Show A Reason for the Whiskers Order In obedience to a general order recently issued by their superintendent the brakemen brake-men and baggagemasters of the Philadelphia Philadel-phia Reading railway now report for duty smooth shaven as priests Many of the men had beautiful beards and fierce mustaches with which they were wont to play sad havoc with the hearts of susceptible suscepti-ble females along the line while incidentally incident-ally giving the cinderladen wind a picnic It is said that one brakeman caught a sufficient quantity of carbon in his whiskers whis-kers to run his parlor stove in ordinary weather When his wife wanted a scuttle of coal he simply took a coarse comb and raked it out A batjgasemaster had such a killing mustache that he succeeded in accumulating seven wives and a penitentiary term of ten years These are only samples of the many advantages a whiskered baggageman or brakeman has over one bereft of hirsute adornment It is thereforernotto be wondered at that they protested when their superintendent commanded them to lay the knife at the roots of their GalwaysandBurnsides their imperials andsoup strainers Under new rule a baggageman or brakeman is not only deprived of the power of mashing but he is also compelled to give to the world that trustworthy index to the true character afforded by the features Amost villainous phiz may be made to appear gentle and honest by a proper disposition of whiskers A face that clean shaven every one would pronounce the face of a coward may have a fertile upper lip and grow a warlike moustache is it strange that those railrtaders complained l Under the new order of things when the brakeman opens his cavernous mouth to yell Mxlon s ightrrape 1 he has not mustache to deceive de-ceive and not a girl on the train will cuddle up toward the window and mutely invite him to be sociable when he swaggers through the train His villainous mug will give him dead away And so with the bag gageman The razor having torn away the masks the lineaments of his countenance will tell of the thousands of trunks he has cruelly mutilated or murdered Of course the good brakeman and conscientious con-scientious baggageman wont complain but they are so few that nobody will know the difference The superintendent of the Reading has done the public a great service ser-vice and his example may be imitated Minneapolis Tribune |