was not in the habit of trifling, first shaved
himself, to show that he was in earnest,
and then ordered a tax upon a sliding scale
on beards and moustaches. Dignitaries,
courtiers, functionaries, and merchants of
St. Petersburg were to pay one hundred
roubles (sixteen pounds); tradespeople and
noblemen's servants, sixty roubles (nine
pounds twelve shillings); the inhabitants
of Moscow, thirty roubles (four pounds
sixteen shillings); and peasants, two dugui
(twopence-halfpenny) each time they
entered the town. In receipt for the tax, the
revenue officers gave a counter in brass or
copper, upon one side of which was figured
a nose, moustache, and beard, with the
words Boroda lichnaïa tiagota, and on the
other the effigy of the Russian two-headed
eagle, with the inscription, Deughvi vsiati
(money received), or Sbevodi pochlina
vsiata (the tax on the beard has been
levied). A ukase of 1722 in part modified
the provisions of the original law, but
compelled all the inhabitants of towns who
persisted in wearing beards, to pay an
impost of fifty roubles yearly, and to dress in
an uniform costume. It was found necessary,
however, to repeal the tax of two
deugui exacted of peasants at the gates of
cities, or the townspeople would have stood
a fair chance of being kept short of
provisions. Peter's successors, far from relaxing
the severity of this novel and absurd tax,
added to its rigour. In 1731, the Empress
Anne decreed that any one, not being a
peasant, who wore a beard, should be
assessed at double the ordinary rates and
taxes, besides having to pay the special
tax. This was too much; men grew
desperate under persecution, and many old
Tory Russians preferred a voluntary exile
to these vexations. It was not until the
accession of Catherine the Second, in 1762,
that the beards and moustaches of Russian
citizens were allowed once more to flourish
unmolested; though it seems that Peter
the Second, the ill-fated husband of Catherine,
had meditated making it penal to
wear beards.

All this makes us wonder; but we must
be wary of condemning, for beards have
but very lately been emancipated even in
England. In our country, but a few years
ago, neither soldier, sailor, policeman, nor
menial, might wear a beard. In France no
barrister is admitted to plead, if he have
moustaches; and no priest is consecrated
unless he be completely shaven. French
soldiers are obliged to wear the tuft under
the chin, like their imperial master.

A great deal more might be said about
beards, for their history is both varied and
comical; but we will stop here, merely
quoting in conclusion the words of Cuvier,
the great naturalist, on shaving.

"I found," he said, "that my shaving
took me a quarter of an hour a day; this
makes seven hours and a half a month, and
ninety hours, or three days and eighteen
hours, very nearly four days, a year. This
discovery staggered me; here was I
complaining that time was too short, that the
years flew by too swiftly, that I had not
hours enough for work, and in the midst of
my complaining I was wasting nearly four
days a year in lathering my face with a
shaving-brush, and I resolved thenceforth
to let my beard grow."

JOVIAL JOURNALISM.

THE most popular French newspaper of
the present time may be called, in this
article, the Cigarette, and is the completest
type of Parisian journalism extant.
According to the account of the editor, whose
truthfulness there is no reason to doubt,
the circulation of the Cigarette is
enormous; consequently, its advertisements,
which are farmed by a company, extend
over a page and three-quarters, or more
than two-thirds of the surface of the paper.

It is the fashion in Paris to read the
Cigarette; and to comply with this fashion
is wonderfully amusing. The tone of
morality and views of life therein advocated,
are perhaps rather startling when first
explained to an Englishman, and would not
be popular in an English lady's drawing-room,
or an orthodox club. But the
travelled reader soon perceives that these
peculiarities are national rather than
individual, and that the editor and his staff are
in no way personally concerned with them,
further than that they propagate the latest
social and political doctrines in a style
pre-eminently pleasant and witty.

No British journal is conducted on the
same principle. Though professedly a
newspaper, the contempt of the Cigarette for
all sorts of news is complete. It is made
up almost entirely of occasional notes
of the most unexpected and incongruous
character. Thus, the French press having
declared that the Empress Eugenie is
descended from the honourable Irish family
of Kirkpatrick, the Cigarette gratifies its
readers with the following astonishing
information on this subject: