NO-NAME PAPER.
The “Ridger” is quite a different person from the Mountaineer. He looks upon the latter individual as a sodden and benighted unfortunate, whose inaccessible habitation entitles him to the pity of the favored dwellers on the “Ridge.”
That the Ridge is but a low out-put of the Mountain, that it is barren and isolated, does not disturb the comfortable theory of its inhabitants. To the people of the Valley the Ridger is a twin brother of the owner of the hut on the top-most peak of the range.
They look alike. Their bearing and habits are similar. To the Valley eye their clothes are of the same material and cut; but to the Ridger himself there is as wide a difference between him and his less favored brother on the “mounting” as that to be found by the stroller on Fifth Avenue when he gazes with profound contempt upon the egotistic biped who plainly hopes to deceive the elect into a belief that he, also, belongs to the charmed circle and has not simply “run over” from Jersey City, or St. Louis, or New Bedford.
The Mountaineer is frequently a Tunker, the Ridger rarely. Therefore the Ridger is likely to have a shaven face, and, for the younger contingent, a mustache is the rule, a “goatee” the fashion. To the Tunker none of these are permissible. The beard may not be cut, a mustache may not be worn, and, with the first of these propositions in force it will be seen at once that “a goatee” is quite out of the question.
When I say that the Ridger is likely to have a shaven face I do not intend to convey the impression that he ever uses a razor. He shaves his face with the scissors. His Tunker neighbor up the mountain performs the same feat on his own upper lip. The result is effective and satisfactory from both a religious and artistic outlook in the eyes of these sticklers for fashion and dogma, albeit, it might be looked upon as more or less disappointing by the habitués of the Union League Club or the devotees at St. Thomas.
If the rivet, which at some previous date had held the two halves of the scissors together, happens to be lost, or if it has worn so loose that these members “do not speak as they pass by,” a jack knife or even a butcher’s knife is no stranger to the tonsorial process of these followers of the elusive god of style.
I do not know that I have ever met a Tunker so lost to a deep sense of religious duty, or a Ridger sufficiently devoid of the pride of personal appearance, that he would “go to town” without having first performed this rite.
It is a serious business.