EOOOOOOOOOSOOOOOOOQOQ IUMAN HAIR 8 HARVEST IN BRITTANY. § ooooooosoooooooooooo ¥ANY persons have heard of the extraordinary markets held periodically in differ ent towns on the continent of Europe, to which women and girls come to sell their hair for money or goods; but we believe no actual snap shot photos of the traffic itself have ever been taken—or, if take-j, have ' ever been published. Obviously the vendors do not care to be perpetuated in this matter, aud M. Geniaux him self had more than one narrow escape from the infuriated ladies who were selling their tresses to the itinerant merchant-barbers. The traffic in artificial hair is a big business. It is interesting in itself, and quite a readable article might be prepared as the result of an interview with an extensive dealer in human hair in London or any other great capital. This information, however, is accessible to any journalist who v cares togo and get it, and beyond bare mention it forms no part of this paper, whioh deals rather with the fountainhead (the joke is not inten tional) of this curious industry. I visited one of the great Paris coif feurs, writes Charles Geniaux, in the Wide World Magazine, and he made the startling statement that "when they reach a certain age—say, forty or fifty years—almost all the ladies in Paris use artificial hair, particularly those who wear the hair in twists, or who affect the archaic style. Why," he said, "do you know the price of a single kilogrammo (over two pounds) af first-class hair—hair that has beeu sorted, cleaned and prepared? Well, sir, I do not sell it under a thousand AN AVARICIOUS MOTHER ABOUT TO SELL HER CHILDREN'S HAIR. or eighteen hundred francs, accord ing to color, texture aud general beauty. "And,"he continued, "thanks to the life of high pressure which we lead in these modern days the de mand is becoming greater and greater." With these interesting statements stil' ringing in my ears, I left the coiffeur and resolved to find out for myself the origin of those mountains of human hair used by the wiginakers of Paris. Luck was soon to satisfy my curios ity, for not long afterwards, in the course of a journey through Brittany, my attention was arrested by certain conversations on the subject of a sale of hair. I was told that the peasant women round about had their hair cut off periodically and sold to the mer chants who went shearing from vil lage to village. I made inquiries without losing a moment, and soon found out that one of the most im portant of these markets was about to bo held in the month of June at the Fair of St. Fiacre. In a few days I was blithely climb iug the hill on whose summit is held the famous Fair of St. Fiaore, which is attended by praotically the whole agricultural population of Morbihan. In the centre of a large plateau is a round chapel. A few walls, some courtyards, two or three farms, and a little timber on the limit of the far reaching horizon. Such is the battle field on which the agricultural inter ests of the entire Department ar ray themselves. Also, young men come from far and near to this A RICH FARMER'S WIFE IN THE HANDS OF THE HAIR BUYER-HER SERVANT STANDS WITH HER CAP ON THE RIGHT. fair to offer their services and Lire themselves as laborers to' the farmers. They look picturesque enough, these fellows, as they flock in together, holding in their hands long peeled twigs. As soon as a farmer has hired one of them, the young man breaks his willow atiok as a sign of the engagement, and from that moment he enters the servivo of his new patron. Bat do you know wliat the maidens, and even the old women, are doing in the meantime? Why, tliey are busy exchanging their hair for articles of clothing and miscellaneous sundries dear to the feminine heart! I must now set down accurately and in de tail all I saw and heard during my undoubtedly perilous mission. Talk about a sheep-shearing station in Australia! Why, it is nothing to what I saw. First of all, however, a word of explanation is necessary. In England, this extraordinary edit V —— — Tin: WIFE OF T|'iE ( OVER THE QUALITY OP THEIR HAIR. traffic would be almost impossible; and, in consequence, very little human hair is exported into Paris from Qreat Britain. But on the other hand, picturesque Brittany furnishes almost one-fourth of the entire con sumption in the capital. Now, why is this? Well, it is mainly because the Bretou women wear as head-cov ering a close-fitting linen cap, which entirely hides the hair with the excep tion of two flat bands which pass over the forehead and down to the ears. Now suppose for a moment that these Breton caps were replaced by ordinary hats and bonnets. Well, if this inno vation took place, the traffic in human hair would simply become an impossi bility, as the deficiency in hair would be apparent to every passer-by. Thanks also to the prevalence of the cap, the Auvergne and some districts of Nor mandy likewise furnish a consider able supply of human hair. The peasant women seem to have reasoned the matter out something iu this way: "As our largo heads of hair are not seen, and as they have a cer tain commercial value, why should we over-weight our brains with them, es pecially when honest merchants come along to buy our hair on such advan tageous terms?" And,goodness knows, cash is scarce enough among the Breton peasants. It is no wonder, then, that the trav eling hair-shearers and merchants put up at St. Fiacre, attracted as they are by the certainty of being able to shear practically the whole population of women and reap a very fine harvest of human hair. I may remark, before going further, that the merchants are not nice per sons, or polite; and their language, as a rule, is abominable. Probably by way of violent contract to the city hair-dresser, who affects distinguished manners and curls his mustache with tongs, the hair-cutters I saw were un shaven and slovenly in their dress. At length I was fortunate enough to be well received by the best-known of them all, a coinparttively intelligent man, without whose assistance it would have been impossible for me to obtain the snap-shots reproduced in this article. Whilst actually writing these lines I have open before me my note-book with this entry, in the hand of my friend, the chief hair-shearer: M. Gerard, Commercant, \ la Clmpelle Uacollne, par Careatolr (Morblhan), Without any appearance of conceit he said to me: "I am a kind of celeb rity in my own line. How many heads of hair have I shorn? Perhaps a hun dred thousand or more!" Monsieur was accompanied by his wife; and in truth Madame Gerard was extremely useful to him in his extraor dinary business. By the way, I no ticed that all the shearers likewise had their wives with them. It became evident to me later that they mis trusted themselves, feeling certain that alone they would not be clever enough to deceive the country lasses to the shameful extent usually prac tised. One of the accompanying pictures represents the act of bargaining, or haggling. In the round oourtyard of the farm yon see vehicles crowded against the wall, the horses reversed in the shafts eating hay off the front seat of the cart. Bight in front, on a low wall, Madame Oerard has ar ranged remnants of lurid stuffs, shawls, kerehiefs and an infinite va riety of odds and ends— quite as at tractive to ladies as the ones at the end of this number. Madame hold* between her fingers a print, which she is handling with studied oarelessness for the benefit of an old woman with white hair, who is simply burning to exchange her hair for the gaudy stuff, as it would make her suoh a fine apron. It is a grand comedy, this. They talk, those two, they discuss, they haggle. Examine closely the caps of the women. You will notice the two bands of hair underneath the white linen on the forehead, but all the rest i3 so scrupulously hidden that he mast be remarkably clever who could tell a woman with her hair on from one who has just been ahorn by the merchants. A fairly rich farmer's wife is seen in the second large picture; and from motives of hygiene, as well as avarice, she has offered her head to the scissors of the shearer. On the right of the photo you will notice an old woman holding the untied cap of her mistress, while the latter is being shorn. Here I again, then, we get another curious glimpse of the industry, aud we see that all the country women do not act in this way solely for money, but ac tually seek relief from the weight of their superb heads of hair. I do not know the weird vocabulary of Breton insults, but the mother of the little girl seen in the two single column pictures made my ears posi tively riug with her furious howls. First of all, she hid her children in her skirts. Then I pretended togo, but suddenly turning round, I secured a snap-shot of the little girl with her cap off, and her pretty, fair hair tossed over her shoulders. The THE CRUEL DEED DONE —COVERING THE LITTLE GIRL'S SHORN HEAD WITH A NET. poor little thing was crying. Probably some instinct had warned her of the barbarity of this custom. Her mother, however, was eager for gain, ana well knew that children's locks, more es pecially whan golden, are worth most of all. And eo she bartered the child's hair for a piece of cloth. The two little maidens of five and six were very tiny, but, all the same, they were dressed like grown-up people, and had to submit to the common fate. Notice on the right the unintelligent faces of the peasants. So long as the country folk remain in their present condition of ignorance, this strange traffic will continue. In the other photo the mother is covering the scalp of her shorn little one with a reside, or coarse net, while the child herself looks very dis consolate. Until they have made their first Communion, the little girls of Brittany all inclose their hair in nets, l>ecor»tod by n Geyaer. The odd picture frames shown in the illustration owe their decoration to the spray of a geyser at Yellowstone National Park. Thej' were made by twisting pieces of wire into the de sired shape, and laying these frames upon a rock near a geyser for two days, PICTURE FRAMES FROM YELLOWSTONE PARK. daring whioh time the spray collected and hardened. The orast is so hard that it requires a chiael to break it» FLOWERS MADE FROM CANDLES. A Pretty Experiment That May Bb Tried at Howe. Take a lighted wax candle and in cline it over a glass of water, so that little drops of molted wax fall into the fluid. As each drop strikes the CANDLE FLOWERS. surface it undergoes a beautiful change, and takes the form of a won derful white cup, somewhat resem bling the white bell of the snowdrop. These little enps can be varied in size according to the angle at which you hold the candle. Now we have got our flowers, but not our stalk. For every snowdrop you must take a piece of fine wire and slightly curve one end. Heat the straight end of the wire and pierce the centre of the wax flower while it is still iu the water. Having made a hole through the flower, push it to the curved end. Prepare a dozen wires in the same way, all tipped with little wax flowers, and then twist theui together in the way shown iu our il lustration. When Lairton Win Frightened. Many good stories about General Lawtou have come to the surface since his death. Major Putnam Bradlee Strong, who was on the staff of Gen eral Mao Arthur iu the Philippines, says Lawton confessed to bein;g afraid once in his life. That was when he was riding with his twelve-year-old son Manley past Paco Cemetery at Manila. It seems that a Montana de tail had just buried a comrade when a California burying detail came up. Somehow they failed to get cartridges, and asked the Moutanas for some. The latter had nothing but ball cart ridges. •'Oh, they'll do," said the Califor nia sergeant. "Heady, fire!" came the order a mo ment later. The bullets went whizzing over the grave and over the stone wall, on the other side of which was riding Gen eral Lawton, his head only a few inches below the wall. The bullets made a breeze as they went past. "That was the only time I can remem ber being scared," said the General later, "but my boy spoke up and 6aid: 'Papa, is this like being under real fire? If it is, I like it.'"—Army ana Navy Journal. The Bent Society in Havana. Americans gonerally have the idea that iu the old days the most brilliant social element in Havana were the Spanish officials aud their suites. I j wish they could see the horrible little .outhouse in which six staff officers aud their families were supposed to live at the summer palace! It would serve to accentuate their luistake. As a matter of fact, the social circle of Havana has always been made up af Cubans; Cubans with Spanish titles (just as Canadians have English ones), ind Cubans without titles; rich Cubans aud poor ones, but always and pro-emineutly, if not exclusively, Cubans. From the Captain-General down, Spaniards were strangers aud foreigners, who might or might not be admitted to these sacred precincts iccording to no law whatever.—T. Bentley Mott, U. S. A., in Scribner's. Florence Nightingale** Work. What Clara Barton has been to the American soldier, Florence Night ingale has been to his British com rade. These two noble women set THE "NURSING-CARRIAGE" WHICH AC COMPANIED MISS N'IGHTINGALI THROUGH THE CRIMEAN WAR. examples of self-denying heroism of which both countries may well be proud. Florence Nightingale has just completed her seventy-ninthyear, and although now an invalid she retains all her faculties, and her interest iu the work she inaugurated continues unabated. Forty years ago all Eug laud raved about the young woman who, born of English parents in the city of Florence, from which she took her name, set out to alleviate the suf ferings of the wounded and fever stricken soldiers of her native land far away in Crimea. During the Crimean War niue of her nurses succumbed to tho fever, and many were invalided home. Florence Nightingale herself still suf fers from the great aud continued mental aud bodily strain that het Crimean services put upon her, but by her unselfish sacrifice she has made it impossible for the armies of Great Britain to ever again suffer from saoh horrifying calamities as those that she witnessed, suffered and •adored. IFOR FARM AND GARDENI Grain for tlie Slieep. Some breeders do not feed grain to their ewes except at bleeding time, but there is hardly a doubt but what a fanner would gain financially in the end by feeding it in small quantities all the time. If you use corn there would not be much loss, and certainly timo saved, by feeding it in the ear, for it is claimed by a great many that it does not pay to grind the grain fed to sheep. The Currant Worm Giving Trouble. A correspondent from California writes saving that last spring her gooseberries had small worms or in sects inside before they were ripe and asks for a remedy. The worm is no doubt the one known as the currant worm, which attacks currants as well as gooseberries. As a remedy use about an ounce of hellebore to three gallons of water and spray the plants liberally with the mixture. This treat ment is pretty sure to accomplish all that is required of it.—New York Weekly Witness. Tlio Umo of Sweet Clover. In an address at Sedalia on soil renovation by Dr. H. J. Waters, dean I of the Missouri agricultural college, it was said that the common sweet clover is not the pernicious, dangerous weed so many seem to think. It cau be easily killed out by mowing twice a year for two years, he said, and it is oue of the most valuable soil renovat ors known. It will grow and thrive on laud too poor to grow clover or cowpeas, and it is especially suited to build up the millions of acres of flinty hills that are now absolute waste, growing up in brush. Experiments made at Columbia show that in this quality of soil sweet clover is more valuable thau tha ordinary clover. After a fe v years of sweat clover,such soil is built up to a point where it will I grow other renovators. In such lands it can be easily seeded aud will I smother other weeds, aud in addition it will furnish as a by-product large quantities of honey. The Hen mid Her Care. Every keeper of poultry should have a light, warm house and oue that is convenient for feeding and caring for the fowls. It should be built ill a warm, sunny place, where it will be protected from the cold winds. The front of the house should be to the south, and it should have windows enough to admit plenty of sunlight, as tlie sun will help warm it in the win ter. Thero should be a walk running the entire length of the house ou the north side, so you can feed and get the eggs without going into the peas. The feed boxes and water*tank should be made in the shape of a drawer, so you can pull them out and keep the birds from getting into their feed and drink when you are feeding and watering. The nests should also be made so that they may be drawn out as you do the fee I boxes. The windows are to be cased, the s:ime as they are in tlie lions.*, so that there will be 110 cold wind enter ing. Cold draughts are sure to make your birds 'ick and stop them from laying in winter. Suggestion to l'ruit Cultivator*. Many of the tender or half-hardy varieties of raspberries and black berries would endure our severe win ters much beitor, if iu the late fall the cultivator was run between the rows, throwing the earth toward the stems, and in effect ridging or hilling up around them a little. This loose earth forms a mulch which prevents fre quent freezing and thawing, and it has the great advantage of being a mulch that can be quickly and cheap ly applied, compared to the labor of bringing mulching material from other places and putting it in place. To be most effectual it should be done as late iu the fall as possible, and if de layed until some morning when the ground is frozen an iuch deep, or about that, it will be uoue the worse, ns the success depends much upon the earth that is thrown up being light aud poius. The fall trimming, pruning and cut ting cut of old or superfluous canes should be done before this, as it facil itates the working among them, and all the wood removed should be taken away and burned to destroy auy in sects or their eggs and any fungous diseases that may be ou or in them. We do not doubt that similar treat ment would be beneficial to the half hardy and mauy of the shrubs on the lawn, excepting that some of them are better trimmed iu the spring. But tlie hilling up aroun.l them will help to i ro tcl their roots. Keep Your Stable Light. When in a darkened stable the iris, or brownish curtaiu around the centre of the eye, expands so as to admit the passage of sufficient rays of light for distinct vision, but ou emerging into the glare of day the same aperture im mediately closes or grows less, a smaller quantity of light being neces sary under these a'tered circum stances. Any pei son who has felt the pain and incouvenience of coming suddenly from a dark room into the full blaze of day will readily conceive the necessity for lighting a stable in the proper manner. This is too often neglected in confined stables, and the consequences are most distressing to a human observer. The poor horse, led suddenly out to his work, shows his pain by unmistakable signs, stum bles, aud runs against anything that may happen to be near, until the eye has iu some degree accommodated it self to the iew circumstance under which it is placed. Nor is this all. Bj a continuance of this change from darkness to sud den daylight the eye becomes seriously injured. The retina, or sensible ner vous expansion, becomes deadened and more or less useless; the horse's sight is injured; he starts and shies at objects which he sees imperfectly; aud many a rider who Las received a dan gerous injury has had to thank his in attention to this simple cause rather thau any vicious habit of the animal, to which it has been attributed. Blindness is almost certain to bd caused by inattention to the above caution; but even blindness itself is less dangerous to the rider than im perfect sight. In the iirst case the horse is forced to trust entirely to the bridle; but in the latter objects only half distinguished terrify and startle, though they would under ordinary circumstances be passed without notice.—F. D. Coburn in The Horso Useful. Ilre.~.kin£ tip Sitter*. Some find the breaking up of sitting hens a very difficult thing to do, and they really think they have to torture the hen in order to make her abandon her desire to brood. We have knowu poultry men and women to duck the hens in water several times and then turn them loose; have known the hens togo about with hoods on so they could not see, and to be shut up in dark places without food or water for a week or more. It is not necessary to resort to cruel methods to break up a hen that wants to sit, says a writer in Blooded Stock. What is wanted is to turn the desire to sit into the desire to lay agaiu. It will be but little ad vantage to have them broken from wauting to sit and have them lay four or five eggs only to agaiu become broody, which they will do if they are not cared for as they should be. The reason for this is that the conditions which caused the hen to become broody have not been changed and the.v cannot be chauged by force. When a hen becomes broody it means that the egg-producing capacity of her system, for the time being, has become exhausted and that recupera tion is needed. The first step to such recuperation is rest, aud being an in dustrious bird, they feel that they might as well <iise a brood wliiio resting as to 112 ol away their time. Some animals au„ birds may be stimu lated to do that which is not natural for them, but is it best? The tired horse may be urged ou by the aid of a whip. A practice that is recommended by some thoughtful breeders which will break the hen, and at the same time have her in a good condition togo right to business, is to place one under her, letting her sit for one week, feeding her once iu two days during the time as if she were really sittiug ou a whole clutch. But veu# little food will be needed ou account of lack of exercise. At the close of the week place her iu a coop with a slatted bottom raised a few inches from the ground, for a couple of days, and she will lose her desire to sit and iu a will begiu laying iu earnest. Item* of Inlcrpßt to Farm»r<. Keep charcoal aud salt where the fattening hugs can have easy access to them. Breed the youug sows so that they will farrow their youug litteis in the spring after the grass has come. That the hog is a filthy animal is the fault of its owner. Hogs prefer cleanly quarters aud will take them when they can get them. Only a small amount of corume;il should be used iu feediug the pig,and it should be combined with other feed that makes boue aud muscle. Growing pigs must have exercise, but not too much of it. If they run over an extensive range they cannot be kept iu sutficiently good condition to give the best results. It takes the least feed from the time of weaning until the pig is finished for market if it is kept aiways iu good condition. If it loses that condition there must be extra feeding aud longer time to bring him up to it ag«in. To raise them profitably the pigs should be kept iu good health aud continually growing. There is soine thiug wrong iu the breeding or care if the pig canuot be made ready for mar ket by the time he is ten months old. The scraps from the table aud kitchen aud vegetable waste, fruit peelings, etc., should all bd utilized as feeding stuff. The pigs and chick ens will eat them, and they furnish a variety, au'l ♦he kind of food that is needed. When the weather is cold aud wet remember that a portion of the l6ed is employed in keeping up the animal heat, and that consequently more feed is needed at such times. Well-sheL tered, clean, dy, warm quarters, economise feed. Extermination of Gull*. A New London correspondent gives some details of the work of feather huuters in exterminating the small herring-gulls at the eastern end ol Loug island sonud nud the islands beyond. The herring-gulls used to be very common iu that region, but the feather hunters have killed ot driven away almost all of them. On Tenikese island there used to be a largo colony of these birds, which was protected and thrived so loug Agassiz uad his summer school there, but afterwards the feather-hunters begau their work, aud a woman who visited the island last summer saw hundreds of dead birds with their wings torn away and many wingless birds still alive, fed by their mates. Thore used to be a colony of the birds on Plum island, but now driven away by the federal works, and the birds are rare at Nantucket. The larger gulls are not killed by the feather-hunters, as their wings are too big to be worn on bonnets.—New York Pott
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers