ad their regulations in poetry and prose. Forfeits
used to be enforced for breaches of conduct as laid down in laws which
were exhibited in a conspicuous manner, and might be read while the
customer was awaiting his turn for attention at the hands of the knight
of the razor. Forfeits had to be paid for such offences as the
following:--

For handling the razors,
For talking of cutting throats,
For calling hair-powder flour,
For meddling with anything on the shop-board.

Shakespeare alludes to this custom in "Measure for Measure," Act v. sc.
1, as follows:--

"The strong statutes
Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,
As much in mock as mark."

[Illustration: William Shakespeare (the Stratford Portrait).]

Half a century ago there was hanging a code of laws in a barber's shop
in Stratford-on-Avon, which the possessor mounted when he was an
apprentice some fifty years previously. His master was in business as a
barber at the time of the Garrick Jubilee in 1769, and he asserted that
the list of forfeits was generally acknowledged by all the fraternity to
have been in use for centuries. The following lines have found their
way into several works, including Ingledew's "Ballads and Songs of
Yorkshire" (1860). In some collections the lines are headed "Rules for
Seemly Behaviour," and in others "The Barber of Thirsk's Forfeits." We
draw upon Dr Ingledew for the following version, which is the best we
have seen:--

"First come, first served--then come not late,
And when arrived keep your sate;
For he who from these rules shall swerve
Shall pay his forfeit--so observe.

"Who enters here with boots and spurs
Must keep his nook, for if he stirs
And gives with arm'd heel a kick,
A pint he pays for every prick.

"Who rudely takes another's turn
By forfeit glass--may manners learn;
Who reverentless shall swear or curse
Must beg seven ha'pence from his purse.

"Who checks the barber in his tale,
Shall pay for that a gill of yale;
Who will or cannot miss his hat
Whilst trimming pays a pint for that.

"And he who can but will not pay
Shall hence be sent half-trimmed away;
For will he--nill he--if in fault,
He forfeit must in meal or malt.

"But mark, the man who is in drink
Must the cannikin, oh, never, never clink."

The foregoing table of forfeits was published by Dr Kenrick in his
r