by his flowing hair: He might have 'scaped this hapless fate Had he chosen a wig to wear."

THE BARBER'S SHOP
The old-fashioned barber has passed away. In years agone he was a notable tradesman, and was a many-sided man of business, for he shaved, cut hair, made wigs, bled, dressed wounds, and performed other offices. When the daily papers were not in the hands of the people he retailed the current news, and usually managed to scent the latest scandal, which he was not slow to make known--in confidence, and in an undertone, of course. He was an intelligent fellow, with wit as keen as his razor; urbane, and having the best of tempers. It has been truthfully said of this old-time tradesman that one might travel from pole to pole and never encounter an ill-natured or stupid barber.
Long days are usually worked in the barber's shop, and many attempts have been made to reduce the hours of labour. We must not forget that compulsory early closing is by no means a new cry, as witness the following edict, issued in the reign of Henry VI., by the Reading Corporation: "Ordered that no barber open his shop to shave any man after 10 o'clock at night from Easter to Michaelmas, or 9 o'clock from Michaelmas to Easter, except it be any stranger or any worthy man of the town that hath need: whoever doeth to the contrary to pay one thousand tiles to the Guildhall."
[Illustration: A Barber's Shop in the Time of Queen Elizabeth.]
In the reign of Queen Elizabeth the rich families from the country thought it no disgrace in that simple age to lodge in Fleet Street, or take rooms above some barber's shop. At this period, indeed, the barber-surgeon was a man of considerable importance. His shop was the gathering-place of idle gallants, who came to have their sword-wounds dressed after street frays. The gittern, or guitar, lay on the counter, and this was played by a customer to pass away the time until his turn came to have his hair trimmed, his beard starched, his mustachios curled, and his love-locks tied up. We give a picture of a barber's shop at this period; the place appears more like a museum than an establishment for conducting business. We get a word picture of a barber's shop in Greene's "Quip for an Upstart Courtier," published in 1592. It is related that the courtier sat down in the throne of a chair, and the barber, after saluting him with a low bow, would thus address him: "Sir, will you have your worship's hair cut after the Italian manner, short and round, and then frounst with the curling irons to make it look like a half-moon in a mist; or like a Spaniard, long at the ears and curled like to the two ends of an old cast periwig; or will you be Frenchified with a love-lock down to your shoulders, whereon you may wear your mistress's favour? The English cut is base, and gentlemen scorn it; novelty is dainty. Speak the word, sir, my scissors are ready to execute your worship's will." A couple of hours were spent in combing and dressing the ambrosial locks of the young Apollo; then the barber's basin was washed with camphor soap. At last the beard is reached, and with another congee the barber asks if his worship would wish it to be shaven; "whether he would have his peak cut short and sharp, and amiable like an inamorato, or broad pendent like a spade, to be amorous as a lover or terrible as a warrior and soldado; whether he will have his crates cut low like a juniper bush, or his subercles taken away with a razor; if it be his pleasure to have his appendices primed, or his moustachios fostered to turn about his ears like vine tendrils, fierce and curling, or cut down to the lip with the Italian lash?--and with every question a snip of the scissors and a bow." If a poor man entered the shop he was polled for twopence, and was