“We deal so much in caps in this country that we are almost as careless of the outside as of the inside of our heads. I have had but one wig since the last I had of you, and yours has outworn it. Now I am near out, and you may make me a new grisel Bob.”
Nevertheless, in 1769, when he was roughly handled in Boston on account of his Tory utterances, his head, though he was but fifty-six, was bald from wig-wearing. His spirited recital runs thus:—
“The crowd intending sport, remained. As I was pressing out, my Wig was pulled off and a pate shaved by Time and the barber was left exposed. This was thought a signal and prelude to further insult; which would probably have taken place but for hindering the cause. Going along in this plight, surrounded by the crowd, in the dark, a friend hold of either arm supporting me, while somebody behind kept nibbling at my sides and endeavouring of treading the reforming justice out of me by the multitude. My wig dishevelled, was borne on a staff behind. My friends and supporters offered to house me, but I insisted on going home in the present trim, and was landed in safety.”
Patriotic Boston barbers found much satisfaction in ill treating the wigs of their Tory customers and patrons. William Pyncheon, a Salem Tory, wrote a few years later:—
“The tailors and barbers, in their squinting and fleering at our clothes, and especially our wiggs, begin to border on malevolence. Had not the caul of my wigg been of uncommon stuff and workmanship, I think my barber would have had it in pieces: his dressing it greatly resembles the farmer dressing his flax, the latter of the two being the gentlest in his motions.”
Worcester Tories, among them Timothy Paine, had their wigs pulled off in public. Mr. Paine at once gave his dishonored wig to one of his negro slaves, and never after resumed wig-wearing.
CHAPTER XII
THE BEARD
“Though yours be sorely lugged and torn
It does your Visage more adorn
Than if ’twere prun’d, and starch’d, and launder’d
And cut square by the Russian standard.”
—“Hudibras,” SAMUEL BUTLER.
“Now of beards there be such company
And fashions such a throng
That it is very hard to handle a beard
Tho’ it be never so long.
“’Tis a pretty sight and a grave delight
That adorns both young and old
A well thatch’t face is a comely grace
And a shelter from the cold”
—“Le Prince d’Amour,” 1660.