An Easy Shave

1895

"An easy shave?" The words come trippingly, as if the art, or rather mystery, of shaving were facile. From the very earliest ages the problem of shaving, like all really great problems, has perplexed thoughtful men. Why our Paleolithic ancestors began to shave is unascertained. It seems so easy to let the chin alone. There may have been some religious reason, or sexual selection may have intervened. Woman may have preferred a beardless wooer. Yet this is contrary to all analogy.

When Alma Venus behaved in the manner so poetically described by Lucretius, "the most eloquent of blasphemers," then the wanton lapwing procured for himself another crest, and the peacock spread abroad the splendors of his tail. The beard in man is averred by philosophers to have a corresponding moral. But man, being reasonable, must needs cut his beard off. To run in the face of nature has ever been his way of asserting his independence and demonstrating the lordship of reason.

Ere metals were invented, ere fire subdued the copper to his will, man plucked his beard out, or he tooled with a sharp shell. A soapless shave with a shell — it cannot be called easy, and travelers have described the agonies of the brave. Conceivably, man shaved because the beard might be caught hold of by an enemy with the left hand, while with the right he drove the pointed flint under the fifth rib. For whatever reason, man in the bronze age shaved with a bronze razor, as if we should do so with a paper cutter. The process must have been slow and painful, as much so as tattooing, but fashion was all powerful. — Saturday Review.

Save Lots of Money by Not Shaving

1911

Wise Cracks in the News

A Massachusetts octogenarian who has never shaved in his life, claims to have saved $24,000 in that way, but most men would rather not have the money than the whiskers.

A lady smuggler arrested with $8,000 worth of jewels in her stocking claims that that's where she always wears 'em. Evidently we've been overlooking a good thing.

A few phlegmatic men who never become excited about anything are not going to buy a fruit farm next and get rich in one season by raising apples.

The fashionable dressmakers are still quarreling over the location of the waist line, and women will have to go along a while without knowing where it will finally be located for the season.

There are many ways of getting in bad, only one of which is to travel on a train which is about to be wrecked.

We are told that the day of the novel is ended. When we consider the alleged literature that has been perpetrated recently, we cannot squeeze out even the semblance of a tear.

Their Long Span of Life -- "Same Razor Everyday, 53 Years"

1922

London — Setting forth a compilation of the longevity of many of the common-place things in life — things which though soon every day are scarcely given thought — the London Mail points out that the length of useful life possessed by articles of man's handiwork forms an interesting speculation, and one which is full of surprises.

"For instance, an artificial leg had been worn by its owner for sixty years and was still serviceable at the end of that time.

"The average life of a locomotive engine is about twenty years, but there are many cases on record of this term being greatly exceeded. One built in 1846 worked for a period of over fifty years, first as a passenger, then freight, and finally as a shifting engine. Another completed over two million miles, equal to one hundred year's service, on the ordinary basis of twenty thousand miles a year.

"In the year 1913 a town in Wales was using a fire engine which had been in active service for seventy years on end. But this record pales when compared with that of an engine which was still in use at the beginning of the present century by a firm of metal rollers in Birmingham. This, a beam engine, was erected in the year 1767, and worked continuously for one hundred and thirty-six years before it was last pulled down and replaced.

"There is a case on record of a man using the same razor every morning for fifty-three years."

—Appleton Post-Crescent, Appleton, Wisconsin, Jan. 23, 1922, p. 4.


1899

A Long Service

In remote parts of Scotland the old Covenanters' love for long services on the bare hillside still lingers. At Dingwall a recent communion service in the open air lasted from 10 a. m. until 4 p. m. without exhausting the staying power of the congregation.