At the Sign of the Barbers Pole | Page 6

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 any Inn or other public or private house or place, or shall go in or out of any such house or place on the said day with instruments used for that purpose, albeit the same cannot be positively proved, or made appear, but in case the Lord Mayor for the time being shall upon good circumstances consider and adjudge any such brother to have trimmed or barbed as is aforesaid, that then any such offender shall forfeit and pay for every such offence 10s., one half to the Lord Mayor, and the other to the use of the said Company, unless such brother shall voluntarily purge himself by oath to the contrary; and the searchers of the said Company for the time being