June 18, 2012

Disagreeable Mistake

One day last week, a gentleman called at a barber's shop, in a town in the West Riding, and requested to have the use of shaving apparatus, stating that he always preferred shaving himself, even in a barber's shop, as they (the barbers) were so apt to daub the lather across the mouth, whereby he was in danger of taking a disease from some person labouring under an infectious disorder, who had previously been lathered with the same brush.  The knight of the razor soon furnished his customer with the necessary appendages, and when the operation was near being completed, the gentleman wishing to compliment the barber, remarked that he never shaved himself so easily before, the brush was strong and good, and the razor, (which he should like to purchase,) was excellent ; to which the barber replied, "I know they are both good ones, for I have just returned from the Dispensary, where I have been shaving two patients with them, who are in the last stage of typhus fever."  The gentleman hearing this, swooned away into a state of insensibility.  (Leeds Intelligencer, November 17th, 1838)

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