They propose to have a public soirée at their own
rooms once a month, where dressers, selected
from three previous practice–nights, will give an
exhibition of their skill; and a grand soirée every
month at the Hanover–square Rooms, where all
the dressers chosen on the three previous
monthly soirées will perform before the public.
By these means, and from the subscriptions of
their members, the committee hope to realise
sufficient funds to enable them to establish a
Hairdressers' Club–house of all nations." A
most laudable object, truly—one in which
every person who has a head to be dressed, and
a heart to feel for the man who dresses it,
will most cordially sympathise.

The 'British hairdressers have a grievance,
and it is much to their credit that they do not
parade it in the prospectus of their present
scheme, nor make it in any way the basis of
their claim to public support. It was whispered
to me confidentially—and I am going, at my own
risk, to whisper it confidentially to the public—
British ladies have a predilection for French
hairdressers. This is quite of a piece with our
favour for Italian singers, and French cooks, and
Spanish dancers. Yet we have English singers
who are equal to any of the Italian, and English
cooks who are as good hands at a kickshaw as
Francatelli himself; and have we not recently
exported dancers to Spain, and France, and
Russia, where kings and emperors have
presented them with diamond necklaces, and
princes and counts have fought duels for their
sweet sakes? As to the British hairdressers,
they only want fair play. At these periodical
exhibitions of their taste and skill they will give
British ladies an opportunity of showing what
they can do. If they are less tasteful than the
Frenchman, they will not complain if the Frenchman
is preferred; but if they prove that their
skill is second to none, they have a right to
expect that native talent shall not be sacrificed to
a mere caprice. The British hairdressers have
not asked foreign artists to join in initiating the
present movement; but when the academy shall
have been securely established, it will be open
to the hair–artists of all nations. They don't
want protection; they court the fullest
competition. All they ask from the ladies of England
is fair play.

Having thus disposed of the business part of
the matter, let us now devote ourselves to
pleasure in the ball–room. But just one moment,
I am invited to view the ladies in their private
apartment. Here they are, a bevy of beauty, a
wild parterre of the choicest flowers—as regards
their heads—shaking from their curls, and
bandeaux, and chignons the powdered gold of
Ophir, and the balmy perfumes of Araby, with
just a flavour of the unguent odours of the
northern bear. Who shall be fairest at the
ball to–night? To whom shall we award the
prize? Here in the midst of them all, it is an
embarrassment of rich tresses. Let us fly from
the intoxicating scene, and plunge into the
giddy vortex which Terpsichore is preparing for
us in the grand hall!

A delightful ball! The Academicians most
gallant and polite, the ladies elegant and stately;
but gracious. Etiquette and the proprieties
strictly observed; but not too strictly. No
affectation, and certainly no vulgarity. Nothing
that the most ill–natured person could sneer at.
My impression is, that I have never seen at a
ball so much natural politeness and easy
courtesy. If these hairdressers, and their
wives, daughters, and sisters, are not ladies
and gentlemen—in the ball–room sense—they
are the best imitation of them I have ever met
with among what is called the industrial classes.
That many of them are ladies and gentlemen in
the true sense, I was fully assured by their
intelligent conversation and good manners.
And the ladies—ah, what charming dancers they
were! Why was my polite education neglected in
early youth? Why was I not sent to dancing–
school, practically to have learned that the polite
arts soften the manners, and prevent a man
from becoming savage? Not having learned the
polite art of dancing, I am (as a natural
consequence) savage—very savage that I am not in
a position to go up to that handsome young
lady with the gold–dust in her hair, and beg the
favour of her hand for a polka. How
tantalising it is as she sweeps past, on the arm of
another, shaking the gold from her curls as
if she were Fortune scattering her favours.
Alas! the golden shower falls not on me, for I
cannot dance. I retire into a corner to gaze in
silence upon the giddy scene in which I cannot
join. How I envied those happy joyous dancers!
I do not know whether I fell into a reverie and
dreamt what follows, or whether it actually
occurred; but it is deeply impressed in my mind,
that when I exclaimed, "Ah, how happy they
are!" a lady sitting near me sadly made answer:

"Ah, sir, you know not what it is to be the
daughter of a member of the Hairdressers'
Academy."

"Is not your father kind to you, then?" I
asked.

"As a man," replied the maiden, "he is kind,
loving, and indulgent: as a member of the
Hairdressers' Academy, he is cruel, relentless, and
inexorable."

"Explain yourself, maiden: you speak in
riddles."

"Know then, sir," the maiden began, drawing
a deep sigh, "that I am cursed with a
luxuriant head of hair, whose colour is that of
the setting sun."

"Some," I muttered, "would call it blessed
to be thus endowed. It is the fashionable
colour."

"Worse luck," said the maiden, in tones of
despair. "That accursed tint is the cause of
my persecution. My paternally kind but
professionally cruel father has woke me in the dead
of night and seized me by this golden hair——"

"To beat you, maiden?"

"Nay, sir; to dress my head à la something,
a new form of coiffure which had arrived from
Paris while I slept. When I have been coming
to the most deeply interesting part of a novel,