_Upper Thames-street._
By the preceding letter in _The Times_, a great number of persons were
first acquainted with a fraud frequently practised. As a useful and
amusing communication it has a place here. It may, however, be as well
to correct an error which the intelligent “Licensed Victualler” falls
into by venturing beyond a plain account, to indulge in figurative
expression. It is not doubted that his “barber, a knowing hand in the
bird way,” wore “a white apron;” but when the “Licensed Victualler”
calls the barber’s white apron “the _white_ flag of his profession,” he
errs; a _white_ apron may be the “flag” of the “Licensed Victualler’s
profession,” but it is not the barber’s “flag.”
[Illustration: ~The Barber.~]
Randle Holme, an indisputable authority, in his great work on
“Heraldry,” figures a barber as above. “He beareth _argent_,” says
Holme; “a barber bare-headed with a pair of cisers in his right hand,
and a comb in his left, clothed in _russet_, his apron _checque_ of the
first, and _azure_; a barber is always known by his checque
party-coloured apron, therefore it needs not mentioning.” Holme
emphatically adds, “neither can he be termed a barber, (or poler, or
shaver,) as anciently they were called, till his apron be about him;”
that is to say, “his checque party-coloured apron.” This, and this only,
is the “flag of his profession.”
Holme derives the denomination barber from _barba_, a beard, and
describes him as a cutter of hair; he was also anciently termed a
_poller_, because in former times to _poll_ was to cut the hair: to
_trim_ was to cut the beard, after shaving, into form and order.
* * * * *
The instrument-case of a barber, and the instruments in their several
divisions, are particularly described by Holme. It contained his
looking-glass, a set of horn combs with teeth on one side and wide, “for
the combing and readying of long, thick, and stony heads of hair, and
such like perriwigs;” a set of box combs, a set of ivory combs with fine
teeth on both sides, an ivory beard-comb, a beard-iron called the
forceps, being a curling iron for the beard, a set of razors, tweezers
with an earpick, a rasp to file the point of a tooth, a hone for his
razors, a bottle of sweet oil for his hone, a powder box with sweet
powder, a puff to powder the hair, a four square bottle with a screwed
head for sweet water, wash balls and sweet balls, caps for the head to
keep the hair up, trimming cloths to put before a man, and napkins to
put about his neck, and dry his hands and face with. After he was shaved
and barbed, the barber was to hold him the glass, that he might see “his
new-made face,” and instruct the barber where it was amiss: the barber
was then to “take off the linens, brush his clothes, present him with
his hat, and, according to his hire, make a bow, with ‘_your humble
servant, sir_.’”