The chignon is coming to the front again. By this we do not mean that it
is worn, or likely to be worn before--in saying which the word "before"
is not used by us in its acceptation of previously, but in that of
front; although, now that we come to think of it, the _chignon_
certainly has been worn before, as may be seen by consulting
old-fashioned prints, in which it is shown worn behind. This, to the
ordinary mind, may seem rather confused; and so it is; but what else
could you expect from a writer when he has got _chignon_ upon the brain?
For newspapers the _chignon_ is just now a teeming subject. Every day or
so somebody writes to a paper, saying that be has discovered a new kind
of parasite, hatched by the genial warmth of woman's nape from some
deleterious padding or other used in the manufacture of her _chignon_.
Sometimes it is vegetable stuff, sometimes animal, but it always teems
with pedicular creatures akin to that low and vulgar kind not usually
recognized in polite society. All these horrors come and and don't make
much difference in the _chignon_ market; but PUNCHINELLO has a new one
that is calculated to create a sensation--about the nape of the female
neck--and here it is.
In the beech forests of Hungary, as is well known to Danubian explorers,
there exists a very remarkable breed of pigs, one of their peculiarities
being that they are covered with wool instead of with bristles. These
pigs are shorn regularly every year, like sheep. Their wool, which is
very stiff and curly, is used for stuffing cushions and mattresses of
the cheap and nasty kind. Since _chignons_ have come into fashion, a
vast amount of pig's wool has been imported for their manufacture. By
microscopic investigation the wool of the Hungary pig has been found
swarming with _trichinae_; to a fearful extent. Now, it is easy to
imagine that the _trichinae_ obtained from a hungry pig must be of a
very insatiable and ravenous disposition, and this is but too often
realized by the silly wearers of the porcine _chignons_, into whose
brains, (when they happen to have any,) the horrible little parasites
worm their way in myriads, rendering their hapless victims pig-headed to
an extent that defies description either with pen or pencil.
The Pig-faced Woman exhibited some time ago in Europe was once a very
pretty girl, her hideous deformity being the result of wearing a
_chignon_ stuffed with Hungary pigs' wool.
In purchasing a pig _chignon_, then, the Girl of the Period had better
look out that she does not get "too much pork for a shilling."
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