“Their hoarded grain contractors spare,
And starve the poor to beautify the hair.”
Pitt’s estimates proved correct, for in the first year the tax produced £210,136. The tax was increased from a guinea to one pound three shillings and sixpence. Pitt’s Tory friends gave him loyal support. The Whigs might taunt them by calling them “guinea-pigs,” it mattered little, for they were not merely ready to pay the tax for themselves but to pay patriotic guineas for their servants. A number of persons were exempt from paying the tax, including “the royal family and their servants, the clergy with an income of under £100 per annum, subalterns, non-commissioned officers and privates in the army and navy, and all officers and privates of the yeomanry and volunteers enrolled during the past year. A father having more than two unmarried daughters might obtain on payment for two, a license for the remainder.” A gentlemen took out a license for his butler, coachman, and footman, etc., and if he changed during the year it stood good for the newly engaged servants.
Powder was not wholly set aside by ladies until 1793, when with consideration Queen Charlotte abandoned its use, swayed no doubt by her desire to cheapen, in that time of dearth, the flour of which it was made. It has been said its disuse was attributable to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Angelica Kauffmann, and other painters of their day, but it is much more likely that the artists painted the hair “full and flowing” because they found it so, not that they as a class dictated to their patronesses in despite of fashion. The French Revolution had somewhat to do with the change, a powdered head or wig was a token of aristocracy, and as the fashion might lead to the guillotine, sensible people discarded it long before the English legislature put a tax upon its use.
With reference to this Sir Walter Scott says in the fifth chapter of “The Antiquary”: – “Regular were the Antiquary’s inquiries at an old-fashioned barber, who dressed the only three wigs in the parish, which, in defiance of taxes and times, were still subjected to the operation of powdering and frizzling, and who for that purpose divided his time among the three employers whom fashion had yet left him.”
“Fly with this letter, Caxon,” said the senior (the Antiquary), holding out his missive, “fly to Knockwinnock, and bring me back an answer. Go as fast as if the town council were met and waiting for the provost, and the provost was waiting for his new powdered wig.” “Ah, sir,” answered the messenger, with a deep sigh, “thae days hae lang gane by. Deil a wig has a provost of Fairport worn sin’ auld Provost Jervie’s time – and he had a quean of a servant-lass that dressed it hersel’, wi’ the doup o’ a candle and a dredging box. But I hae seen the day, Monkbarns, when the town council of Fairport wad hae as soon wanted their town-clerk, or their gill of brandy ower-head after the haddies, as they wad hae wanted ilk ane a weel-favoured, sonsy, decent periwig on his pow. Hegh, sirs! nae wonder the commons will be discontent, and rise against the law, when they see magistrates, and bailies, and deacons, and the provost himsel’, wi’ heads as bald an’ as bare as one o’ my blocks.”
It was not in Scotland alone that the barber was peripatetic. “In the last century,” says Mrs. G. Linnæus Banks, author of the “Manchester Man” and other popular novels, “he waited on his chief customers or patrons at their own homes, not merely to shave, but to powder the hair or the wig, and he had to start on his round betimes. Where the patron was the owner of a spare periwig it might be dressed in advance, and sent home in a box, or mounted on a stand, such as a barrister keeps handy at the present day. But when ladies had powdered top-knots, the hairdresser made his harvest, especially when a ball or a rout made the calls for his services many and imperative. When at least a couple of hours were required for the arrangement of a single toupée or tower, or commode, as the head-dress was called, it may well be understood that for two or three days prior to the ball the hairdresser was in demand, and as it was impossible to lie down without disarranging the structure he had raised on pads, or framework of wire, plastering with pomatum and disguising with powder, the belles so adorned or disfigured were compelled to sit up night and day, catching what sleep was possible in a chair. And when I add that a head so dressed was rarely disturbed for ten days or a fortnight, it needs no stretch of imagination to realize what a mass of loathsome nastiness the fine ladies of the last century carried about with them, or what strong stomachs the barbers must have had to deal with them.”
The Tories often regarded with mistrust any persons who did not use hair-powder. The Rev. J. Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A., the eminent antiquary, relates a good story respecting his grandfather. “So late as 1820,” says Dr. Cox, “Major Cox of Derby, an excellent Tory, declined for some time to allow his son Edward to become a pupil of a well-known clerical tutor, for the sole reason that the clergyman did not powder, and wore his hair short, arguing that he must therefore, be a dangerous revolutionist.”
In 1869 the tax on hair-powder was repealed, when only some 800 persons paid it, producing about £1,000 per year.
Men wearing Muffs
The muff in bygone times was worn by men as well as women. Several writers state that it was introduced into England in the reign of Charles II., but this is not correct, for, although it is not of great antiquity, it can certainly be traced back to a much earlier period. Most probably it reached us from France, and when it came into fashion it was small in size.
The earliest representation of a muff that has come under our notice occurs in a drawing by Gaspar Rutz (1598) of an English lady, and she wears it pendant from her girdle. A few years later in the wardrobe accounts of Prince Henry of Wales, a charge is made for embroidering two muffs. The entries occur in 1608, and are as follow: – “One of cloth of silver, embroidered with purles, plates, and Venice twists of silver and gold; the other of black satten, embroidered with black silk and bugles, viz., for one £7, the other 60s.” Muffs were usually ornamented with bunches of gay ribbons, or some other decorations, and were generally hung round the neck with ribbons.
Several poems and plays of the olden time contain references to men using muffs. One of the earliest, if not the first, to mention a man wearing a muff, occurs in an epistle by Samuel Rowlands, written about 1600. It is as follows: —
“Behold a most accomplished cavalier
That the world’s ape of fashion doth appear,
Walking the streets his humour to disclose,
In the French doublet and the German hose.
The muffes, cloak, Spanish hat, Toledo blade,
Italian ruff, a shoe right Spanish made.”
A ballad, describing the frost fair on the Thames in the winter of 1683-4, mentions amongst those present: —
“A spark of the Bar with his cane and his muff.”
In course of time the muff was increased in size, until it was very large. Dryden, in the epilogue of “The Husband his own Cuckstool,” 1696, refers to the monstrous muff worn by the beau.
Pepys made a point of being in fashion, but in respect to the muff he was most economical. He says he took his wife’s last year’s muff, and it is pleasing to record that he gallantly bought her a new one.
Professional men did not neglect to add to their dignity by the use of the muff. In addition to the gold-headed cane, the doctor carried a muff. An old book called “The Mother-in-law,” includes a character who is advised by his friends to become a physician. Says one to him: “’Tis but putting on the doctor’s gown and cap, and you’ll have more knowledge in an instant than you’ll know what to do withal.” Observes another friend: “Besides, sir, if you had no other qualification than that muff of yours, twould go a great way. A muff is more than half in the making of a doctor.” Cibble tells Nightshade in Cumberland’s “Cholerick Man,” 1775, to “Tuck your