Pitt's powerful
rival, Charles James Fox, in his early manhood, was one of the most
fashionable men in London. Here are a few particulars of his "get up"
about 1770, drawn from the _Monthly Magazine_: "He had his chapeau-bas,
his red-heeled shoes, and his blue hair-powder." Later, when Pitt's tax
was gathered, like other Whigs, he refused to use hair-powder. For more
than a quarter of a century it had been customary for men to wear their
hair long, tied in a pig-tail and powdered. Pitt's measure gave rise to
a number of Crop Clubs. The _Times_ for April 14th, 1795, contains
particulars of one. "A numerous club," says the paragraph, "has been
formed in Lambeth, called the Crop Club, every member of which, on his
entrance, is obliged to have his head docked as close as the Duke of
Bridgewater's old bay coach-horses. This assemblage is instituted for
the purpose of opposing, or rather evading, the tax on powdered heads."
Hair cropping was by no means confined to the humbler ranks of society.
The _Times_ of April 25th, 1795, reports that: "The following noblemen
and gentlemen were at the party with the Duke of Bedford, at Woburn
Abbey, when a general cropping and combing out of hair-powder took
place: Lord W.
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