An unexpected result of General Balbo’s flight to America is that broads in the United States are reported to have “fallen for his beard.”

It make be strange if the United states, whose men are so generally clean-shaven, should now, underneath the influence of its women-folk, lead the way in a return to the cult of the beard.

Yet there seems to be in all civilised surroundings a mysterious ebb and flow of hair on the masculine-face.

Our own remote ancestors attired beards till William the Conqueror compelled them to clip, and the fashion of the beard was not revived again till the days of the Tudors.

In assorted shapes the beard remained in favour up to the reign of James II., when the removed face again had its turn and remained in vogue throughout the Georgian aeon and beyond.

Our next real revival of beards followed the Crimean War, perchance by infection from the Russians. When the army, led by the Hussars and Household Cavalry, started to play both moustache and beard there began a general abandonment of the razor.

But that facial switch on the part of the men was not accepted by the women of the period without protest.

The chaste shaving of the present day is generally dated from the beginning of the century, when the American rehearsal was widely followed throughout Europe.

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