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in England, every one washes the face more than once a
day. Besides, if this were an argument, we had better
shave the head and eyebrows as well.
II. " That it would take as much time to keep the
Beard in order, as to shave." Supposing even it did, still
there is a most important difference both in the two opera-
tions and in their results. For the process of combing
and brushing the Beard, instead of being tedious, uncer-
tain, and often painful, like shaving,* confers a positively
delightful sensation, similar to that which one may imagine
a cat to experience,
When smoothing gently down its fur,
It answers with a purr, purr, purr;
And in its drooping half-shut eye,
A dreamy pleasure we espy.
* There is something in the operation of shaving which, besides
its painfulness, ought to make it repidsive to those who do not
shave themselves—such as having the face bedaubed with lather
and rubbed with a brush, which has done the same office for hun-
dreds of china. It is amusing to hear a knot of free and independ-
ent Englishmen roaring "Britons never will be slaves;" most of
whom will give their chins to be mown and then- noses to be pulled
by any common Barber, and pay him too for the pulling. Even
when the party is a self-shaver, to say nothing of the waste of time,
what a number of petty annoyances and exercises of temper
does it involve! Notwithstanding the boasts of cold water shavers,
depend upon it in rigorous weather most people prefer hot to cold
water, which renders them slaves to then- servants; next, razors,
as we know from puff advertisements and our own experi-
ence, are the most uncertain of articles; then there is the state of
the nerves, that even the strongest cannot always control, causing
the unsteady hand to gash and hack the chin, or cover it with
blood from the beheading of those pimply eruptions of which the
razor has been ofttimes the originator.
