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1996 The rT ouble with Hairdressers Donald J. Herzog University of Michigan Law School, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Herzog, Donald J. "The rT ouble with Hairdressers." Representations 53 (1996): 21-43.

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DON HERZOG

The Trouble with Hairdressers

"IT IS A FACT NOT TO BE DENIED, however much to be deplored, thatthe art and mysteryof barberyhas, withoutany assignable reason, sunk ex- ceedingly from that high estimationin which it was ancientlyheld; and that though all the world continues stillas much obliged to it as ever,it has become the object of nearly all the world'scontumely."' Or so claimed one breezy 1824 guide to London. But just what was worrisomeabout ? It won't sufficeto invoke some off-the-shelfobservations about social status and emotion: forexample, thatsince hairdressersare lowlyfigures, servants, they can always serve dutifullyas objects of contempt.In one novel, also from 1824, crankybut endearing Mr. Ramsay spurns the strawberriesbrought by a niece he loathes, and recommends that she deliver them to "a 's bairn two doors aff.""'Pon myword, uncle,'said Miss Bell in greatindignation, 'I have something else to do than to pick strawberriesfor barber's brats,indeed.' "2 It mightseem that, Scottishaccent and vocabularyaside, the exchange could be placed any- where, any time. But the guide to London does not claim that hairdressersare alwayslowly and thereforecontemptible. It noticesa change in theirstatus. Nor is the London guide idiosyncratic.In WalterScott's Antiquary, set in the 1790s, old Caxon the barber "sighed over the disrespectinto which his art had so universally fallen."3We can also canvass earlierexamples of affectionand esteem forbarbers, hairdressers,shavers, perruquiers, les friseurs, and other practitionersof the ton- sorial arts. So we have to explain a change in the statusof hairdressers,and that change needs to be understood as contingentand historical. Figaro, to clutchone obvious straw,was well knownon the English stage. The operas by WolfgangAmadeus Mozart and Gioacchino Rossinias well as dramatic adaptations of the Beaumarchais playswere popular. "Who is there,"demanded Blackwood'sEdinburgh Magazine in 1823, "whose heart does not beat joyously to the verysound of the Barber of Seville?"4But GustaveFlaubert's crack that Figaro was one of the causes of the FrenchRevolution isn't immediately on point. As far as I know, the English Figaro, unlike his French progenitor,launches into no denunciations of the aristocracy.He doesn't instructthem that they'vemerely taken the trouble to be born; he doesn't make any pointed jests about public opinion; nor does he even applaud freedomof the press. His credentialsas bour- geois radical are scanty.Even in the hands of a translatoras radical as playwright and novelistThomas Holcroft,he isjust anothercunning rogue.5 So Figaro isn't our man.

REPRESENTATIONS 53 * Winter 1996 (? THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 21

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions At the risk of rounding up a usual historiographicalsuspect, though, I do want to suggest that the is central to explaining the newly degraded status of hairdressers. British hairdressers embodied some classic anxieties about equality,anxieties sharpened and made more ominous by those dastardlyevents across the Channel. Quirkyor idiosyncraticthough theyseem, hairdressersenable us to bringsharply into focus the notoriouslydifficult concept of equality,to help figureout what egalitariansare demanding and what their conservativeopponents are unhappy about. Why hairdressers?That is, why should hairdressers,of all unlikelycandi- dates, have come to exemplifyequality, to be a culturalobsession of sorts?The question, natural enough in its way,raises some knottyissues about contingency and explanationthat I haven'tthe space to explore. Sufficeit to say thathairdress- ers happened to occupy a social positionthat made it possible to demonize them. Others could have occupied such a position(and perhaps some did); even given the factsof the matter,hairdressers needn't have been demonized. But it so hap- pens that theywere, and that we can learn fromtheir daffy appearance on the sordid stage of culturalpolitics.

Friz, Friz, Friz

In 1766 and 1820, we find French hairdressersadvertising that they could make one look youngagain.6 In CharlotteSmith's Old ManorHouse of 1793, the vain old general attemptsto look young by "puttingon toupees and curls," makinghimself ridiculous instead of attractiveto the young woman he's smitten with. And in Richard BrinsleySheridan's Trip to Scarborough, Young Fashion sighs thatwomen fallin love on the basis of mere appearance, and Lory responds, "Sir, Taylorsand -dressersare now become the bawds of the nation-'tis theythat debauch all the women."8But hair does far more elaborate symbolicwork than servingas a markerof youthand good looks. George Rose was worriedabout the decline of the use of hair powder notjust because of governmentrevenues (in 1795 William Pitt'sgovernment had passed a tax on hair powder)9but "to avoid other mischiefwhich I am verysure is not enough attended to, the distinctionof dress and externalappearance. The inattentionto thathas been a great support of Jacobinism."'0If social statusisn't going to be perilouslyevanescent, it has to be prominentlydisplayed: Rose didn'tneed to read Marx to understandthe daily reproductionof social life.Decisions about whatto wear and how to do one's hair aren't innocent matters of mere personal preference. They are politically charged. Similarly,it spoke volumes when Lord Bathurstcut offhis pigtailafter the passage of the ReformBill of 1832. "1 In 1786, Fanny Burney's hairdresser spent two hours one evening work- ing on her hair; he stillwasn't finished when she had to jump up and serve the

22 REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Queen. 12 This mightseem extraordinary,but Charles Knight,reminiscing on the early 1800s, reportedthat "those who had to preservea genteelappearance spent an hour each day under the hands of the hair-dresser."'13For those of the higher orders,hairdressing was elaborate business.Hair was plastered,powdered (up to two pounds of powder per head), 14 curled,and lubricatedwith pomatum or bear grease or Macassar oil. This mass of stuffhad to be combed out and reapplied daily-it musthave gottenhorribly messy while sleeping, and anywayit musthave supported an imposing population of flora and fauna-which made for lively demand forhairdressers, the more expertthe better.One manual for hairdress- ers reportsthat in 1745 hair stylesbecame newlyelaborate: 5 I suppose the final defeat of bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobitesencouraged a new round of devotion to the pageantriesof legitimatemonarchy. And what betteradvertise- ment of one's identityand convictionsthan a careening towerof powdered curls on top of one's head? By around 1830, hair styleswere simpler;the BristolJobNott reported: "Nor is the hair-dresserany longerthe importantpersonage he used to be, when ladies and gentlementhought it necessaryto situnder his hands for an hour at a time, to have their hair frizzled,and made a sort of dust-bag of powder and poma- tum."'16But of course thatisn't the replacementof a symbolicor expressivelan- guage withsomething purely functionalor instrumental;rather it's a change in the reigningcodes. Someone whose hair styleis simple doesn't somehow escape making symbolicclaims even if he wants to. Instead, he claims-depending on whateverthe local code is-to be classicallyaustere, athleticallydisciplined, vig- orouslymasculine, hardnosed, efficiency-minded,blithely unconcerned withthe fussyniceties of presentationof self,or whateverelse. And he will be read, ef- fortlessly,as pressingthose claimseven if he doesn't intend to, even if he is obliv- ious to the code. Or, in fact,like the Puritan Roundheads of the seventeenth century,the day's "crops,"with their , claimed a fiercedevotion to re- publican virtue.But these are expressiveclaims, every bit as much as those of the dandy or fop. So Charles Dibdin's popular song, "Miss Muz, the Milliner,and Bob, the Barber,"inveighed against the introductionof effetehigh fashion to a respectablesmall town, with mannered haircutsstanding in forcorruption, "ring- letscareless flowing"for virtue. 17 So the youngWilliam Gladstone frettedthat his contemporaries'haircuts did "not betokena manlyage or character,"as presum- ably other hair styleswould have.'8 The language of hair can be manipulated quite crassly,too. In 1829, the Glasgow police began shavingthe heads of drunks found unconscious in the streets,using nakedness as a badge of dishonor-and perhaps creatingproblems for the bald.'9 So hair,every bit as much as clothes,made the man-and the woman. Here's JeremyBentham, the innocentabroad, intenton visitinga Polish court in 1787: "My respect forJustice determined me to call in the assistanceof a hairdresser." But he had troublefinding someone properlyequipped and knowledgeable,and

The Troublewith Hairdressers 23

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ended up witha man ready to use a tallowcandle for pomatum and to apply the powder with"a pair of dirtyhands."20 Traveling in in 1769, Horace Wal- pole was amused by the appearance of neatlymanicured trees picking up dust fromthe chalkyroads: "I assure you it is verydifficult, powdered as both are all over,to distinguisha tree froma hairdresser."2' A couple of decades later,things French and hirsutebecame less amusing. Englishobservers paid fretfulattention to rapidlychanging French hair styles,to shaggysans culottehair and well-pomaded muscadin hair,trying desperately to discern the deep meaning and vicissitudesof the Revolutionby deciphering the language of hair. In 1790, the Earl of Morningtondourly reported to William Grenvillethat petits maitres in Paris "have sacrificedtheir curls, toupees, and queues; some of themgo about withcropped locks like English farmerswithout any pow- der, and otherswear littleblack scratchwigs; both these fashionsare called ?Utes a la Romaine,which is a comical name for such folly":a nice attempt,this, at snubbinga studied piece of republicansymbolism.22 Less cool was Henry Fuseli's 1802 condemnationof the new appearance of Frenchsoldiers, exemplary or even constitutiveof the frightfuldecadence of revolutionarypolitics: "the disuse of powder,-the cropped heads,-the Chinshaved & thethroat unshaved, which is a beastlycustom making a Man like an Animal,that makes up all the alterationthat the French have undergone."23All the alteration:not that only hair styleshad changed in France (for who could be passionatelyexercised by that alone?), but thatthe Frenchdestruction of civilizationitself was made manifestnot just in the eradicationof monarchyand aristocracy,not just in the swarmsof angrywomen out in the streets,not just in the public campaigns againstChristianity, but in the veryhair stylesadopted by the French. Who performedthese hairdressingservices? Once London, and small towns untilthe earlynineteenth century, had a flyingbarber armed withshaving cream and a basin of boilinghot water,going door to door to shave his clients.24Boasting in 1805 about his pristineBotley, "the mostdelightful village in the world,"Wil- liam Cobbettwas proud to reportthat it still had no barberof itsown: "The barber comes threemiles once a week to shave and cut hair!"25Professionals also opened up storefronts.Even large households mighthave no servantspecifically denom- inated a hairdresser,26but servantswere routinelyexpected to master such arts as partof theirresponsibility. Patrick, the servantaccompanying William Combe's whimsicalDr. Syntax on tour, knows how to shave and how to tend to .27 Similarly,John Cam Hobhouse firedone servantin less than two years; "he can- not shave well & is too expensive,"Hobhouse noted in his diary.28Then again, some households valued hairdressersenough to retain someone specializing in the art. When Richard Cumberland took his familyto Spain in 1780 to pursue secretdiplomatic negotiations for the Britishgovernment, he had only three En- glish servants,one "a London hair-dresser. .. whom I took for the convenience of mywife and daughters."29

24 REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Hairdressers, I should note, were overwhelminglymale (and so I shall re- lentlesslystick with the masculine pronoun).30This factgave rise to some uneas- iness about gender that I won'tbe pursuinghere, but do want brieflyto note. In 1789, crustytraditionalist John Bennett,infamous as an opponent of woman's rights,complained: "Ladies are certainlyinjudicious in employingso many male friseursabout theirpersons. The customis indelicate... . In 1798, avant-garde feministMary Hays, unjustlyneglected as a sidekickof MaryWollstonecraft, won- dered why "women of the inferiorclasses" didn't serve as hairdressersand why upper-classwomen "admitwithout scruple-men hair-dressers."32That Bennett and Hays echo one anotheris a reminderof the scope of the day's feminismand its deliberate regard for the purityof women of a certainstatus. The concern is for the tense economies of anonymity,body space, and sexuality,a recurrentre- frainin the sources: so we learn fromone colloquial dictionarythat a prostitute mightbe labelled "as common as a barber'schair, in which a whole parish sit to be trimmed";so the male genitalsmight be referredto as a barber'ssign, defined not quite innocentlyenough as "a standingpole and two wash-balls."33 Anyway,hair mattered,at least to the higher orders. (Actually,to the lower orders, too. Peter Pindar's droll epic, TheLousiad, relates George III's aghast dis- coveryof a louse on his plate and his ensuing order that the entire kitchenstaff receive haircutsand wear wigs. But the staff,doughty freeborn Englishmen, will have none of it, and assertthat only "in France,where men like spaniels lick the Throne," could such an order be issued or followed.)34Raised eyebrowsmust have greeted the MorningPost's 1789 report that the Earl of Scarborough kept "six Frenchfrizeurs, who have nothingelse to do than dress his hair."35Outsiders were struckby the time-consumingcomplexity of it all. Asked byGeorge I I I how she liked London, one newlyarrived duchess replied: "Not at all, your majesty, forit is knock,knock, knock, all day; and friz,friz, friz, all night."36 All that frizzingmight have been annoying;still, the friseurs were entitledto a kind of respect,the respectdue to an inferioror menial or underling who has an allottedrole and performsit ably.The backgroundunderstandings here were banallyfamiliar, largely implicit but easilyrecalled frommedieval and Early Mod- ern social theory.Whether conceived of as body politicor patriarchalfamily or greatchain of being, societydepended on hierarchyand subordination,on place and degree, rank and station.Overmighty subjects were a threat,but dutifularis- tocratswere entitledto respect. So, too, lowlyhairdressers were absurd or per- nicious if theyswaggered withpretensions and put on airs, but entirelyamiable and respectablefigures if theyminded theirmanners and knewtheir place. With a studiouslynostalgic glow, Mary Russell Mitfordsummoned up the view in the 1820s, recalling "William Skinner,-maker, hair-dresser, and barber" from "the littleprimitive town of Cranley,where I spent the firstfew years of mylife": "Although,doubtless, the he-people findit more convenientto shave themselves, and to dispense withwigs and powder,yet I cannot help regretting,the more for

The Troublewith Hairdressers 25

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions his sake, the decline and extinctionof a race which . . . formed so genial a link between the higher and lower orders of society."37There were black hairdress- ers,38but thatisn't why Mitford says "race." Hairdressersmight be an altogether differentorder of beings fromtheir betters, but again theyhave theirrole to play in knittingtogether social order. That means the hairdresser'sjob is a paradoxical one. He gives the higher orders the kind of hair that identifiesthem as high. So his job is, in part, the reproductionof social status.But it is a systemof social statusthat assigns him a lowly position. Perhaps hairdressers consoled themselves-or gnashed their teeth-in reflectingthat their august customerswere helpless withoutthem. Per- haps theytook secretor illicitpleasure in tinkeringwith their own hair or making theircustomers' hair just a bit too extravagant.Like any other social actors,they had some room for maneuveringwithin the confinesof their role. But if they stepped too far outside it, if they were not in the end dutiful and deferential certifiersof status,there would be trouble. If overweeninglords and saucy subjectsare a threatto (thisaccount of) social order, so much the worse for freewheelingtalk of equality.On its face, equality threatenshierarchy and subordination;but thatjust means that it threatensthe very possibilityof social order, if anythinglike the patriarchal familyor body politicor great chain of being is the mostcogent account we can muster.Conser- vatives,clinging to thisolder model of social order,are then appropriatelyaghast at the demand for equality.It's not fundamentallya matterof maintainingthe power and privilegesof the betteroff, the triumphof sinisterinterests come what may,though I don't doubt thatthat helps. It's a matterof safeguardingorder, of preventingthe crazed and bloody chaos thathad erupted in France frompene- tratingBritain, and I see no reason whateverto doubt the sincerityof conservative anguish in thisrealm.

Dignityof Labor

"The occupation of a hair-dresser,or of a workingtallow-chandler, cannot be a matterof honor to any person,-to say nothingof a number of other more servileemployments."39 So decreed Edmund Burke in the Reflectionson the Revolutionin France.Characteristically blunt, Burke echoed ancien regime wis- dom: there is no dignityin labor.40Honor or dignityhere is a positional good: some (aristocrats,MPs, maybe lawyers)can have it only if others (hairdressers, tallow-chandlers,maybe farmers) don't. If we observe the workforcethrough the conceptual lenses of those familiarpremodern models of social order,hairdress- ers and the restcan't have dignity.Harriet Arbuthnot, the staunchTory, sneered at WilliamKnighton, keeper of the privypurse under George IV, by referringto him notjust as "the greatestrogue in England" but also as a barber.4'James Law-

26 REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions rence protestedagainst the pretensionsof hairdresserswho dared to call them- selves gentlemen:"The word gentlemenre-echoes from one end of the kingdom to the other.We have gentlemenof the whip, gentlemenof the quill, gentlemen of the scissars,gentlemen of the , gentlemenof the comb."42But this lin- guisticexcess makes nonsense of the verypossibility of being a gentleman,which requires that others be not so genteel. Or, in Pierce Egan's scathinglysarcastic words,it requires thatwe recognize"bawds, milliners, hair-dressers, tallywomen, and manyother reptilesof the same class."43Those who pine away foraristocrats and gentlemenshould rememberthat their very existence requires the existence of loathsome inferiors. The young William Wordsworth,still fired with revolutionaryzeal, com- plained that nobility"has a necessarytendency to dishonour labour."44One of Burke's criticschided him. "More is said," protestedCapel Lofft,"than, in this age, an ingenuous and enlightenedmind mighthave been expected to utter,on the degrading ignorance attendanton certainoccupations"; Lofftthought it bet- ter "to expand the gates and enlarge the avenues to the Temple of Honour."45 Radicals underlined the frightfulanomalies. Charles Pigottwondered whylabor "is held in the utmostcontempt by the useless great,though at the same timethey derive all theirluxury and exclusiveadvantages fromthe exertionsof the indus- triouspoor."46 In The Box-LobbyChallenge, Richard Cumberland permitted his audience some nastychuckles-and maybe some nagging apprehensions-by exploring whatwould be at stakein conceivinghairdressers and othersas dignifiedworkers, not menial servants.Provincial Sir Toby and his manservantJoe have arrived in London, and Joe salutes a waiter:

JOE: Harkye,you boy! skip-jack! tapster! WAITER: Whatdo youwant, Clodpole? is thatyour way of speakingto a waiter?I fancy youhave been moreaccustomed to alehousesthan hotels. JOE: Oho! youcall yourhouse an hotel,and yourselfa waiter-verywell! then pray Mr. Waiterof an hotel,send me hitherone of yourbarbers to combout Sir TobyGrampus's perriwig.-Doyou understand that? WAITER: I'll sendyou a hair-dresser,we don'tcall 'embarbers, unless we meanto affront 'em.Where the plague have you lived. [exit JOE: So, ho! here'sa newlanguage to learn;a man'smother-tongue I perceive is of no use in thisplace.47

The long-sufferingmother tongue is, as always,a politicalbattlefield. If "barber" has too much obloquy built into it, choose a new name. Anyway,the passage is unstable, maybe deliberatelyso. The waiter and his stillinvisible ally, the hair- dresser, want to upgrade their own status. But the waiter moves to do so by beratingJoe. Is it that,as the travelingservant of a provincialsquire, Joe is irre- prievablylow? Or is it ratherthat his putativelyrude behavior,failing to address the waiterwith due respect,means thathe deserves a scathingriposte?

The Troublewith Hairdressers 27

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The hairdresser'sarrival doesn't produce any celebrationsof fraternity,dig- nity,or respect. He and Joe don't treatone another as comrades in arms against some oppressiveupper crust.Indeed, the hairdresseris supremelyconfident that he is Joe's superior,Sir Toby's too. He looks at Sir Toby's wig with unmitigated scorn, seeing it as hopelesslyantique, presumablynot up to chic London stan- dards: "Dam'mee! if I wouldn'tas soon comb out the towerlyons, as thisrum gig of a caxen." While he's at it,he manages to insultSir Toby'scoat:

HAIR-DRESSER: ... whichnow is ofthe longest standing in thefamily, you, or thatdamn'd old quiz ofa coatyou are dusting? JOE: Damn'd old quiz of a coat! whata gracelessreprobate you are! Damme,how you barbersswear! where do youexpect to go?

We jaded secular humanistsmight miss the forceof thisquestion: swearing,the thoughtis, sends one to hell. That Joe himselfswears in the veryact of denounc- ing swearingis surelyanother bit of heavy-handedhumor. The hairdresser,we are to presume, knows fullwell whatJoe is suggesting,but coolly dodges: "Half the townover before night,then to mygirl and mybottle. As foryour wig,comb it those that like, I'll not touch a bristleof it."48When Sir Toby learns what hap- pened, he exclaims,"Oh, that I had the knave in Monmouthshire,I'd make him sing another tune!"49Country bumpkin meets cityslicker; affablegentry con- frontsimpudent underling; pious Christianis rebuffedby worldly cynic; country virtueis foiledby courtlycorruption. It's clear that Cumberland inviteshis audience to sympathizewith Sir Toby and Joe, but not entirelyclear why.Suppose thatwaiter and hairdresserhad been furnishedanother script, one makingthem genial and self-deprecating,like Wal- ter Scott'sCaxon. Caxon's master tells him: "You are a goose"; "'It's verylike it may be sae,' replied the acquiescent barber,-'I am sure your honour kens best."950 Then, surely,Sir Toby and Joe would have had theirfooting, would have restrainedany growlsabout newfangledLondon, would have found theirmother tongue and social repertoiresquite under control.But how would theiraudience have reacted? And how would Cumberland have wanted them to react? Would theyhave seen the entireexchange as unremarkable?Or would some of them- radical artisansin the pit,say-have been hissing,complaining about Toby'seasy arrogance, marvellingthat Joe has the stupidityto believe thatToby's higher sta- tus castsits glow on him,orjust condemningCumberland forbeing so hopelessly out of touch withthe waysof actual workers?Would theyhave thoughtthat waiter and hairdresser were commendably acting in character? Or would they have scorned them as hopelessly inauthentic?Or would they have heard the entire exchange as drippingwith arch irony,assuming that no self-respectingwaiter or hairdressercould actuallybe so deferential?Would theyhave noticed-and re- viled-the possibilitythat the underlingsgain theirself-respect precisely by being deft and artfulin the laborious arts of deference and submission,in identifying

28 REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions withtheir allotted role and impeccablyperforming its duties? that,not at all par- adoxically,underlings take pride in being inferior? More intractablyyet: suppose waiter and hairdresserwere genuinely self- deprecating,pleased to have the opportunityto be a bit craven in assistingSir Toby,but Joe and Sir Toby themselvesprized the dignityof labor and tried to impart to waiter and hairdressera more dignifiedsense of self. Imagine how embarrassing,how excruciating,the ensuing conversationwould be for all par- ties. Notice, too, thatJoe and Sir Toby mightwonder if theirown commitments to the dignityof labor werejust anotherway of being patronizing,something like the leftistversion of noblesse oblige. Or they might be so complacentlyfond of their position that theywould fail to notice that waiter and hairdresserwere baffled-or held themin cheerfullyseething contempt for failing to acquit them- selves competentlyin theirown highersocial position.(In Memoirsof Modern Phi- losophers,an antic sendup of the EnglishJacobins, Elizabeth Hamilton has Bridg- etina Botherim,a blitheringidiot who quotes WilliamGodwin at everyturn, try to commiseratewith what she sees as the degraded and unjust lot of some rustic haymakers.They willhave none of itand spurn her caustically-and Mrs. Martha assures her thatthe poor are happy.)5' The iterationsare endless, increasinglymisanthropic too, and I leave them aside fornow. Instead, considerthis 1778 conversationbetween SamuelJohnson, Fanny Burney,Hester Thrale, and Lady Ladd. "The subject was given by Lady Ladd; it was the respectdue fromthe lower class of the people." She complains thatMrs. Thrale doesn't botherwith the nigglingrituals of deference: "I remem- ber, when you were at my house, how the hair-dresserflung down the comb as soon as you were dressed, and wentout of the room withoutmaking a bow." Mrs. Thrale responds: "All the better,for if he had made me one, ten thousand to one if I had seen it. I was in as great haste to have done withhim, as he could be to have done withme. I was glad enough to get him out of the room; I did not want him to stand bowingand cringing." "If any man had behaved so insolentlyto me," answersLady Ladd, "I would never again have sufferedhim in my house." "Well,"scoffs Mrs. Thrale, "your ladyshiphas a great deal more dignitythan I have!" Dr. Johnson chimes in with one of his trademarksententious maxims: "Subordinationis alwaysnecessary to the preservationof order and decorum." Lady Ladd adds: "I have no notion of submittingto any kind of impertinence;and I neverwill bear to have any person nod to me, or enter a room where I am, withoutbowing." Then Dr. Johnson is wry:"But, madam, whatif they will nod, and whatif they won't bow?-how then?" "Why,I alwaystell themof it." Mrs. Thrale's rejoinder: "Oh, commend me to that! I'd sooner never see an- other bow in my life,than turn dancing-masterto hair-dressers."52I haven'tthe space (or ample enough evidence) to pursue the storyhere, but in the earlier eighteenthcentury the dancing masteris as much an exemplaryfigure of con-

The Troublewith Hairdressers 29

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions temptas the hairdresseris afterthe FrenchRevolution. So Mrs. Thrale is notjust wittyand brash, but subtle,even brilliant.It is the provinceof a lowlydancing- masterto teach people how to bow gracefully.She won'tdream of loweringher- selfby playingdancing-master to her own servant.As long as the man combs her hair competently,let him flounce out of the room withoutthe appointed cere- monies. Who cares? Well, Lady Ladd and Dr. Johnson do; and so did thousands of others. In a properlyfunctioning household, theywould insist,Mrs. Thrale neverwould have been subjected to such impudence in the firstplace. Only her own prior deroga- tion of duty has made her servantsso pert that they dare omit the bows and curtsiesthat certify their lowly status. (Not the mere factof bowingand curtsying, but the asymmetricroutines built up around them. They are to bow to her; she, of course, need not bow back. She may address themby firstor last name, as she pleases; theymust always address her withan honorific.And so on.) Nor, they would insist,are the stakes trivial,and we must reprove Mrs. Thrale's breezy dismissalof the matter.Her retortto Lady Ladd, "yourladyship has a great deal more dignitythan I have!" is biting,even acidulous: she means thatLady Ladd is altogethertoo stiffand surlyabout her status,that she should loosen up and be more casual. But, theywould insist,the higherorders mustresist such unbecom- ing temptations,for the domestichousehold is no less than a microcosmof society itself.Mrs. Thrale does her servantsno favorsin omittingthe delicate, almost invisible,marks of formalityand distance that must regulate their relationship. Not only does she leave them at sea, unsure of how to execute theirrole, of what is permitted,what forbidden; she also forfeitsthe consecrationof hierarchyso essentialto order. For Mrs. Thrale to be negligentof her duties is to license dis- order in her house and at large. Note that the verysame actions and omissions thatsome mightdescribe as dignifiedothers would describe as saucy. Lofft'sproposal, that the avenues to public honor be enlarged, can't in the end furnisha fullydemocratic conception of the dignityof labor. For honor must remain positional,so some occupations must remain low. That is whyone pam- phleteer's 1791 complaintsaren't what one mightexpect. The government,he declares, "have reduced us to the hard condition of daily labourers.... They have made us a people of pedlars, of taylors,of weavers,of barbers,of brokers, of lackeys,of gamblers,of man-milliners,and if ought can derogate still more fromthe dignityof man."53Other workers-I suppose smallholdingfarmers- may have dignityor honor,but not barbersor man-milliners.That is whyradical orator Henry Hunt's gibe about the Sheriffof Westminster,formerly the King's printer-"I found thisMr. George Eyrejust such aJack-in-officeas I should have expected a King's printer,or a King's lacquey,or a King's hair-dresserto be"- mightdraw today'sreaders up short.54 Here, as elsewhere,critics seized on the thoughtthat equality is not perni- cious, but impossible,that the demand for equalityis alwaysin vain. Blackwood's

30 REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions EdinburghMagazine gives us a reductioof the campaign for the dignityof labor: "The Confessionsof a Footman"by Thomas Ticklepitcher.Ticklepitcher is a stu- pid oaf seeking sympathy,perhaps redress,for "the grievancesof footmen;a set of men, I do believe,more universallypersecuted than any other body of artists withinhis Majesty'sdominions." Ticklepitcher proudly launches into a narrative that, of course, doesn't begin to vindicate his complaints; instead it caustically exposes the nonsensical,even hilarious,nature of his brief. It turnsout that he had been a barber's apprentice,incompetent to the core. At the implausible cli- max of his labors, he managed accidentallyto cut offthree quarters of a presti- gious client'shair.55 Thus the need for a new line of work; thus too a pointed challenge as to whethersuch buffoonsand theirasinine workcould ever warrant dignity.Burke is unflinchingin summoningup "the innumerableservile, degrad- ing, unseemly,unmanly, and often most unwholesome and pestiferousoccupa- tionsto whichby the social economyso manywretches are inevitablydoomed."56 Some will findhere what'scentrally offensive in Burke, his blatantcontempt for ordinarymen and women. Others will suspect that,even if our flatulentpieties demand that we not talk this way in public, even if his comment is unbearably ugly,it's irresistibly true.

Puttingon Airs

So, too, a seeminglydignified hairdresser could alwaysbe exposed as a buffoonputting on airs. Blackwood'salso gives us a soliloquyby Frizzle: So! This is a mostdelicate piece of workmanship!Confoundedly clever. The hairsare wovenbetter by half than they grow in theskin-more regular like-and thecurl it takes! and thefine oily gloss! and thecolour!-It's a pleasureto putsuch a wigout of hand-a wig,as thepoet says, "beating nature." Zounds! I wonderpeople are suchfools as to wear theirown hair! That curla littlemore to theleft, to givea sortof carelessness-so.To be sure,though I sayit that should not say it, there is notan artistof moregenius in myline in thewhole West End. It mustbe confessed,though, that few men have had myadvan- tages. 'Prenticedin Piccadilly-placedfor improvementin RegentStreet-a foreign tour-two daysat Calais-hang thisstraggling lock! It won'tsit becoming! I've a great mindto clipit. No; that'lldo. That'squite comyfo, as theFrench say.57

The pretensionsare hopeless. It isn'thairdressers as such who are dignified,but Frizzle himselfhappens to be especiallyadmirable because of his distinctivead- vantages. But he's fatuousin preeninghimself on his advantages,which amount to happening to live in fashionableneighborhoods and takinga patheticversion of a young gentleman'sgrand tour.Yet aristocracyon the cheap isn'tdignity, and any complacentTory reading Blackwood'sis permitteda patronizinggrin at Friz- zle's gross mispronunciationof commeilfaut. The pressuresof marketcompetition could themselvesgive rise to ludicrous

The Troublewith Hairdressers 31

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions affectation.(Here economic rationalityyields absurd folly.)John Bull reported that"Within one hundred miles of Drury-lanethe passengers can find'the orig- inal shop;' 'the old original shavingshop' and 'the real original shaving shop."'58They also found an 1828 advertisementworth reproducing at length:

J. LEAVER,ARTIST IN DECORATIVEHAIR,-In disseminatinghisGratitude for experienced favours,assumes the honour of announcingto the Ladies, Gentlemen,and adjacent residents of Chelsea, that he has removedfrom Bond-street, to thoseeligible premises, No. 13, ADAM' S PLACE, near the SIX BELLS, KING' S ROAD, a commodious Shop, elegantlyadapted for a characteristicdisplay of all the various modernized devices of ornamentalhair. And desires toinsinuate that providing acknowledged ability, enthusiastic regard, accompanied with commodities whichare bothvilis et bonum,be thesuperinducements or avenues leading to Business.-J. L. un- hesitatinglyasserts that he possesses all these even to perfection.... AS HAIR CUTTER, J. L. is incontestiblydeclared by amateurs of his professionto be the neplus ultraof the present Erea. AS HAIR DRESSER, hesoars lofty in the estimationof some of the firstcircles of courtiers at the westend. AS PERUKE AND SCALP MAKER, hisname has becomeproverbial, both in theMetropolis, and on the Continent,he will deceive the sapient connoisseur,he is the bestsembler of nature extant. . ..

Once again, inadvertentlyhilarious mistakes;once again, a putativebid for dig- nitystill caught up in the logic of positionalgoods: Leaver's standingis purchased at the price of his competitors'ignominy. Then again, he can't buy this kind of standing anyway.John Bull clearlyexpects their readers to react with disdain- the ad appears in an ongoing seriessnottily entitled "The March of Intellect"and designed to show thatno such march is in progress-and we can make our own conjectures about the reactions of Leaver's potential clients. Perhaps John Bull embellishedthe advertisement,the stuffof slapstickand buffoonery;it's hard to imagine Leaver proudlywriting the text(or hiringa consultantto do it forhim?), harder stillto imagine it attractingnew customers.But theyalmost surelydidn't inventit fromwhole cloth,and indeed I suspect any embellishmentswere quite minor: the Age, another scurrilousconservative paper, ran a strikinglysimilar advertisementin 1825 in the midst of the regular advertisements,and I don't thinkthe day's papers were playingthese kinds of games withthe boundaries of factand fiction.60

Subjects and Citizens

Let's returnto the hairdresser'sshop: someone in the chair,the hair- dresserbusily tending to him,maybe a fewclients waiting. They don't sit silently. The "chatteringdexterity of a friseur"was notorious.6'In 1774, Richard Graves furnisheda barber who, "witha voluble tongue, as he was preparing his razor, ran over the heat of the weather,dustiness of the rods, and other general topics,

32 REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions whichthose artistshave ready at hand, forthe entertainmentof theircustomers, and to divert their attentionfrom the pain which often attends the operation under the most skillfulperformer."62 In 1818, Charles Lamb saluted his barber: "I can trulysay, that I never spent a quarter of an hour under his hands without derivingsome profitfrom the agreeable discussions,which are always going on there."63In a more sulkyvein, when Scott'sLord Nigel Glenvarlochfinally rises fromthe chair and staggersaway fromthe barber,his "ears, so long tormented withhis continued babble, tingledwhen it had ceased, as if a bell had been rung close to them for the same space of time."64In Robert Bage's Hermsprong,one characterimportunately warns another not to make his son a barber: "Barbers' shops, you know,are receptaclesof scandal."65 Scandal and maliciousgossip aside, thissmall talkmight seem unexceptional and unexceptionable.As Graves notes, it helps distractone's attentionfrom the pain of shaving.Or, as we mightsuspect, it helps solve a classic problem of social discomfort:the hairdresseris a strangerwhose job requires him to violate all the normsof body space. But on thatlist of general topicsready at hand was politics. In 1773, Walpole lamented, "What is England now?-A sink of Indian wealth, filledby nabobs and emptied Maccaronis! A senate sold and despised! A country overrun by horse-races!A gaming, robbing,wrangling, railing nation, without principles,genius, characteror allies; the overgrownshadow of what it was!- Lord bless me, I run on like a political barber-"66 In 1783, William Cowper thoughtthat the barber at Olney was one of the best sources of politicalnews in town.67Travelling in 1794, John Byng was pleased to encounter "a good inn, where there was good cream and a politicalbarber-as barbers should be__"68 At least sinceJurgen Habermas's studyof the public sphere, the coffee-house has occupied our attentionas the siteof politicaldiscussion.69 That's fineas faras it goes, but it also invitesskepticism. How much timedid people spend in coffee- houses, anyway?and didn't theytalk politicsin other settings?I want to propose thatwe thinkof the hairdresser'sshop as itselfan exemplarysite of politicaldis- cussion: and recall the estimatethat genteel contemporaries spent as much as an hour a day witha hairdresser.A June 1791 issue of theLiverpool General Advertiser affirmedthat "withoutNewspapers, our coffee-houses,ale-houses and barbers' shops would undergo a change next to depopulation."70One 1799 Rowlandson etchingportrays a man in the barber'schair, reading the LondonGazette. Hungry for politicalnews, the barber leans over and reads aloud, obliviouslydriving his straightrazor into the nose of the hapless man, who screams in protest.7' In the aftermathof the FrenchRevolution, political discussion had unsavory tiesto atheism.Bad enough thatsome hairdresserschose to stayopen on Sunday, to the dismayof uprightChristians. A facetious 1809 poem recounted the pur- portedlytrue storyof an ingloriousfight between a barber and a preacher about such Sunday openings: the barber tried to shave the preacher's rear end, the preacher bashed him on the head withEdward Foxe's Bookof Martyrs, and finally

The Troublewith Hairdressers 33

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions the barber prevailed by ramminghis into the preacher's mouth and slamminghim on the head withhis pewterbasin.72 (Then again, some Leeds hairdressersorganized to preventanyone fromdoing Sabbath business.73And Methodist hairdresserssuffered financially for refusingto do business on the Sabbath.74)Worse, some of them hawked and sold Sunday newspapers,a recent innovation.75Thomas Hood's wily 1825 etching,"The Progressof Cant," a veri- table exhaustivecatalogue of the day'sworries and inanities,noticed thisone, too: a banner hangs fromthe barber'sshop saying,"NOBODY IS TO BE SHAVED DURING DIVINE SERVICE BY COMMAND OF THE MAGISTRACY; but the banner is ripped, so the H in SHAVED iS missing.76 Worse yet,all this politicalchatter seemed newlyominous after the French Revolution,for it endangered the crucialdistinction between subjects and citizens centralto the hierarchicalvision of social order. The highlyrestrictive franchise demarcated theboundaries of the tinypolitical nation. Those under the franchise were subjects,not citizens.Their job was to offerunflagging loyalty and political deference,not to formtheir own views,still less to act on them. They could pe- titionfor redress of theirgrievances, but the petitionshad to be offeredas humble suits.Imagine, then,Benjamin Robert Haydon, forcedto wonder what his polit- ical commitmentsfinally amounted to when confrontedwith a republican barber who commented,while cuttinghis children'shair in 1831: "Sir, we don't want a King. We want a cheap governmentlike America, & we will have it."77This is a cool and outrageouslyradical demand. Edmund Burke had an incisiveretort to abstracttalk of the rightsof man. Lingeringin viciouslyloving detail over particularinvidious characters who could become citizens,Burke spat out: "I can never be convinced that the scheme of placing the highest powers of the state in church-wardensand constables and othersuch officers,guided bythe prudence of litigiousattorneys and Jewbrokers, and set in actionby shameless womenof thelowest condition, by keepers of hotels, taverns,and brothels,by pert apprentices,by clerks,shop-boys, hair-dressers, fiddlers,and dancers on the stage ... can ever be put into any shape that must not be both disgracefuland destructive."78Merely naming these contemptible characters,puncturing the Jacobins' glitteringgeneralities and unmasking the concreterealities of democracy,is enough to show thatcitizenship is a noisome, even noxious, ideal. But radical Joseph Gerrald indignantlydemanded: "Whathave I to do with politics?Nothing. From this importantquestion, my countrymen,so weakly and wickedlyanswered, have arisen all the evilswhich have afflictedEngland through a long successionof ages."79Like otherradicals, he steadfastlyaddressed his read- ers as "Fellow Citizens."80So the hairdresser,still prattlingaway about politics afterthe French Revolution,could no longer be so innocenta figure.He looked too much like a bold citizen,voicing independent views and ready to act on them. One 1792 allegoryon the French National Assembly,a cautionarytale, empha-

34 REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions sized thatcitizenship meant that"not a day passed withoutpetitions from School- masters,Journalists, Artists, Barbers, Fishwomen, &c. &C.''81 And again, France was makingperilously clear how sanguinarythe world of citizenshipmight be. Consider a storymaking the rounds in London clubs in the 1820s. I should note that the storyis apocryphal at best: it's about Henry Dundas's service as Home Secretary,a role he held from1791 to 1794, so it'sbeing told decades after the putativeevent; but for my purposes it doesn't matterif it'strue. Anyway,the story:Dundas had to returnto Edinburgh afterbeing hassled by a mob there unhappy withhis repressivepolicies. Waking up in his hotel,he sent fora barber. "The Tonsor,who happened to be a wag,"greeted Dundas and prepared to shave him. "Atlength, flourishing his razor,he said in a sharp and sternvoice,-'We are much obligedto you, Mr. Dundas, forthe part you latelytook in London.' 'What!' replied the Secretary,'you are a politician,I find?-I sent for a barber."'(And what mightthis contrastamount to?) Aftershaving half of Dundas's face, "the knightof the pewterbasin" drew his razor across Dundas's throatand rushed off into the street.Convinced he was being murdered,Dundas clutchedhis apron to his throatand made "a loud gugglingnoise." The doctorscame, hovered around, and finallypersuaded him to remove the apron so theycould tend to him. But his throatwas intact:the hairdresserhad used the back end of the razor.82 The Reform Bill of 1832 only made mattersworse, furtherjeopardizing time-honoredwisdom about faceless subjects by promotingwhat conservatives saw as democraticfrenzies. Now, as conservativesthought, the infectiousplague from across the Channel finallyhad erupted in full and lethal force. Warned Fraser's:"In these perilous times,when you submityour chin to a barber never talkabout politicstill you ascertainhis principleson these matters.It is dangerous to put one's throatin the mercyof a man armed witha razor,especially if he be a red-hotpolitician; which all shaversare, withoutexception."83 Think about the conditionsin whichit never occurs to one to worrythat the hairdresser,maybe a complete stranger,is holding a lethalweapon to one's throat,and how one might learn instead to notice and fretabout such matters.(Think too about why we mightnot applaud thosewho noticeas paragons of prudence.) Or perhaps Fraser's warningis hyperbole.Perhaps it's not thatone mightliterally have one's throat slit,not even in the phony way Dundas did; it's rather that a world in which a lowlyhairdresser presumes to offerpolitical views is lethal. Workingon the West- minsterelection of 1807, FrancisPlace and otherswere taunted as "nobody,com- mon tailors,and Barbers.... We were laughed at for our folly,and condemned for our impudence."84John Binns reported that Scottishlawyer Thomas Muir was sentenced to fourteenyears' transportation to Botany Bay fordaring to lend Tom Paine's Rightsof Man to his hairdresser.85 In QuentinDurward, Walter Scott exhibited Louis XI witha "wilytonsor" dou- bling as a politicaladviser. Not the typeto cringebefore royalty,the man glared at Louis "withan expressionof sarcasticcontempt, which he scarce attemptedto

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This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions disguise."86Scott was doggedlyfaithful, as ever,to the historicalrecord: Olivier le Daim in factrose under Louis XI frombarber to minister;the parlementwould later duly reward his audacious success by executinghim. Anyway,here history would repeat itself,first as farce,then as tragedy:Lord Althorp,Chancellor of the Exchequer,JohnBull reported"in serioussober sadness,""actually writes letters- confidentialletters-to a barberat Northampton,one SHARP-whichconfidential lettersare read as publiclyin Northamptonas the confidentialcommunications of a barber's shop usually are." Worse,moaned the paper, Althorp had written, "PRAY, WATCH MY CONDUCT, AND LET ME KNOW WHEN I AM WRONG."87 ForJohn Bull, this isn'ta commendable contactbetween elected officialand citizen. It's a grotesquetravesty, with Althorp stupidly abasing himself-and threateningsocial order-by stooping to conversationon equal terms,if not to subservientplead- ing, witha lowlybarber who ought to be a submissivesubject. Not for subjectsto tell ministerswhen theyare wrong; at most,the subjectscan report a perceived grievance;but it mustremain up to the ministerto decide what,if anything, to do about it. I want to suggest again that we shouldn'trestrict our understandingof de- mocracy to the soporifictechnical requirementsof the franchise,the various schedules of the ReformBill, the mathematicalintricacies of votingschemes, and other legal rules, importantthough theyare. The social and cultural transfor- mations enabling a barber to advise a minister(not to mention the continuities making that noteworthy,even abhorrent)are everybit as crucial. At stake here are whatwe mightcall normsof standingand credibility:Who counts as a partic- ipant in public dialogue? Or, more generally,whom ought we listento-and be- lieve-and why?Equality here is a matterof epistemicauthority. Take Brooke Boothby's1792 condemnationof Paine's Rightsof Man, "writtenwith the logic of shoemakers and the metaphysicsof barbers."88The sneer is supposed to be ut- terlydevastating, to dramatize not just Paine's idiocies but his obvious lack of standing and credibility.Or again: disgusted by Anna Barbauld's failureatoap- preciate Sir Philip Sidney,Robert Southeysputtered: "The remarkof Mrs. Bar- bauld upon the works of such a man can be compared to nothingbut the blas- phemies of a Jew dealer in old clothes,or the criticismsof a Frenchbarber upon Shakspeare."89Precisely because such charactersare contemptible,we need not listento what theyhave to say. Returning the compliment,Thomas Love Peacock has the virtuous Mr. Forresterreprove Mr. Feathernest(Southey, so dubbed for the money he pock- eted as poet laureate) by urging the meritsof the life of a barber. Feathernestis appalled: "A barber,Sir!-a man of genius turn barber!" But Forresteris ada- mant: "The poorest barber in the poorest borough in England, who will not sell his vote, is a much more honourable characterin the estimateof moral compar- ison than the most self-satisfieddealer in courtlypoetry, whose well-paid eulo- giums of licentiousnessand corruptionwere ever re-echoed by the 'most sweet

36 REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions voices' of hirelinggazetteers and pensioned reviewers."90Typically the poorest barber wouldn'thave had the vote anyway;still, if the world of periodical reviews was as deeply corruptas Forresterclaims (and many agreed withhim), the bar- ber's viewswere more trustworthy. Anyway,all thatpolitical talk drove some hairdressersinto action, into radical action at that: a development easily enlisted as evidence that political talk was everybit as intoxicatingfor the lower orders as conservativesfeared. The listsof leading radicals of the day are peppered liberallywith their names; but so, too, are the listsof spies employed by the Home Office;here again hairdressersare alarminglyunpredictable shapeshifters. One of those ubiquitous spies attending meetingsof the London CorrespondingSociety (LCS) and other radical groups told the governmentin 1794 thatone Stiff,a hairdresser,claimed to be capable of teaching a "manual and platoon exercise" for revolutionaryarmed clubs.9' Another hairdresser,George Widdison, testifiedat the trial of Thomas Hardy thathe made pikes for the ConstitutionalSociety of Sheffield.92Edward Gosling

testifiedat the same trial,turning out to be notjust a hairdresserbut also a Spy.93 John Lovett,a London hairdresser,chaired the infamousChalk Farm meetingof 14 April 1794.94Robert Robinson, a social climberwho began as a hairdresser's apprentice and finisheda Baptist minister,founded the Cambridge Society for ConstitutionalInformation.95 Robert Lodge, part-timehairdresser, was impli- cated in membershipin the United Britons.96E.J. Blandford, a Spencean revo- lutionary,was anotherpart-time hairdresser.97 One Lomax, a Manchesterbarber, was taken into custodyafter the insurrectionaryblanket march of 1817, but was immediatelyreleased: journalistand Jacobinsympathizer Archibald Prentice was sure thathe too was a spy.98

Coda: The Hairdresser Speaks

What did hairdressersthemselves have to say? I want to close by ex- aminingone pamphlet. In literaryterms, it's abrupt and disjointed,moving hap- hazardlyfrom one themeto another,with no sustainedfocus or momentum;and one would need finereyesight than I have to detect any genuine working-class eloquence in its pages. It's by the radical hairdresserwe've already encountered, John Lovett. Publishing in 1793 in London, Lovett astutelyadds "H.D." to his name on the titlepage. This semiprivatejoke is a wayof thumbinghis nose at the conventionsthat led scholarsto festoontheir title pages withall theirdegrees, a move democrats saw as an illicitbid for authority:arguments, they often held, had to stand on theirown merits,not on the statusof the speaker. Readers might defer to John Lovett, H.D., in ignorance that his apparent degree was that of hairdresser.They'd do betterto learn to ignore all those obscure abbreviations. Lovettis a bitingprophet of enlightenmentand he offersa searingjeremiad:

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This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The peoplehave been long in ignorance,but that is beginningto disappear ... learn- ingis becomemore general than in formertimes, and thepeople assemble more into large towns,and byconversation diffuse knowledge through each other:by this means the rich, ifthey do notmend their manners, morals, and behaviourtowards mankind, will be looked on at some futureperiod with as muchcontempt as theynow look on thosein a lower sphereof life.99

Lovett reportsthat he had to leave the countryside,much as he loved farming, because, like many others,he was becoming desperatelypoor.'00 Heading to the big city,he became a hairdresser.(An economistwould note thatthe occupation has low entrycosts.) And, ironically,hairdressing itself invites his condemnation: Whatcan be saidin favourof hair-dressing? which is one ofthe most destructive fash- ionsthat ever was invented. By it a vastnumber of peopleare rendereduseless to society, a greatdeal ofthe necessaries of life are destroyed,and cloathesin abundance. There is manypoor menthat absolutely rob their families of thesupports of nature throughthis mistaken and ridiculouspride. They will go and paysixpence to havetheir head filledwith flour and lard,to makeit ten times more uncomfortable than it would be combedthrough like a farmer's,when at thesame time their children are at homecrying forbread. The utilityof hair-dressing is completely done away: it was invented to shewa distinc- tionin rank,and was in use onlyby the higherorders of people,but now it is so far degenerated,that by taking a walkin thePark, you would not be enabledto distinguish theapprentice boy from his grace.'0'

No dignityin hairdressinghere: the point of the enterpriseis just to make per- niciousstatus distinctions, and thanksto thoseapprentices, like the beardless ones noticed by the Times,the currencyof hair has become counterfeitanyway. So hairdresserslabor in vain towarda bad end. Perhaps there was no dignityfor Lovett,either, whose life affordsone last ironictwist. We have reason to believe thathe, too, was a governmentspy, lurking on the shadowypayroll of the Home Officeunder Dundas's administration.(It's temptingto surmise that Dundas himselfknew of Lovett,even that he remem- bered him when confrontingthat straightedgerazor in Edinburgh; but this is probablyhoping for too much.) Though he was arrested along withother LCS leaders afterthe Chalk Farm meeting,unlike them he wasn'tindicted. He quickly disappeared, apparentlymoving to New York withenough money firstto set up shop as a grocerand thento purchase twohotels.'02 Undignified, even inglorious: but another case of successfulsocial climbing,more testimonyto the corrosive power of equality,courtesy of the Home Office.

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This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Notes

Thanks to many friendsfor not quite willinglynot quite suspending disbelief. 1. Sholto and Reuben Percy,London: or Interesting Memorials of Its Rise, Progress & Present State(London, 1824), 1:353. 2. Susan Ferrier,The Inheritance[1824], in The Worksof Susan Ferrier(London, 1929), 2:154. 3. Walter Scott, The Antiquary[1816], in WaverleyNovels, 48 vols. (Edinburgh, 1829), 5:147; for the setting,5:i; note too 6:111-14 forbantering about Caxon's stupidity. A caxonis a kind of wig. 4. Blackwood'sEdinburgh Magazine 34 (October 1823): 672-73. 5. TheBarber of Seville,or theUseless Precaution; a Comedyin FourActs (London, 1776); Thomas Holcroft,The Folliesof a Day (London, 1811); John Fawcett,The Barberof Seville:A ComicOpera, in TwoActs; as Performedat theTheatre Royal, Covent Garden (Lon- don, 1818); Henry R. Bishop, TheMarriage of Figaro, 2d ed. (London, 1823). 6. Horace Walpole, letterof 1766, ParisJournals, in The YaleEdition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence,ed. W. S. Lewis (New Haven, Conn., 1937-83), 7:357; Dorothy Wordsworth,30 September 1820,Journalsof Dorothy Wordsworth, ed. E. de Selincourt (New York, 1941), 2:328. 7. CharlotteSmith, The Old ManorHouse [1793], ed. Anne Henry Ehrenpreis (Oxford, 1989), 142. 8. Richard Sheridan, A Tripto Scarborough[1781], 1.2, in TheDramatic Works of Richard BrinsleySheridan, ed. Cecil Price (Oxford, 1973), 2:577. 9. 35 Geo. ILL, c. 49. For the debate on the tax, see especially ParliamentaryRegister 41:68-72 (23 March 1795), 41:155-56 (30 March 1795, thirdreading and passage of the bill). 10. George Rose to William Wilberforce,ca. 1802, PrivatePapers of WilliamWilberforce, ed. A. M. Wilberforce(London, 1897), 87-88. 11. Note "Lament for the Loss of Lord B-th-st's Tail," in The PoeticalWorks of Thomas Moore,ed. A. D. Godley (London, 1915), 607. Compare the storyof Naples in 1799, ThePenny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 1 (25 August 1832): 206-7. 12. Fanny Burney, 13 August 1786, Diary & Lettersof Madame D'Arblay,ed. Charlotte Barrett(London, 1904), 2:457-58. 13. Charles Knight,Passages of a WorkingLife During Half a Century(London, 1864-65), 1:49. 14. MaryFrampton, journal entryof 1791, TheJournalof Mary Framptonfrom the Year 1779 Untilthe Year 1846, ed. Harriot Georgiana Mundy (London, 1885), 36. 15. James Stewart,Plocacosmos: or theWhole Art of Hair Dressing(London, 1782), 242. 16. BristolJobNott (5 April 1832): 68; see too Frida Knight,University Rebel: The Lifeof WilliamFrend, 1757-1841 (London, 1971), 3 1; Thomas Erskine,"The Barber: Par- ody upon Gray'sCelebrated Ode of 'The Bard,"' in ThePoetical Register and Repository ofFugitive Poetry for 1810-1811 (London, 1814), 327-3 1. Of the historiesof hair style I've consulted, the best is Richard Corson, Fashionsin Hair: TheFirst Five Thousand Years(London, 1965). 17. Charles Dibdin, "Miss Muz, the Milliner,and Bob, the Barber,"in The UniversalSong- ster;or, Museum of Mirth (London, 1825-26), 2:229-30.

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This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 18. WilliamEwart Gladstone,25 April 1832, TheGladstone Diaries, ed. M. R. D. Foot and H. C. G. Matthew(Oxford, 1968-90), 1:482. 19. JohnBull 9 (11 October 1829): 322. 20. The CorrespondenceofJeremy Bentham, ed. TimothyL. S. Sprigge et al. (London and Oxford, 1968-), 3:604-5. 21. Horace Walpole to Earl of Strafford,8 September 1769, Walpole'sCorrespondence, 35:336. 22. Earl of Morningtonto W. W. Grenville,27 September 1790, in Historical Manu- scriptsCommission, Report on theManuscripts ofJ. B. Fortescue,Esq., Preservedat Drop- more(London, 1892-1927), 1:608. 23. Joseph Farington, 12 September 1802, The Diary ofJoseph Farington, ed. Kenneth Garlicket al. (New Haven, Conn., 1978), 5:1849. 24. John Thomas Smith,Ancient Topography of London (London, 1815), 38. Compare the descriptionof Chinese barbers, essentiallyflying barbers who do their work right in the street,in ThePenny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of UsefulKnowledge 3 (3 May 1834): 172. 25. WilliamCobbett to John Wright,August 1805, in Lewis Melville,The Life and Letters ofWilliam Cobbett in England & America(London, 1913), 1:242. 26. Samuel and Sarah Adams, The CompleteServant, Being a PracticalGuide to thePeculiar Dutiesand Businessof All Descriptionsof Servants(London, 1825), 5-7 has rostersof servantsfor even lavishestates; none includesa hairdresser.But various recipes they offer(162-64, 168, 170-71, 247) make it clear thatservants are tendingto hair,and theyattribute some of the responsibilitiesinvolved to the valet (362-65). 27. William Combe, The SecondTour of DoctorSyntax, in Searchof Consolation(London, 1820), 46, 128; William Combe, The ThirdTour of Doctor Syntax, in Searchof a Wife (London, 1821), 123, 253. 28. Byron'sBulldog: TheLetters of John Cam Hobhouseto Lord Byron, ed. Peter W. Graham (Columbus, Ohio, 1984), 149 n. 2. 29. Memoirsof Richard Cumberland: Written by Himself (London, 1807), 2:28. 30. Smith,Topography, 38, mentions(and so findsnoteworthy) three women hairdressers. 31. John Bennett,Letters to a YoungLady, on a Varietyof Useful and InterestingSubjects (War- rington,Eng., 1789), 1:240 (and note 1:241-42). 32. Mary Hays, Appealto theMen ofGreat Britain in Behalfof Women(1798; reprint,New York, 1974), 200. 33. Pierce Egan, Grose'sClassical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, Revised and Corrected(Lon- don, 1823), s.v. "barber'schair," "barber's sign." 34. Peter Pindar,The Lousiad [1785-95], in John Wolcot,The Worksof Peter Pindar, Esq., 4 vols. (London, 1797-1806), vols. 1 and 3; the quotation is at 1:171. See too Catalogue ofPrints and Drawingsin theBritish Museum ... Personaland PoliticalSatires, nos. 16180, 16513. 35. MorningPost, 4 July 1789, quoted in John Ashton,Old Times:A Pictureof Social Life at theEnd ofthe Eighteenth Century (London, 1885), 45. 36. Lady Charlotte Bury, 15 December 1815, DiaryIllustrative of theTimes of Georgethe Fourth(London, 1838-39), 3:118-19. 37. Mary Russell Mitford,Our Village,5 vols. (London, 1824-1832), 3:164-65. 38. TheWorld, 25 July1789, quoted in FolarinShyllon, Black People in Britain,1555-1833 (London, 1977), 96; Smith,Topography, 38. 39. Edmund Burke, Reflectionson theRevolution in France[1790], in The Worksof the Right HonourableEdmund Burke, 9th ed. (Boston, 1889), 3:296.

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This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 40. For a useful treatmentof the French debate, see William H. Sewell, Jr.,Work and Revolutionin France:The Language ofLabor from the Old Regimeto 1848 (Cambridge, 1980), 23-24, 68, 223-42. 41. HarrietArbuthnot, 24 March 1822, 3 April 1827, TheJournalof Mrs. Arbuthnot, 1820- 1832, ed. Francis Bamford and the Duke of Wellington(London, 1950), 1:153-54, 2:101-2; note too Charles Arbuthnotto Lord Liverpool, ca. 7 October 1823, in The Correspondenceof CharlesArbuthnot, Camden Third Series, ed. A. Aspinall (London, 1941), 54-55. For a similaruse of "washerwoman"as an epithet,Benjamin Disraeli to Ralph Disraeli, 17? September 1830, in Benjamin Disraeli,Letters: 1815-1834, ed. J.A. W. Gunn et al. (Toronto, 1982), 162. 42. James Lawrence, On theNobility of theBritish Gentry, or thePolitical Ranks and Dig- nitiesof theBritish Empire, Compared with Those on the Continent,in The Pamphleteer 23 (1824): 159-205, esp. 200. Lawrence reports "a similar abuse in Germany, that every barber there receives his lettersaddressed to him, to the noble-born" (202). 43. Pierce Egan, Real Lifein London(London, 1824), 2:404 n. 44. WilliamWordsworth to Bishop of Llandaff,ca. 1793, TheProse Works of William Words- worth,ed. W.J.B. Owen and Jane WorthingtonSmyser (Oxford, 1974), 1:45. 45. Capel Lofft,Remarks on theLetter of the Rt. Hon. EdmundBurke, Concerning the Revolution in France,and on theProceedings in CertainSocieties in London,Relative to That Event (London, 1790), 35-36. 46. Charles Pigott,A PoliticalDictionary: Explaining the True Meaning of Words(London, 1795), 67. 47. Richard Cumberland, TheBox-Lobby Challenge, act 1 (London, 1794); the play is re- printedin ThePlays of Richard Cumberland, ed. Roberta F. S. Borkat (New York, 1982), 4:8-9. 48. Ibid., act 1, 9. 49. Ibid., act 1, 11. 50. Scott,Antiquary, Waverley Novels, 6:203. 51. Elizabeth Hamilton,Memoirs of Modern Philosophers (1800; reprint,New York, 1974), 1:207-14. 52. Burney,3 September 1788, Diary,1: 145-46. 53. A Friend to the People, A Reviewof theConstitution of Great Britain (London, 1791), 22-23. 54. Memoirsof Henry Hunt, Esq. Writtenby Himself, In His MajestysJail at Ilchester(London, 1820-22), 3:238. 55. Blackwood'sEdinburgh Magazine 14 (November 1823): 590-94. So too "The Barber" of the popular song is a hopeless failureat hisjob: UniversalSongster, 1:349. But for an account of London workersas fiercelyindependent, emphasizing the role of law and honor,see ModernLondon; Being the History and PresentState of the British Metropolis (London, 1804), 135-36. 56. Burke, Reflectionson theRevolution in France,445. 57. Blackwood'sEdinburgh Magazine 20 (July 1826): 42. 58. JohnBull 7 (5 November 1827): 350. 59. JohnBull 8 (23 March 1828): 94; italicshere are added by the newspaper to single out passages for particularscorn. For more examples of pretentiousadvertising by hairdressers,see JohnBull 8 (13 July1828): 223; Egan, Real Life,1:79 n; formockery of similarscenes fromFrance, see Isaac D'Israeli, DomesticAnecdotes of the French Na- tion,during the Last ThirtyYears (London, 1794), 273-74. 60. Age no. 29 (27 November 1825): 232.

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This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 61. Benjamin Haydon, 21 September 1820, TheDiary of Benjamin Robert Haydon, ed. Wil- lard Bissell Pope (Cambridge,Mass., 1960-63), 2:282. 62. Richard Graves, TheSpiritual Quixote; or, the Summer's Ramble of Mr. GeoffryWildgoose, 2d ed. (London, 1774), 1:122. 63. The Worksof Charlesand MaryLamb, ed. E.V. Lucas (New York, 1913), 1:202 n.1 [1818]. For instantlyrecognizable banter, sometimes on politics,see TheBarber's Chair [1846] in Douglas Jerrold,The Barber's Chair, and TheHedgehog Letters, ed. Blanchard Jerrold(London, 1874). 64. Scott,Fortunes of Nigel [1822], WaverleyNovels, 27: 178. 65. RobertBage, Hermsprong;or, Man As He Is Not,2d ed. (London, 1799), 1:11. Note too how the malicious gossip of a "prattlinghairdresser" backfires in Maria Edgeworth's "Manoeuvring"[1809], in her Talesand Novels(London, 1848), 5:80. 66. Walpole to Horace Mann, 13 July1773, Walpole'sCorrespondence, 23:499. 67. Cowper to Rev.John Newton,26 January 1783, The Worksof William Cowper ... with a Lifeof the Author, by the Editor, Robert Southey (London, 1836-37), 15:124. 68. John Torrington,7 May 1794, The TorringtonDiaries: Containingthe Tours through En- gland and Walesof the Hon. JohnByng (Later Fifth Viscount Torrington) between the Years 1781 and 1794, ed. C. BruynAndrews (London, 1934-38), 4:13. 69. Jurgen Habermas, The StructuralTransformation ofthe Public Sphere:An Inquiryinto a Categoryof Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger with FrederickLawrence (Cam- bridge,Mass., 1989). 70. LiverpoolGeneral Advertiser, 9 June 1791, quoted in Frank O'Gorman, Voters,Patrons, and Parties:The Unreformed Electoral System of Hanoverian England, 1734-1832 (Oxford, 1989), 286; note too Blackwood'sEdinburgh Magazine 24 (November 1828): 615. But compare: "Abouteighty years back, when the newspaperswere onlya pennya-piece, theywere taken in by the Barbers for theircustomers to read during theirwaiting time" (Smith,Topography, 38); I can't explain why Smith took this custom to be ob- solete, but I suspect practiceswere changing (what else is new?) and there was re- gional variation.Compare Mitford,Our Village,1:282 ("the shoemaker'sin a country village is now what . .. the barber's used to be, the resortof all the male newsmon- gers") with EncyclopediaBrittanica, 3d ed. (Edinburgh, 1797), 3:6 s.v. "barber" ("a newspaper,with which at thisday thosewho waitfor their turn at the barber'samuse themselves"). 71. Catalogueof Prints ... Satires,no. 9483. 72. J. M. L., "The Barber,the Preacher,and the : Founded on Fact,"Poetical Mag- azine 1 (August 1809): 189-91. 73. JohnBull 6 (29 October 1826): 351. 74. James Lackington,Memoirs of the First Forty-Five Years of the Life ofJames Lackington, new ed. (London, 1792), 259-60. 75. John Bowles, A DispassionateInquiry into the Best Means of NationalSafety (London, 1806), 114-15. 76. The etchingis reproduced in John Clubbe, VictorianForerunner: The LaterCareer of ThomasHood (Durham, N.C., 1968), facing 18. 77. Haydon, 30 October 1831, Diaryof... Haydon,3:573. The barber'slanguage is evi- dence thatPaine's argumentsfrom the 1790s stilllingered in popular culture. 78. Edmund Burke, Letterto a Memberof theNational Assembly [1791], in Burke, Works, 4:4-5, silentlycorrecting "ever" for"never." 79. Joseph Gerrald,A Conventionthe Only Means ofSaving Usfrom Ruin (London, 1793), 2-3.

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This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:35:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 80. Maurice Margarot in The Trialof Maurice Margarot, Before the High Courtof Justiciary, at Edinburgh,On the13th and 14thofJanuary, 1794, on an IndictmentforSeditious Prac- tices,rep. Mr. Ramsey (New York, 1794), 20; note Pigott,Dictionary, 9, 138; contrast William Cobbett in his Gazette[January 1800], in Porcupine'sWorks (London, 1801), 11:140. 81. Memoirsof Hildebrand Freeman, Esq. ora Sketchof "The Rights of Man" (London, 1792), 35. 82. Charles Marsh, The Clubsof London (London, 1828), 1:292-95. I found no account of thisstory in Holden Furber,Henry Dundas: FirstViscount Melville, 1742-1811 (Lon- don, 1931) or Michael Fry,The Dundas Despotism(Edinburgh, 1992). 83. Fraser's6 (December 1832): 715. 84. Quoted in E. P. Thompson, The Making of theEnglish WorkingClass (New York, 1966), 465. 85. Recollectionsof theLife ofJohn Binns: Twenty-nineYears in Europe and Fifty-threein the UnitedStates (Philadelphia, 1854), 47; for a more complete account of Muir's trial, see An Accountof the Trial of Thomas Muir ... beforethe High CourtofJusticiary, at Edin- burgh,on the30th and 31stdays of August, 1 793,for Sedition, ed. James Robertson(Edin- burgh, 1793). 86. Scott,Quentin Durward [1823], WaverleyNovels, 31:227, 240. 87. JohnBull 12 (9 September 1832): 292; see tooJohnBull 12 (30 December 1832): 421. 88. Sir Brooke Boothby,Observations on theAppealfrom the New to the Old Whigs,and on Mr Paine'sRights of Man (London, 1792), 98. 89. Southey to Miss Barker, 26 January 1805, Selectionsfrom the Letters of Robert Southey, &c. &c. &c., ed. John Wood Warter(London, 1856), 1:314-15. 90. Thomas Peacock, Melincourt[1817], in The Worksof ThomasLove Peacock,Halliford Edition,ed. H. F. B. Brett-Smithand C. E. Jones (London, 1924-34), 2:188, 189. 91. Mary Thale, ed., Selectionsfrom the Papers of theLondon Corresponding Society, 1792- 1 799 (Cambridge, 1983), 149. 92. TheTrial of Thomas Hardyfor High Treason,rep. J. Gurney(London, 1794-95), 2:249- 50; formore of George Widdison'stestimony, see 1:325-38, 2:245-62. 93. Trialof Hardy, 2:352-70. 94. AlbertGoodwin, TheFriends of Liberty: The English Democratic Movement in theAge ofthe FrenchRevolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), 328. For the proceedings fromthat LCS meeting,The First Report of the Committee ofSecrecy of the House ofCommons, on thePapers Belongingto the Society for Constitutional Information, and theLondon Corresponding Society, Seizedby Order of Government, and Presentedto theHouse byMr. SecretaryDundas, on the 12thand 13thof May 1794 (London, 1794), 28-32; Thale, Selectionsfrom the Papers, 133-40. 95. Nicholas Roe, Wordsworthand Coleridge:The Radical Years(Oxford, 1988), 88-89. 96. Roger Wells,Insurrection: The British Experience, 1795-1803 (Gloucester,1983), 233. 97. David Worrall,Radical Culture:Discourse, Resistance, and Surveillance,1790-1820 (New York, 1992), 146-63. 98. ArchibaldPrentice, Historic Sketches and PersonalRecollections of Manchester: Intended to Illustratethe Progress of Public Opinion from 1792 to1832 (London, 1851), 97. 99. John Lovett,The Citizen of the World (London, 1793), 15-16; and note 34-35. 100. Ibid., 5. 101. Ibid., 29-30. 102. BiographicalDictionary of Modern British Radicals, ed. Joseph O. Baylen and NorbertJ. Gossman (Sussex, 1979-88), 1:303-4.

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