SOUR GRAPES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 27 January 1911, Page 6

SOUR GRAPES.

RESIGNED TO THE INEVITABLE. A •well documented history of Baldness, for popular use, is a book that still remains to be written. The historian would presumably begin with early' monastic hairlessness; with Brahmanism and Buddhism, favouring shaven heads; with the curious fact that saintliness, or l enunciation, has for lc-ng been- associated with shining 'nates; and he would pass on to Aeschylus, who (if we do not -conf use an old report) was slain by an eagle who dropped a tortoise on his head, mistaking', it for a stone, so that, instead of breaking the.tortoise, as the eagle intended, the tortoise broke, Aeschylus' head. He would come to Julius Caesar next, who was so much ashamed of his bare head that he wreathed it constantly with laurels; and so, across the ages, on and on, tc the days when baldness was dissembled by wigs, peruques,' powder, and skull caps; and finally to our own time when this defect, after much hesitation, has been pronounced a gain, and to be a sign of virtue and a fixed income. We know., we have anticipated, for long, that it would happen so, and we are glad that it has so happened, since, to accept as an advantage a defect you cannot remedy, is a sign of philosophy in - race. For many years war has been declared on baldness, q nd restorers have had a tremendous vogue. Hundreds oi men have spent thousands of pounds on bottles of pretty coloured scent at •barbers' shops. The coloured scent has been, poured in deluges upon the shining heads. The only result has been thai the few .remaining hairs have come out in a few days, instead of lingering; as without the coloured scent they might have done, for a further year or two. Then, denuded forever of what was once considered a glory of man, and is still considered a beauty of woman, the world has stocially faced the situation, and, being unable.to get what it wanted, it has wanted what it has ,got. It has' begun to declare that nobody wants a fine head of hair, and that the best thing to do with it if you have got it is immediately to lose it again. For the purpose of losing our hair the coloured .scents- we have so long .been applying will come in very useful. . ' Our historian of baldness, when hf comes to this age, will indicate this change of opinion. But will he be able to stop there? With the progress oi time and the advance of commerce other things besides heads of hair are vanish ing. Horrid doctors warn us that' £ time will come when we shall be toothless, too. We shall .perhaps be legless, for civilisation is a sedentary condv tion. Will our philosophy- stand that: Will our toothlessness and lameness be glorified in turn? It will be the only way out of despau We shall go on praising what we"get. Our novelists will speak of the fine young hero's blazing cranium it which, with care, you could read tn» purity of his intentions. They will des<tribe his expensive set of teeth whicn he will remove at moments of emotion, to gibber toothlessly. They will enlarge upon the lack of legs. But- with that alliteration, we breaK off, rememberine Richard Calmady. No : -we cannot after all, to like the prospect- In those days, perhaps, they will look upon the fine fellows of to-day-even ns we look upon hairy savages, with painted teeth at present. As yet we can not 'feel so. For still, as we think of i*t does anger against baldness return; and we look onec more, with ever springing hope, if not hair, upon the latest 1 bottle of pretty-coloured scent hefore us.—"Daily Mirror."