and the gentle and delicate skill of those hands
proves their owners to be worthy of the name
of British Hairdressers.

There are about forty female heads under
operation; three of them, who cannot find
room at the principal board, taking their
meal of dressing at a side–table. No two heads
are to be dressed alike; but each operator
is free to follow his own fancy. There are all
shapes of heads, all colours of hair. Some
ladies have a profusion of rich glossy locks;
others have scarcely any. The latter, I notice,
are frizzed (with hair–pins, not with hot,
destructive tongs), and by this process a very little
hair is made to look a great deal of hair. One
head is dressed in the fashion of Queen Anne's
days, the hair being pulled up over a cushion,
and powdered with flour; another is arranged
in lateral bandeaux, and powdered with glittering
pearl; a third is frizzed, decked with sprigs,
and powdered with gold. Yonder is a black–
eyed, cherry–cheeked damsel, being arrayed as
a bride, with orange–flowers and a long white
veil. She acts the character to the life, blushes
deeply, and keeps her eyes fixed on her white
satin shoes. If it were half–past eleven A.M.
instead of half–past eight P.M., the bachelor
spectator might feel tempted to take her by the hand,
and lead her across the square to St. George's,
on the chance of finding a stray clergyman at the
altar to perform the service offhand. A thought
comes into my head, that it must be very
tantalising to that young lady to be dressed thus,
like a bride, and find that nobody is coming to
marry her. And when the happy day does
arrive, will she not be used to the sensation?
Think what a disappointment it might be to the
bridegroom to see his bride taking it coolly,
exhibiting no agitation, omitting perhaps to blush;
in fact, conducting herself generally like an
experienced widow.

Moving onwards towards the other end of
the table, we pass in review a great variety
of styles of hair–dressing—some exceedingly
simple, others most elaborate. Here is a little
Queen of Night, with golden stars twinkling in
her raven hair; here a stately lady with marabout
feathers, another with a white muslin scarf
interwoven with her locks, others with twigs of
coral and coins and dingle–dangles. I observe
now that the Academicians are racing. When
the President waved his comb, that was the
signal to start. "They're off, they're off—
they're round the corner! There they go—
there they go!" and Mr. Carter, the president,
is the first horse—I mean, hairdresser—
to pass the winning–post. Great applause
greets his triumph. He has dressed his head
in twelve minutes. Most of the others take
ten or fifteen minutes more, but at the end of
half an hour all the forty heads are dressed.
Thunders of applause! Mr. Carter now makes
a short speech, informing the spectators that
the ladies, accompanied by their hairdressers,
will pass twice round the room, so that all
present may have an opportunity of inspecting
the various triumphs ot art in hair. AccordingIy,
each Academician gives his arm to his
lady, and the whole of the forty couples pass
round, while the band plays a slow solemn
march, and the spectators applaud. At length
the ladies are led from the room to their own
private apartment, and the cloth is cleared from
the tables, to the highly appropriate tune of
"God save the Queen."

Regarding the foregoing as the story of the
piece, I now proceed to make my critical
remarks. The ladies, who were evidently the
wives, daughters, sisters, and sweethearts of the
Academicians, were all well up in their parts. It
was clear that they had rehearsed them repeatedly
and thoroughly. Whenever a curl or a
bandeau was ready to be fixed, they handed up
a hair–pin to the operator. They knew the very
instant to hand the comb, the flower, the net,
the twig of coral, the bunch of dingle–dangles,
the pearl–box, and the gold–dredger. There
were hand–glasses before them in which to watch
the process; but they did not use them. They
felt their parts, and acted them out of that inner
consciousness which is the true attribute of
genius. As to the Academicians, they were to
the manner born. The brush, the comb, the
pomatum–pot, and the wash–bottle, had marked
them for their own. I regret to say, however,
that some of them were not in themselves
testimonies to the virtues of macassar and the
regenerating properties of wash. Shoemakers'
children, it is said, are always badly shod. By
the same rule, it appears that the artists who
profess to make hair grow on the bald places of
others, are denied the ability to make hair grow
on the bald places of themselves. Some of the
Academicians here were suffering from a most
damaging exposure of "thinness on the top."
If you ask me if hairdressers have any idiosyncrasy
as regards costume, I answer that they
have, and that it manifests itself in a white
waistcoat with brass buttons. Intellectually,
they must be a very superior race; for the
president talked to me in a most learned manner
of the æsthetics of hairdressing. If the art of
hairdressing has its "æsthetics," which is quite
as fine a tiling as the "chiar'oscuro" of the
painters, why should not the professors of the
art have an academy? While the hall is being
cleared for dancing, let us examine the project.
First of all, it has been resolved:

"That an academy be established by British
Hairdressers, and when established, that it be
open to the hairdressers of all nations. In
furtherance of this object, the committee venture to
hope that they will receive sufficient funds to
warrant them in taking chambers in a respectable
locality, where they propose to have a general
practice–night once a week, and a club, or general
meeting–place on the other nights, where
all novelties in the trade, whether in hairdressing,
new ornaments, or inventions connected
with false hair, perfumery, brushes, combs, &c.,
may be exhibited, and their merits discussed.
They also hope that they may be enabled to engage
ladies for each practice–night, as they consider
practising on blocks to be worse than useless.