WHY WE SHAVE.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 30, Issue 17, 1 March 1918, Page 2

WHY WE SHAVE.

It is difficult to find any practical reason why male servants should be allowed to grow hair on the cheek, but not on the lip or chin ; soldiers on the lip, but not on the cheek or chin ; sailors, again, if on the lip, then compulsorily on both cheek and chin. Shaving was practised in the New World before that was discovered by Europeans., and the Mexican barbers shaved their customers with flakes of volcanic glass, each piece as it lost its edge being flung away and a new one applied. A curious instance of political significance in the mode of shaving may be remembered by some people. It was after the downfall of Napoleon 111., when the French army ceased to be Imperial and became Republican, that a general order was issued that all military chins were to be shaved, and forthwith the familiar characteristic “Imperial” disappeared from 500,000 chins.

For many years before the Crimean War the moustache in England was the distinguishing badge of the cavalry ; it was prohibited in the infantry, and, as for the civilian who braved public opinion by sporting it, he was looked on either as an artist, an eccentric,, or as wishing to pass for an Huaflar.