hair from the beard of his adversary.

'Abraham,' said the Jew, and plucked a hair.

'Saint Peter,' said the Christian.

'Isaac.'

'Saint Paul.'

And so they kept up their litanies, until the 'Christian,'
exclaiming: 'Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins!' tore
out the whole beard of the Jew by the roots, to the great laughter
of all standing around.'

It would matter but little, that a fanatical and brutal crowd of the
middle ages had laughed at seeing 'only a Jew' disgraced and dripping
with blood, to point a scurvy jest. But, I confess that it struck me as
singular, when I once found this story in a memoir, set down as having
been narrated by an eminent Christian philosopher (now not long dead),
as a capital thing. Granting its humor, is it worth while to inquire if
he would have enjoyed it as much, had the Jew torn out the beard of the
Christian in the name of the thousands who had been martyred for the
faith of Israel?

The jokes of the middle ages on the subject of the beard, were
numerous--it was a favorite ornament, as we may judge from the fact that
Eberhard, the far-famed old warlike duke, sung in more than one poem by
Uhland, is always spoken of in the old stories, as _noster princeps
barbatus_, 'our bearded prince,' or, more familiarly, simply as 'our
bearded one.' One of the table problems of the day was, '_Potestne
probari mulierem quandam habuisse barbam?_'--'Can it be proved that any
woman ever had a beard?' The answer to which, was, 'Yes--when Judith
bore the head of Holofernes.' It was singular that such a question could
have been agitated, when the legends of the saints contained the story
of the bearded saintess of the Tyrol--a converted ballet-dancer, who was
thus rendered hideous in accordance with her prayer, that she might be
made so repulsive as to frighten away all lovers. And yet Mr. Barnum's
Bearded Lady had a husband!

Jokes ridiculing red beards and heads were common in the old time;
probably because a popular tradition declared that Judas, 'the arch
rascal,' was so marked by nature. The anecdote of the good clergyman who
never laughed but once in church, and that was, when he saw a youth
trying to light a cigar, or warm his hands at a certain ruddy poll,
finds its prototype in one of the old Latin stories:

'Our country people are wont to say, when they see a red-headed
man; 'he would make a bad chimney-sweeper.' And whe