Even a Colonial Governor about half
a century ago was not supposed to wear a moustache. Dr Hedderwick, in
his "Backward Glances" (Edinburgh, 1891), tells us that on a certain
Sunday he was rambling with his friend, Mr Charles Maclaren, the
well-known editor of the _Scotsman_, to Loch Long, when he saw some
carriages conveying a number of ladies and gentlemen to church. "Sitting
obliquely on an Irish jaunting-car," says the doctor, "was a portly
personage with a dark heavy fringe on his upper lip, and otherwise
distinguished appearance. I suggested that it might be Sir Henry
Pottinger, the celebrated diplomatist and Colonial Governor. We knew he
had returned to England, and I had heard he was visiting in Scotland on
the banks of Loch Long. 'No, no,' said Mr Maclaren, 'it's quite
impossible it can be he. A civilian of great intelligence and sense
would never wear a moustache.'" We may gather from the foregoing the
prejudice of the period against facial adornments.
From about 1855 to some years afterwards we resided at the small town of
Alfreton, Derbyshire, where, if by chance the boys saw a man with a
moustache, with one accord they commenced calling after him, "Jew, Jew,
Jew," or "Frenchy, Frenchy, Frenchy," and, if that did not make any
impression, they commenced stoning the offender against the unwritten
laws of the land.
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