68 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST*. 
[February, 
THE BARBER IN CHINA, SHAVING THE HEAD .—After a Picture in the Illustrated London News. 
top of the head, larger than the head itself, and this tur¬ 
ban was of clay. On inquiring into the matter, we found 
that when the Indian finds his head too populous for 
comfort, for Indians are rarely free from insect parasites, 
(you must look that up in the dictionary)—he mixes up 
clay like mortar, and plasters his head as full as possi¬ 
ble, winding it around on top of his head, and covering 
all with clay. This is worn for several days, or until- 
the clay dries—and very uncomfortable and top-heavy it 
must he—when the clay is beaten and washed out; the 
hair then shines as if it were dressed by a city barber, 
while the inhabitants of the head “ die for want of 
breath.” Among the hair-dressing customs of different 
nations, none are more peculiar than those of the Chi¬ 
nese, who shave all the head, except a tuft upon top; 
this is made to grow as long as it will, kept with great 
care, nicely braided, and as it is not often long enough 
naturally to please the taste of the owner, it is helped out 
by braiding in at the end a lot of long silk threads. This 
queue, or “ pig-tail,” as it is called by other people, is a 
matter of great pride to the Chinese, and the loss of it 
is dreaded almost as much as death. The proper shaving 
of the head is a matter of great importance with a China¬ 
man, and if oiie neglects this, he is looked upon by his 
neighbors as being in a bad way, and it is thought of so 
much consequence that he is reminded by the “author¬ 
ities ” that he must attend to his toilet. Of course, this 
is a kind of shaving that one can not well do himself, but 
must have done by another, and this makes the barber a 
very important man in China. As there are overFthree 
hundred millions of people in China, and every man and 
big boy must have his head regularly shaved, it will be 
seen that a large share of the people must be engaged in 
scraping the heads of the rest. You will think that 
barbers’ shops must be very plenty, but the fact is that 
the barbers have no shops at all. Visitors to China tell 
us, that among the many strange things they notice, is 
the great number of traveling tradesmen, and the amount 
of business done in the street, or in going from house to 
house. The Chinese blacksmith, tinker, shoe-maker, and 
many others besides the barber, have no toots or stocu in 
trade but what they can carry with them, and their shop 
is wherever they may happen to be. The engraving 
shows a Chinese barber serving a customer. He has his 
furnace of coal, and his pail of hot water; one is hung 
at one end of a bamboo stick, which goes across his 
shoulders, and the other at the opposite end, to balance ; 
his towels, and all the rest of his outfit, are carried in the 
same way. When he reaches a customer the barber sets 
down his furnace, puts on the water, and sticks the pole 
up by them, as you see in the picture, and goes to work. 
We might give our arithmetical youngsters a problem, 
something like this: “If there are 100,000,000 heads in 
China toajie shaved twice a week, and each used an ounce 
of soap a month, how many millions of pounds of soap 
are used for head-shaving in the Chinese empire in a 
year ?” No doubt many of you could cypher it out very 
quickly, but as they don’t use soap at all, you need not 
take the trouble 1 “No soap, how then can they shave?” 
you will ask. One of the uses of soap in shaving is to 
make the skin smooth, so that the razor will run easily, 
and not cut the skin, and for this the Chinese barber uses 
clay instead of soap. But what a razor 1—you will think 
that there must be a mistake in the drawing. The razor 
is a very odd looking affair, quite as heavy as our razors, 
but different in shape. We have had one of these razors 
almost ever since we can recollect—probably brought 
home by an uncle who was captain of a ship that sailed 
to China. We never yet found a person who, upon being 
handed this razor closed, could guess what it was for. 
As the razor in the picture is of a different shape, we 
give an engraving of ours, that you may see what a droll 
affair it is. So you see, in looking about among different 
conntries, even so simple a matter as shaving, is done by 
some people in a manner quite different from our own. 
