Gen. Bolly Lewis, who spends midwinter in Jacksonville, Florida, and spring and fall at the Gibson House, Cincinnati, will have charge of the Hotel Athenæum at Chautauqua during the summer. He is making every preparation to furnish his guests first-class entertainment. With a hotel and furnishing that cost $125,000, all complete, even to the grounds being graded, sodded, and flowers blooming, he is sure to do it. The hotel will be open June 15, one month before the School of Languages opens. Correspondents should address General Lewis before that date at the Gibson House, Cincinnati, Ohio; after that, at Hotel Athenæum, Chautauqua, N. Y.
[IN SOME MEDICAL BY-WAYS.]
By ANDREW WILSON, F. R. S. E.
That the beautifying or improvement of the person, under certain circumstances, is a perfectly legitimate procedure, when judged by the common-place rules of society, is a conclusion which demands no evidence by way of support. No one would dream for a moment of disputing the assertion, to come to personal details, that a defacing wart, mole, or wen, on the face, capable of being readily removed, without danger, by surgical interference, should be so disposed of. And to take the very common and exceedingly annoying case, of a profusion of hairs attaching themselves prominently, say, to some simple skin-growth, and capable of being permanently or temporarily removed by depilatories, the same remark holds good. Such acts of personal attention need no excuse. On the ground of common personal æsthetics, apart altogether from the freedom of annoyance from marked blemishes of face or figure, the amelioration of such deformities is a bare act of justice to the individual in question. The removal of a blemish is physiologically as defensible a proceeding as the replacement of missing teeth by the aid of the dentist, and in this latter act we find the truest warrant, since, for digestive purposes, the possession of teeth or their artificial substitutes is absolutely necessary for the preservation of health. To the replacement of a maimed limb by an artificial one, there can be still less objection. The common ground of expediency, utility, and function, presents us with an unanswerable argument in favor of aiding nature, in so far as we are able, by the devices of art.
Very different, however, is the argument which would fain carry these same reasons into the domain of the peruke maker, and into that of the manufacturer of face-paints and lotions. On what grounds, æsthetic or otherwise, could a change of color in the hair be demanded or defended? Similarly, on what grounds could we justify the practice of face-enameling, or the smoothing out of the wrinkles which time writes naturally enough on our brows and faces at large? It can not be argued that a false eyebrow or curl is as justifiable as false teeth, for the purpose of the latter as aids to digestion is plain enough; whilst the only conceivable ground for the adoption of the former appendages would be “an improvement in looks”—an avowedly small-minded excuse, and one, in any sense, of doubtful correctness. To the deficiency or want of eyebrows we become accustomed, as to the whiteness of hair or other peculiarities of physique; but if the practice of supplying nature’s defects—justifiable enough under certain conditions, as we have seen—is to be regarded as legitimate under all circumstances, the extremes of absurdity to which such a practice may and does lead are readily enough discerned. Admitting the false eyebrow, why should we exclude the “nose machine” advertised for the charitable purpose, when worn daily (in private), of altering the unbecoming natural style to that of a becoming and, it is to be presumed, fashionable olfactory organ?