almost entirely free from affections of the
lungs and air-passages.

Mr. Chadwick regards the subject entirely
from a sanitary point of view. He brought
it under the discussion of the medical section
engaged on sanitary inquiries at the York
meeting of the British Association, and obtained
among other support the concurrence
of Dr. W. P. Alison of Edinburgh. We name
that physician because he has since persuaded
the journeymen masons of his own city to
wear their beards as a preventive against
consumption that prevailed among them.

For that is another use of the moustache
and beard. They protect the opening of the
mouth, and filter the air for a man working
in smoke or dust of any kind; they also act as
a respirator, and prevent the inhalation into
the lungs of air that is too frosty. Mr. Chadwick,
years ago, was led to the discussion of
this subject by observing how in the case of
some blacksmiths who wore beards and
moustachios, the hair about the mouth was
discoloured by the iron dust that had been
caught on its way into the mouth and lungs.
The same observer has also pointed out and
applied to his argument the fact that travellers
wait, if necessary, until their moustachios
have grown before they brave the sandy air
of deserts. He conceives, therefore, that the
absence of moustache and beard must involve
a serious loss to labourers in dusty trades,
such as millers and masons; to men employed
in grinding steel and iron and to travellers
on dusty roads. Men who retain the hair
about the mouth are also, he says, much less
liable to decay, or achings of the teeth. To
this list we would add, also, that apart from
the incessant dust flying in town streets, and
inseparable from town life, there is the smoke
to be considered. Both dust and smoke do get
into the lungs, and only in a small degree it
is possible for them to be decomposed and
removed by processes of life. The air passages
of a Manchester man, or of a resident
in the city of London, if opened after death
are found to be more or less coloured by the
dirt that has been breathed. Perhaps it does
not matter much; but surely we had better
not make dustholes or chimney funnels of our
lungs. Beyond a certain point this introduction
of mechanical impurity into the delicate
air passages does cause a morbid irritation,
marked disease, and premature death. We
had better keep our lungs clean altogether,
and for that reason men working in cities
would find it always worth while to retain
the air filter supplied to them by nature for
the purpose—the moustache and beard
around the mouth.

Surely enough has been here said to make it
evident that the Englishman who, at the end
of his days, has spent about an entire year of
his life in scraping off his beard has worried
himself to no purpose, has submitted to a
painful, vexatious, and not merely useless,
but actually unwholesome custom. He has
disfigured himself systematically throughout
life, accepted his share of unnecessary tic-doloreux
and toothache, coughs and colds, has
swallowed dust and inhaled smoke and fog
out of complaisance to the social prejudice
which happens just now to prevail. We all
abominate the razor while we use it, and
would gladly lay it down. Now, if we see
clearly—and I think the fact is very clear—
that the use of it is a great blunder, and if
we are no longer such a slovenly people as to
be afraid that, if we kept our beards, we
should not wash, or comb, or trim them in a
decent way, why can we not put aside our
morning plague and irritate our skin no more
as we now do?

I recommend nobody to grow a beard in
such a way as to isolate himself in appearance
from his neighbours. Moreover, I do not at
all desire to bring about such a revolution as
would make shaven chins as singular as
bearded chins are now. What I should much
prefer would be the old Roman custom, which
preserved the first beard on a young man's
face until it became comely, and then left it
entirely a matter of choice with him whether
he would remain bearded or not. Though it
would be wise in an adult man to leave off
shaving, he must not expect after ten or
twenty years of scraping at the chin, when he
has stimulated each hair into undue coarseness
and an undue rapidity of growth, that
he can ever realise upon his own person the
beauty of a virgin beard. If we could introduce
now a reform, we, that have been inured
to shaving, may develope very good black
beards, most serviceable for all working
purposes, and a great improvement on bald
chins; but the true beauty of the beard
remains to be developed in the next generation
on the faces of those who maybe induced
from the beginning to abjure the use of
razors.

LIGHTEN THE BOAT!

SHAKE hands, pledge hearts, bid fond adieus,
Speak with your brimming eyes;
To-morrow—and the dark deep sea
Will echo with your sighs.

To-morrow, and yon stately ship
Will bear to other lands
The kindred whom ye love so well:
Breathe hopes, pledge hearts, shake hands!

The Fairy Queen stands out to sea,
Each stitch of canvas spread,
Breasting the pearly laughing waves
With high and gallant head.

Her freight consists of human souls;
Her destiny, a land
Where scarce a human foot has trod
Upon the forest strand.

Five hundred souls she bears away,
To find a distant home
Where toil will give them daily bread,
And not a living tomb.