To make his queue thicker, sometimes a Chinaman wishes to grow more hair, and the barber will leave his head unshaven for, perhaps, a quarter of an inch all round the old circle of hair. When the new hair is an inch or two long, being very stiff, it stands up in a fringe—like a kind of black halo—all round his head, looking very comically, and annoying the Chinaman very much, until it is long enough to be put into the braid.
When a man is at work, he finds his queue very much in his way, and he binds it about his head, or winds it up in a ball behind, where he sometimes fastens it with a small wooden comb; but, in his own country, on all occasions of form and dress, he wears it hanging, and it would not be polite to do otherwise.
As it would take a long time to dry it, he dislikes to wet it, and, if rain comes on, hastens to roll it up and cover it.
Sometimes beggars, to make themselves look very wretched, do not dress their hair for a long time, and it becomes so frizzed and matted that hardly anything could be done to it, but to cut most of it off.
When a culprit is arrested in China, the officer takes hold of his queue and leads him to prison by it, often treating him very cruelly.
Little girls, as well as little boys, have their heads shaven when they are about a month old. This is done before an idol, with a good deal of parade. Young girls also wear their hair in queues, but as when older their heads are not shaven like those of the boys, a larger quantity of hair is drawn back into the braid, making it much heavier. When married their hair is put up in the fashion of the women of the district where they live, but married women never wear their hair braided.
One who has lived long in China does not like to see a thin, uneven queue, tied with a cotton string; it has a slovenly, poverty-stricken air; while a thick, glossy braid, with a heavy bunch of silk in the end of it, looks tidy and prosperous; and a neat plat of silvery hair betokens comfortable old age.