ontrary,
the Puritans made short hair almost a tenet of faith and a part of
their creed. Within the last ten years hair has been again the sign of
political feeling, for, during the Civil War, the Southern women in
favor of the Confederacy wore one long curl behind the left ear, while
those in favor of the Union wore one behind each ear.

During the last century men have gradually cut their hair shorter and
shorter. They pretend, of course, fashion dictates the order; but a
woman may be allowed to doubt whether necessity did not first dictate
to fashion. Certainly ladies prefer in men hair that is moderately
long, thick, and curling, to the penitentiary style of last year. And
suppose they could have long hair, but cut it for their own comfort,
the act says very little for their gallantry. I have no need to point
to the chignons, braids, and artifices which women use to lengthen
their hair in order to please men, who decline to return the
compliment, even to a degree that would be vastly becoming to them.

After the length of hair, color is the point of most interest. In
reality there are but two colors, black and red. Brown, golden,
yellow, etc., are intermediate, the difference in shade being
determined by the sulphur and oxygen or carbon which prevails. In
black hair, carbon exceeds; in golden hair, sulphur and oxygen. It has
been insisted that climate determines the color of hair; that
fair-haired people are found north of parallel 48 deg.; brown hair between
48 deg. and 45 deg.; which would include Northern France, Switzerland,
Bohemia, Austria, and touch Georgia and Circassia, Canada, and the
northern part of Maine; and that below that line come the black-haired
races of Spain, Naples, Turkey, etc., etc. But this is easily
disproved. Take, for instance, the parallel 50 deg. and follow it round
the world. Upon it may be found the curly, golden-haired European; the
black, straight hair of the Mongolian and American Indian, and again,
in Canada, it will give us the fair-haired Saxon girl. So, then, it is
race, and not climate, which determines the color. I am inclined to
think, too, that temperament has something to do with it, since we
find black-haired Celts, golden-haired Venetians, and fair and
black-haired Jews.

The ancient civilized nations passionately admired red hair. Greeks,
Romans, Chinese, Turks, and Spaniards have given it to their warriors
and beauties. Somehow among the Anglo-Saxon race it has a ba