THE TOILETTE FRIEND, 3. THE HAIR AS AN ORNAMENT. Continued from page 285.) into three parts, each of which is plaited in the Grecian or cable plait style, while the back hair is plaited to correspond, and turned up in loops or plainly. In either case the aid of hair-pins is an indispen130. As in the reign of Henry III. 128. The French mode of dressing the sable to sustain the coiffure. hair is to part the front hair in three, so that the central parting shall be turned back, as in the accompanying illustration. This covers the junction of the parting of the other two, and when they have been well brushed and brought down over the side of the face, the central part is turned back, while the two lateral or side partings are brushed off the face and turned in behind the ears. The back hair in this case is sometimes used in with the other hair, or plaited into some fancy plait. 129. A very effective manner of dressing the hair is the one figured in the accompanying illustration; the hair is (§ 87), the ladies wore chaplets of natural flowers, so in the present day they encircle their back hair with wreaths of artificial roses, or other flowers, confining the plaits, which are ingeniously turned round and round, with an ornamental tortoise-shell comb; a coronal plait is frequently brought over the head, but in some instances it is omitted; such as, for example, where the hair is not luxuriant enough to admit of it: but even this is often overcome by the ingenuity of the hair-dresser introducing a false plait, or a coronal of satin-ribbon. 131. The semi-Grecian style of dressing the hair is admirably adapted to certain features, and has been universally admired when it has been suitably applied. The front hair is combed back over a slight roll of brown silk, stuffed with wool, and fastened round the head, and the hair is then turned back towards the back hair, which is cable-plaited (§ 138) and dressed in a similar manner to that in the preceding paragraph. When the hair has been dressed thus, a gold and crimson or other coloured rouleau is passed round the head and fastened with a common or Maltese filagree hair-pin. The second illustration (2), shows another method of dressing simply parted and the side hair divided the hair. The front hair is formed into plain or waving bandeaux, worn close to the face, or spread out according to fancy and effect. The back hair is then twisted and intermixed with a band of crimson velvet ribbon, or a string of pearls, or both, and turned up, as shown in the illustration. 132. The modern English style of head-dress is that shown in the figure below, where we observe that the side hair is dressed with ringlets; and the back hair plaited and turned up. On the right side of the head we also observe a bunch of roses, which, in many instances, is represented by two camellias, or other! flowers. 133. Perhaps the latest fashion is the ancient Phrygian net, or caul of gold network, for the young ladies' back hair, the same as that worn during the reigns of Henry III. (§ 87), Edward I. (§ 89), Richard II. (§ 93), and other monarchs. 134. All kinds or styles of hair-dressing must resolve themselves into ringlets, curls, plaits, braids, bands, fillets, folds, and a combination of all of them. You may modify, twist, invert, and crisp, curl, plait, and do what you please; but after all, you must acknowledge that there is nothing (in hair-dressing at, least) new, under the sun. If you doubt our assertion, peruse the historical part of this paper again. 135. The various plaits in general use are the Grecian, the basket or chain plait, and the cable plait. 136. The Grecian plait is woven as foilows:-Take a tolerably thick lock of hair, divide it into two equal parts; take from the outside of the left hand portion, a very small piece of hair,-about a sixth part,-pass it over into the centre, and unite it with the right hand portion; do the same from the right hand portion, and pass it over into the centre, and unite it with the left hand portion; proceed thus, taking the small and even-sized lock alternately from the left and right hand portions until all is plaited; be careful to keep this plait very smooth. 137. The Basket or Chain plait is made by taking four rather small strands of hair; plait with only three of these, weaving them over and under the fourth, which serves to draw the chain up, as in the way in which a plait of three is usually worked, taking first the left hand outside strand, and working it under one and over the next until it takes the place of the right outside strand, which in its turn is then worked to the left side, and so on alternately, always retaining one unmoved in the middle. 138. The Cable plait, is made by taking three pretty thick strands of hair of equal size; place one in the centre; take the left hand strand and lift it under the centre one, and over it, and back to its own place; take the right hand strand and lift that under the centre one, and over it, and back to its place; work on thus alternately to the end. The best way of weaving this is to divide the back hair into two equal portions, and then make two "cables," and having twisted them round each other, to wind this double cable round the head. 139. Although Nature has done so much to adorn us, yet it appears, from all that we have written, that Fashion has done more to destroy the natural adornment than might well be imagined. It is plain that it was never intended our hair should dangle over our eyes to blind us, nor that it should be twisted, frizzled, dyed, curled, greased, powdered, or otherwise tortured to please the tastes of the day. True it is that the ancients set us the example in all these matters, but that is no reason why we should follow them. Let us look at the commencement of an improvement in the reign of George III. (§ 119-121), that of brushing the hair off the forehead, and we shall find that it has gradually progressed (see § 126, 127, 128), and we trust that it will be firmly established; for nothing is so becoming to most faces, and it may be generally made so by a little modification. II. THE WHISKERS, BEARD, AND MOUSTACHE. 140. We cannot enter fully into the history of the ornamental hair assigned to man's face; but nevertheless we purpose giving a brief outline of the changes of fashion in England with respect to them. 141. The Teutonic tribes held the beard in great reverence, and considered the laying of the hand upon, or the touching of, the beard, equivalent to an oath. It was generally kept long, forked, and ample, and in some instances was dyed, or powdered with coloured hair-powder. From A.D. 450 to 1016, beards were forbidden to the higher clergy, but the lower class were permitted to wear them. 142. In the reign of Edward the Confessor, the people wore the moustache, but shaved their chins. But in the reign of William the Conqueror, we find the priests eschewing razors altogether, and some of the people following their example, while others adopted the Norman fashion, and shaved off the natural adornments of the face. In the reign of Henry I. the clergy themselves exclaim against beards, and compare those who wear them to "filthy goats." During the reigns of Henry II., Richard I., and John, a person might please himself, by either wearing the beard or moustaches, or both, or shaving his face altogether. In the reign of Henry III. the people generally patronized razors, and shaved their faces clean. How fashions change, and people also: in the reign of Edward I. the beard was admired for its length, and great pains were taken to curl it; and we also find that much care and attention was bestowed upon the beard during the reign of Edward II. by many individuals. Again, during the reign of Edward III., the beard was worn long and pointed. In the reign of Richard II., the knights and courtiers, aye, and even many others, wore their beards peaked, and long moustaches, à la Haynau. With Henry V. whiskers disappeared, moustaches were only partially worn, and beards were almost discarded; and in the reign of Henry VII. we find that only the soldiers and old men wore moustaches and beard, the people generally shaving their faces. In the reign of Henry VIII. nearly every person wore a beard and moustache, real or false. During the reign of Charles I. and the Commonwealth, the moustaches were worn small, peaked, and turned up, and the beard very peaked. In the reign of Charles II. moustaches were much worn, but not beards, and the imperial is said to have been first introduced into England. A very amusing incident with respect to beards is said to have occurred during the year 1561. When Philip I. sent the young Constable de Castile to Rome to congratulate Sextus the Fifth on his advancement, the Pope immediately said-"Are there so few men in Spain that your king sends me one without a beard?" "Sir," said the fierce Spaniard, "if his Majesty possessed the least idea that you imagined merit lay in a beard, he would have deputed a goat to you, not a gentleman." 143. The Turks are very particular about their beards and moustaches, and use depilatory tweezers to remove all irregular hairs from the cheeks and brows; and many nations pride themselves upon their beards, while others are equally important upon the matter of moustaches. 144. We admire beards, whiskers, and moustaches, in their place, in proper time, season, and climate. We like a good shave, with a keen razor, but must always vote for the rational employment of hair as an ornament. NATURAL HISTORY. THE SLOTH. LET us turn our attention to the Sloth, whose native haunts have hitherto been so little known, and probably little looked into. Those who have written on this singular animal have remarked that he is in a perpetual state of pain; that he is proverbially slow in his movements; that he is a prisoner in space; and that, as soon as he has consumed all the leaves of the tree upon which he had mounted, he 1olls himself up in the form of a ball, and then falls to the ground. This is not the case. If the naturalists who have written the history of the Sloth had gone into the wilds, in order to examine his haunts and economy, they would not have drawn the foregoing conclusions; they would have learned, that though all other quadrupeds may be described while resting upon the ground, the Sloth is an exception to this rule, and that his history must be written while he is in the tree. It mostly happens that Indians and Negroes are the people who catch the sloth and bring it to the white man; hence it may be conjectured that the erroneous accounts we have hitherto had of the Sloth, have not been penned down with the slightest intention to mislead the reader, or give him an exaggerated history, but that these errors have naturally arisen by examining the Sloth in those places where nature never intended that he should be exhibited. However, we are now in his own domain. Man but little frequents these thick and noble forests which extend far and wide on every side of us. This, then, is the proper place to go in quest of the Sloth. We will first take a near view of him. By obtaining a knowledge of his anatomy, we shall be enabled to account for his movements hereafter when we see him in his proper haunts. His fore legs, or, more correctly speaking his arms, are apparently much too long: while his hind legs are very short, and look as if they could This singular animal is destined by be bent almost to the shape of a corknature to be produced, to live, and to die screw. Both the fore and hind legs, by in the trees; and, to do justice to him, their form and by the manner in which naturalists must examine him in this they are joined to the body, are quite upper element. He is a scarce and solitary incapacitated from acting in a perpenanimal, and being good food he is never dicular direction, or in supporting it on allowed to escape. He inhabits remote the earth as the bodies of other quadand gloomy forests, where snakes take up rupeds are supported by their legs. their abode, and where cruelly stinging" Hence, when you place him on the ants and scorpions, and swamps and innumerable thorny shrubs and bushes obstruct the steps of civilized man.Were you to draw your own conclusions from the descriptions which have been given to the Sloth, you would probably suspect that no naturalist has actually gone into the wilds with the fixed determination to find him out, and examine his haunts, and see whether nature has committed any blunder in the formation of this extraordinary creature, which appears to us so forlorn and miserable, so ill put together, and so totally unfit to enjoy the blessings which have been so bountifully given to the rest of animated nature; for he has no soles to his feet, and he is evidently ill at ease when he tries to move on the ground; and it is then that he looks up in your face with a countenance that says, "Have pity on me, for I am in pain and sorrow." floor, his belly touches the ground," Now, granted that he supported himself on his legs like other animals, nevertheless he would be in pain, for he has no soles to his feet, and his claws are very sharp and long, and curved; so that, were his body supported by his feet, it would be by their extremities just as your body would be, were you to throw yourself on all fours, and try to support it on the ends of your toes and fingers-a trying position. Were the floor of glass, or of a polished surface, the sloth would actually be quite stationary; but as the ground is generally rough, with little protuberances upon it, such as stones, or roots of grass, &c., this just suits the Sloth, and he moves his fore legs in all directions in order to find something to lay hold of; and when he has succeeded, he pulls himself forward, and is thus enabled to travel onwards, but at the same time in so tardy and awkward a manner as to acquire him the name of Sloth. Indeed, his looks and his gestures evidently betray his uncomfortable situation; and, as a sigh every now and then escapes him, we may be entitled to conclude that he is actually in pain. vampire. When asleep, he supports himself from a branch parallel to the earth. He first seizes the branch with one arm, and then with the other; and, after that, brings up both his legs, one by one, to the same branch: so that all four are in a line; he seems perfectly at rest in this Some years ago I kept a Sloth in my position. Now, had he a tail, he would room for several months. I often took be at a loss to know what to do with it in him out of the house and placed him this position; were he to draw it up within upon the ground in order to have an his legs, it would interfere with them; opportunity of observing his motions. If were he to let it hang down, it would the ground were rough, he would pull become the sport of the winds. Thus himself forwards by means of his fore legs his deficiency of tail is a benefit to him; at a pretty good pace; and he invariably it is merely an apology for a tail, immediately shaped his course towards scarcely exceeding an inch and a half in the nearest tree. But if I put him upon a length. smooth and well-trodden part of the road, he appeared to be in trouble and distress; his favourite abode was the back of a chair; and after getting all his legs in a line upon the topmost part of it, he would hang there for hours together, and often with a low and inward cry would seem to invite me to take notice of him. I observed, when he was climbing, he never used his arms both together, but first one, and then the other, and so on alternately. There is a singularity in his hair, different from that of all other animals, and, I believe, hitherto unnoticed by naturalists; his hair is thick and coarse at the extremity, and gradually tapers to the root, where it becomes fine as a spider's web. His fur has so much of the hue of the moss which grows on the branches of the trees, that it is very difficult to make him out when he is at rest. The Sloth, in its wild state, spends its whole life in trees, and never leaves them but through force, or by accident. An all-ruling Providence has ordered man to tread on the surface of the earth, the eagle to soar in the expanse of the skies, and the monkey and squirrel to inhabit the The male of the three-toed Sloth has a trees; still these may change their relative longitudinal bar of very fine black hair on situations without feeling much inconve- his back, rather lower than the shouldernience; but the Sloth is doomed to spend blades; on each side of this black bar his whole life in the trees; and, what is there is a space of yellow hair, equally more extraordinary, not upon the branches, fine; it has the appearance of being like the squirrel and the monkey, but pressed into the body, and looks exactly under them. He moves suspended from as if it had been singed. If we examine the branch, he rests suspended from the anatomy of his fore-legs, we shall it, and he sleeps suspended from it. To immediately perceive, by their firm and enable him to do this, he must have a very muscular texture, how very capable they different formation from that of any other are of supporting the pendant weight of known quadruped. his body, both in climbing and at rest; and, instead of pronouncing them bungled composition, as a celebrated naturalist has done, we shall consider them as remarkably well calculated to perform their extraordinary functions. Hence his seemingly bungled conformation is at once accounted for; and in lieu of the Sloth leading a painful life, and entalling a melancholy and miserable existence on its progeny, it is but fair to surmise that it just enjoys life as much as any other animal, and that its extraordinary formation and singular habits are but further proofs to engage us to admire the wonderful works of Omnipotence. It must be observed that the Sloth does not hang his head downwards like the a As the Sloth is an inhabitant of forests within the tropics, where the trees touch each other in the greatest profusion, there seems to be no reason why he should confine himself to one tree alone for food, and entirely strip it of its leaves. During the many years I have ranged the forests, I |