THE FAIR COMPLEXION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 167, 8 April 1908, Page 3

THE FAIR COMPLEXION.

r The . Fair with the Golden Hair and the Blue Eyes ■is doomed. ■ IIci; death is only a matter of- years. :In a very -very. little time, six hundred years'to bo exact, the melodraihatist will.hiive .to. find some other-means than endowing, her with golden tresses and speedwell blue eyes, to distinguish .the suffering heroine from the dark woman who persecutes her. ; Well is'it for Annie Swan and kindred of fiction that .they live today instead of. six hundred years hence, that' they may: still balance the icy-hearted selfish beauty ; against -the dark intensely-loving orphan, with liquid brown eyes, or .the widow ■with fair. Shining hair against the haughty brunette who will crush her to the ground. These little, effective signs and labels will not he .available six hundred years henco, when, according to the - latest.. scientific prediction the dark type will have superseded the fair. It'; appears .-that, nearly all those 'Conquering races. which were 4also: colonisers were , . fair, and that the. Macedonians, the Greeks, even the early Persians; were blonde. It is suggested,' 'arid oxporiences 'ate, quoted that range from' the.West Coast; of Africa to the Far, East arid tropica! ; America, to proro that men of fair complexion can ■ withstand bad conditions of living better than the . dark' that they' are! superior to the dark in endurance'and everything'else connected with war except the actual fighting.-; V ; '.It- is almost' to bo concluded that pulmonary tuberculosis attacks the' dark ; especially. ■ "The, picture dear to sentiment of a. maiden with looks of gold and eyes of , azure perishing' from consumption is not' to be regarded as typical—to bo representative her tresses should; bo! dark brown, with eyes .'. to match.- It is interesting to hear it asV , serted vthat' nervous diseases generally assail the brunette tj-pe, and . to hear it suggosted that lunacy. 11 is', more' .common among brunettes, though violent mania attacks tho fair especially, s,' . But let not the brunette'desnair. Tho c&nstitutkm indicated by light hair and eye is not, adapted to-the conditions of town life. It is there that the/brunette triumphs. "Dork comploxioncd children," wrote'a physician ha.lf a century ago, "show more tenacity of life than, fair ones, under some of the unfavourable conditions of town life," an ' observation that is echoed now from all parts of tlie world. . Tke question has been asked whether, the fair complexion may make a new start as it were, re-eppf*r triumphant - in some unexneciid district and .spread tllenco as it did - before. This is a question that has been deeply considered by some of the ' wisest heads, and they answer, that time to be measured by hundreds ,of centuries, must have "been employed in the making of the fair com-plexion,-and that the nrocess cannot ba repeated.