A BALD AND TOOTHLESS FUTURE. 803 



A BALD AND TOOTHLESS FUTUPwE. 



By VIRGIL G. EATON. 



TO a person who has a moderately well-supplied pocket-book and 

 a thoughtful turn of mind, there can be no more fruitful theme 

 for meditation than to go into our large halls, theatres, churches, and 

 other places of public resort, and, securing a seat in the gallery or in 

 the rear part of the room, look at the heads of the audience, for no 

 other purpose than to ascertain by actual count how many show signs 

 of baldness. Unless the experimenter has been in the habit of count- 

 ing for this object, he will be surprised to learn that, in most of the 

 Eastern cities, fully thirty per cent of the men over thirty years of 

 age show unmistakable signs of baldness, while nearly twenty per cent 

 have spots on their heads that are not only bald, but actually polished 

 with the gloss that is supposed to belong to extreme old age alone. I 

 have been in the majority of the churches and theatres in all the large 

 Eastern cities, as well as in Chicago, St. Louis, and other places of the 

 West, and have verified my assertion by actual count. From my ob- 

 servation I find that bald-headed men are most plentiful in New York 

 and Boston. After these come Philadelphia, Washington, and the 

 Western towns. I say "men," for two reasons: 1. Because women 

 usually wear their hats or bonnets on such occasions, thus covering 

 their crowns. 2. In case their hats are removed, the hair is combed 

 up so as to cover any possible bald spot, or else there is an artificial 

 " switch " to hide the defects of nature. So, without indulging in any 

 speculations regarding what may be, I will confine myself to what is 

 to be seen. 



Here are a few observations taken in Boston. Trinity Church: 

 243 men ; 71 actually bald, 46 indications of baldness. King's 

 Chapel : 86 men ; 38 actually bald, 14 indications of baldness. Hol- 

 lis Street Theatre, orchestra at performance of the " Mikado " : 63 

 men ; 27 actually bald, 10 indications. Boston Theatre Judic : 126 

 men ; 51 actually bald, 43 indications. 



These observations were taken from the more cultivated classes of 

 society, and do not give a fair representation of the Boston head, as 

 repeated calls at the dime museums and cheaper variety performances 

 demonstrated. For instance, of the thirty men seen in the seats of the 

 World's Museum in Washington Street, but eight were bald, while 

 only five others had thin hair, showing that baldness was simply a 

 question of a very few years. Again, of forty men at Austin and 

 Stone's Museum, twenty-two had their heads well covered ; and at the 

 Windsor Theatre (variety) I found less than twenty-five per cent who 

 had thin hair. 



On the other hand, at shows and entertainments of more refine- 



