TWENTY-MILE SHAVES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 230, 26 September 1903, Page 3 (Supplement)

TWENTY-MILE SHAVES.

The distance a man shaves in an average life-time, or the distance his razor travels over his face, will a surprise to most people. From a multitude of examples, an average measurement around the chin from ear to ear is found to be 12* inches. From where the beard starts on the throat to the chin and thence to the edge of the under lip is 4i inches. You must reckon that it is necessary to give two strokes of the razor to eacli inch or fraction of an inch in order to cover all the surface, and to go over each section of the face twice in order to secure a clean surface. So multiplying the number of strokes by the number of times the razor is passed over the entire face, you get the figure 4, and four times the two above-mentioned measurements gives you the figures of 50 and 18 respectively, which, added to gether, produce 68. Therefore, the average man, whether dark or fair, shaves 68 inches if he uses his razor once every 24 hours. With these figures we arrive at the result that every man wearing only a moustache, shaves 2,068 feet 4 inches per year. Taking, then, the average life at 70 years, and that the fair man starts shaving at 18, and the dark man a year earlier, or at 17, we have the following result; —That a fair man, if he lives till he is 70, will shave in the course of his life 20 miles 650 yards 4 inches. The dark man, if he lives till he is 70, will shave in the course of his life 20 miles 1,340 yards 1 foot 8 inches. The writer pleads not guilty to perpei trating this invaluable piece of household statistical information. He borrowed it. If Chinese laundrymen are sometimes "done" by their customers, there are others who make a living by cheating their own kind (says a corres* pondent of an English periodic*!). These are the migrating Chinamen. This man is as sauve as a drug store cat; he "seems as innocent ac the flower, but he is the serpent under it. ,. He comes to town with money uji his big sleeve. Craftily he looks about him for a laundry which is paying badly. This he buys, goodwill and all, for a mere song, the Chinaman who sells grinning over his good fortune in getting rid of it, and chuckling at the thought of the other's approaching discomfiture. But behold! The moment the migrating . Chinamen touches the neu laundry it turns into gold. A new curtain flaunts in its window, and customers pour in at its doors. Other Chinaman do not know that to build up this mushroom trade the migrating one is giving cheap presents witli every pound of clothes and doing his work at half-price. They only sec wealth rolling in upon him, and they gurgle with envy over their irons. In a month the migrating fellow has the biggest business in town. But he is tired. He is "going back to China to his wife and babies." Who wants to buy his business? There is a scramble for the opportunity, and he sells out at a big price to'the highest bidder. A week later the laundry window is fly-specked once more, and the place has dwindled down to its oud state of dilapidation and poor hade. But by this time the migrating Chinaman is far, far, away —buying another business. •