asked a friend whether he meant to have a son of his
(then a little boy) taught Latin? 'No,' said he, 'but I mean to do
something a great deal better for him.' 'What is that?' said Sir John.
'Why,' said the other, 'I mean to teach him _to shave with cold water,
and without a glass_.'

My readers may smile, but I can assure them that Sir John is not alone.
There are many others who have adopted this practice, and found it
highly beneficial. One individual, who had tried it for years, has the
following spirited remarks on the subject.

'Only think of the inconvenience attending the common practice! There
must be _hot water_; to have this there must be _a fire_, and, in some
cases, a fire for that purpose alone; to have these, there must be a
_servant_, or you must light a fire yourself. For the want of these,
the job is put off until a later hour: this causes a stripping and
another dressing bout: or, you go in a slovenly state all that day, and
the next day the thing must be done, or cleanliness must be abandoned
altogether. If you are on a journey, you must wait the pleasure of the
servants at the inn before you can dress and set out in the morning;
the pleasant time for travelling is gone before you can move from the
spot: instead of being at the end of your day's journey in good time,
you are benighted, and have to endure all the great inconveniences
attendant on tardy movements. And all this from the apparently
insignificant affair of shaving. How many a piece of important business
has failed from a short delay! And how many thousand of such delays
daily proceed from this unworthy cause!'

These remarks are especially important to those persons in
boarding-houses and elsewhere, for whom hot water, if they use it, must
be expressly prepared.

Let me urge you never to say I cannot go, or do such a thing, till I am
shaved or dressed. Take care always to BE _shaved and dressed_, and
then you will always be ready to act. But to this end the habit must be
formed in early life, and pertinaciously adhered to.

There are those who can truly say that to the habit of adhering to the
principles which have been laid down, they owe much of their success in
life; that however sober, discreet, and abstinent they might have been,
they never could have accomplished much without it. We should suppose
by reasoning beforehand, that the _army_ could not be very favorable to
steady habits of this or any other kind; yet the following