market. The black hair imported into
England comes mostly from Brittany and the
south of France; it is generally of a very
fine and silken black. The light hair comes
from Germany, where it is collected by the
agents of a Dutch Company, who make yearly
visits to various parts of the Germanic States.
Forty years ago the fashion was very different
from that now prevailing; the light German
hair was more prized than any other; and
there was a peculiar golden tint held in
such estimation that the dealers could obtain
eight shillings an ounce for small quantities
of it—nearly double the price of silver; but
the black hair of France now rules the
market. There is an opinion among those
who have the best right to opine on such a
subject, that the average hair of average
English persons has deepened in tint within
the last half century: if this be so, it is
attributed to the more frequent intermarriages
with nations nearer to the sunny south.
Whether dark or light, however, the hair
which the dealer buys as a marketable
comodity becomes to him an article of wonderfully
close scrutiny; he can tell by the smell
alone the difference between German and
French hair; he claims the power to
distinguish English, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh
hair, one from another. The French dealers
can detect the difference between the hair
from two districts of central France, not
many miles asunder, by tokens so slight as
would baffle the most learned among our
physiologists or naturalists.

This French hair-market is very remarkable.
Its dealings extend to two hundred thousand
pounds' weight of hair annually. There
are wholesale firms in Paris, which send
round agents in the spring to various
Breton and other villages. These agents are
provided with ribbons, silks, laces,
haberdashery, and cheap jewellery of various
kinds. They attend fairs and merry-makings,
and they buy glossy tresses, for which they
pay either with these goods or in money.
Mr. Trollope, while travelling in Brittany,
stopped awhile at the fair in Collené, and
was more struck by the operations of the
hair-dealers than by anything else which met
his notice. In various parts of the motley
crowd there were three or four of these
dealers, bargaining with the girls for their
flowing tresses, which were very luxuriant
and beautiful. Several girls were standing
together ready to be sheared. They held their
caps in their hands; and their long hair hung
down to the waist. Some of the operators were
men and some women; but in either case the
dealer had a large basket near at hand, into
which every successive crop of hair, tied up
into a wisp by itself, was thrown. So far as
personal beauty is concerned, the girls do not
lose much by losing their hair; for it is the
fashion in that part of France to wear a
close cap, which entirely prevents any part
of the hair from being seen, and, of course,
as totally conceals the want of it. The
luxuriant crop of hair, which the dealer has
obtained for a franc or two, is sorted, and
arranged, and passes from hand to hand until
it makes its final appearance as a peruke, or
some other delicate delusion. The price paid
to these girls seems to vary from about a
franc to five francs per head (each weighing
from three quarters of a pound to a pound),
according to the quantity and beauty of the
hair. So much does it rise in value by the
collecting, the sorting, the cleaning, and
other preparatory processes, that its wholesale
market price is generally from thirty to sixty
shillings per pound. Choice heads of hair,
like choice old pictures, or choice old china,
have no limit to the price which they may
occasionally command.

But it appears that ladies, without sending
to France for a Breton girl's locks, are
encouraged to make trinkets for themselves,
with the stray filaments which result from
each day's toilet proceedings. We should not
have thought this; but there are many things
which man is not supposed to think until
he is told thereof. We have lately seen a
treasure—a beautiful crimson-bound book,
with golden embossments and golden-edged
leaves. It is written by a Professor and
Artiste—an Artiste en cheveux—and we see
in that a full account of the mode in which
bracelets, and lockets, and brooches, and
earrings, and feathers, and flowers, and rings,
may be made in hair. The Professor takes a
stanza by Emerson as his motto:—

      "When soul from body takes its flight,
       What gives surviving friends delight,
       When view'd by day, express' d by night?
                                         Their locks of hair."

The Address to the Ladies, which follows
the title-page, gives a startling intimation;
it is nothing less than an announcement that
the first idea of writing the book "originated
in the suggestions of some of the author's
patronesses; who having entrusted to the
hands of artistes their symbols of affection,
had, on their pretended return, detected the
substitution of shades of other hue. This
work, then, is published mainly with a view
of enabling those ladies who desire to
preserve some memento of a departed friend in
an agreeable form, to work the designs
themselves, instead of allowing the cherished relic,
from a fear of having such impositions
practised, to remain for years in the cabinet."
Oh  Artistes en cheveux! Here is a heavy blow
and sore discouragement from your brother!

A lady, with the Professor's book before
her, commences the enterprise of making a
bracelet with her own hair; and she is told
at the outset, without any circumlocution, to
collect the hair "from the comb and brush"
every morning. She is to tie up the small
assemblage with a bit of thread or tape near
one end, until, from various mornings'
accumulation, she has enough for the designed