We present a picture of a barber’s shop in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It looks more like the home of a magician than the workshop of a hairdresser, although we see the barber thoughtfully employed on a wig. The barber at this period was an important man. A few of his duties consisted in dressing wigs, using the razor, cutting hair, starching beards, curling moustachios, tying up love-locks, dressing sword-wounds received in street frays, and the last, and by no means the least, of his varied functions was that of receiver and circulator of news and scandal.
It is recorded that Mary Queen of Scots obtained wigs from Edinburgh not merely while in Scotland, but during her long and weary captivity in England. From “The True Report of the Last Moments of Mary Stuart,” it appears, when the executioner lifted the head by the hair to show it to the spectators, it fell from his hands owing to the hair being false.
We have previously mentioned Pepys’ allusions to women and wigs in 1666. Coming down to later times, we read in the Whitehall Evening Post of August 17th, 1727, that when the King, George II., reviewed the Guards, the three eldest Princesses “went to Richmond in riding habits, with hats, and feathers, and periwigs.”
It will be seen from the picture of a person with and without a wig that its use made a plain face presentable. There is a good election story of Daniel O’Connell. It is related during a fierce debate on the hustings, O’Connell with his biting, witty tongue attacked his opponent on account of his ill-favoured countenance. But, not to be outdone, and thinking to turn the gathering against O’Connell, his adversary called out, “Take off your wig, and I’ll warrant that you’ll prove the uglier.” The witty Irishman immediately responded, amidst roars of laughter from the crowd, by snatching the wig from off his own head and exposing to view a bald plate, destitute of a single hair. The relative question of beauty was scarcely settled by this amusing rejoinder, but the laugh was certainly on O’Connell’s side.
WITH AND WITHOUT A WIG.
An interesting tale is told of Peter the Great of Russia. In the year 1716, the famous Emperor was at Dantzig, taking part in a public ceremony, and feeling his head somewhat cold, he stretched out his hand, and seizing the wig from the head of the burgomaster sitting below him, he placed it on his own regal head. The surprise of the spectators may be better imagined than described. On the Czar returning the wig, his attendants explained that his Majesty was in the habit of borrowing the wig of any nobleman within reach on similar occasions. His Majesty, it may be added, was short of hair.
STEALING A WIG.
In the palmy days of wigs the price of a full wig of an English gentleman was from thirty to forty guineas. Street quarrels in the olden time were by no means uncommon; care had to be exercised that wigs were not lost. Says Swift:—