airdresser who charges a shilling. But it imposes a universal
close-shave (like that which is found so hygienic during a curative
detention at Dartmoor) on all who are registered only with a barber who
charges threepence. Thus, while the ornamental classes can continue to
ornament the street with Piccadilly weepers or chin-beards if they
choose, the working classes demonstrate the care with which the State
protects them by going about in a fresher, cooler, and cleaner
condition; a condition which has the further advantage of revealing at a
glance that outline of the criminal skull, which is so common among
them. The Compulsory Haircutting Act is thus in every way a compact and
convenient example of all our current laws about education, sport,
liquor and liberty in general. Well, the law has passed and the masses,
insensible to its scientific value, are still murmuring against it. The
ignorant peasant maiden is averse to so extreme a fashion of bobbing her
hair; and does not see how she can even be a flapper with nothing to
flap. Her father, his mind already poisoned by Bolshevists, begins to
wonder who the devil does these things, and why. In proportion as he
knows the world of to-day, he guesses that the real origin may be quite
obscure, or the real motive quite corrupt. The pressure may have come
from anybody who has gained power or money anyhow. It may come from the
foreign millionaire who owns all the expensive hairdressing saloons; it
may come from some swindler in the cutlery trade who has contracted to
sell a million bad razors. Hence the poor man looks about him with
suspicion in the street; knowing that the lowest sneak or the loudest
snob he sees may be directing the government of his country. Anybody may
have to do with politics; and this sort of thing is politics. Suddenly
he catches sight of a crowd, stops, and begins wildly to cheer a
carriage that is passing. The carriage contains the one person who has
certainly not originated any great scientific reform. He is the only
person in the commonwealth who is not allowed to cut off other people's
hair, or to take away other people's liberties. He at least is kept out
of politics; and men hold him up as they did an unspotted victim to
appease the wrath of the gods. He is their King, and the only man they
know is not their ruler. We need not be surprised that he is popular,
knowing how they are ruled.
The popularity of a President in America is exactly the oppos
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