In the earlier years of the moustache movement, clerks might be
dismissed for not being clean shaven. Contractors, as a rule, we should
regard as being the least particular of any class of employers about
the personal appearance of their servants. Yet we have it on reliable
authority that a trusted superintendent of one of the great contractors
served the firm in Russia, and there cultivated the beard and moustache.
On his return to England he displayed no disposition to resume the use
of the razor. The head contractor grew alarmed at the terrible example
he was setting those engaged in the office, and insisted that the
adornment should be cut off, which was done. The poor fellow caught
cold, and in a few days died.
[Illustration: Charles Dickens, born 1812, died 1870.]
An important firm of timber merchants in Hull made it a condition that
any clerks employed by them should be clean shaven. This rule was
strictly enforced until the firm closed its career a few years ago.
Mr Serjeant Robinson, in his interesting and informing volume, "Bench
and Bar Reminiscences" (London, 1889), deals with the legal aspect of
our theme.
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