Cutting a Boy's Hair.

Auckland Star, Volume XII, Issue 3546, 17 December 1881, Page 4 (Supplement)

Cutting a Boy's Hair.

There is no use in fooling around about it, When a boy's hair has become long and bleached and scraggy and full of burrs and feathers it is time to cut it, and the inevitable must be faced.

The boy doesn't want it cut, of course. No one ever had a speaking acquaintance with a boy who thought the time had arrived when he could part with enough hair to stuff a sofa pillow. They must be coerced, and kind words and broad promises are thrown away.' Coercion is the only method. I let m j boys run about so long, and then when I get a spare half day I play barber. There is no appeal from my- decision. When I come out flat-footed I carry my point, or die trying, "Young man, you can get ready to have your hair cut." "Next week?" • •, "No, sir—now 1" " With a buzz-saw ?"

" Yes, if the shears won't do it." . " Won't you draw blood 2" " I may nave to." " If you won't cut my hair, I'll bring in 'miff wood and coal to last all winter, and I won't ask for a light when Igo to bed !" ] '' Come out heie and make ready!" I never take any chances on a boy, I have an old chair bolted to the floor, and then I bolt the boy to the chair. I fix him so that he can neither move hand nor foot, put a soft gag in his mouth to prevent a neighbourhood alarm, and begin, work. The first step towards cutting a boy's hair is to putin ten minutes' hard work with a curry-comb. If he hasn't been running loose over two or three years this tool will be found sufficient to take out the snarls, buttons, and articles previously mentioned. A basket is placed behind the chair for them to drop into, and they can be decorated with fancy pictures and made to serve as parlour ornaments. When a boy's hair is ready for the shears brace your feet and shear away. Shear front, back, top, and sides without references to lines or angles, The object is to remove hair.- There is no use of any conversation, not even when the shears find a piece of wire and refuse to cut it. The boy wouldn't know how it got there if you asked liim. He has had his head in closets, cellars, garrets, barns, fence-corners, barrels, boxes, and all sorts of nooks, arid such extra-attachments are no surprise to Mm. No one should be less than half-aii-hour robbing an average boy of his capillary substance. Any attempt at hurrying the job will result in overlooking a lot of shingle nails, the missing screwdriver or something that may damage his Sunday hat. My average is 35 minutes, and I have only two minutes left after being able to to see that he has a scalp. It then takes an additional 10 minutes to look him over and identify him as the same boy I began on. His neck has grown longer, the size of his ears increased, and the whole shape of the head is altered. When I feel sure that it is my boy, and not the son ofsome neighbour who has skulked in on me, I brush him off with an old broom, crack his head three or four times, draw the bolts and remove the gag, and then hold the door open for him to shoot into the back yard. I am a'loving father on all else, but when I cut a boy's hair I'm a stern old Roman of the'first water.—M. r Quad, in '/JDetroit Free Press.": . /:,, .•: :\* - <■:. j j •■.