The Bleeders.-Can any of your readers tell what is the origin of this old superstition? When I was a child living in Portland, Maine, the story was current of the Bleeders, as they were called, and a family by the name of Hartshorn was pointed out as belonging to this race, doomed at some time or other to close their mortal career by a fatal effusion of the contents of the ruby current that coursed along their veins. The head of the Hartshorn family, who was a shoe merchant, was a handsome blonde. We children used to go into his shop under pretext of buying bits of colored morocco to make doll shoes, but in reality to catch a glimpse of a blood-colored mole or wart upon his temple, which contrasted with the prevailing whiteness of the skin. It was said that this was a mark designating a Bleeder. They were supposed to be an ancient race, scattered in all parts of the world. By intermarriages they might be expected to become extinct, but now and then one fair, blue-eyed remnant of the stock made his appearance, bearing the fatal stigma: a bloodfilled wart, or mole.

Later in life I was told that this gentleman actually bled to death from the rupturing of this little aneurism, when he was not in a situation to obtain medical aid. It was said that the wife of Mr. Hartshorn told a friend in confidence that if by any accident anybody or anything ever pressed upon this red mole, it produced in him a sensation of faintness or suffocation!

The story connected with this legend I was at some pains to learn.

It was said that centuries ago, when the world was convulsed with religious persecutions, a certain baron made himself notorious by the cruel zeal he manifested in hunting down heretics. He tracked the flying saints to caves and mountains with relentless ferocity, using bloodhounds for the purpose. Incapable of pity as he was of fear, he gloated over the sufferings he produced. One of his victims was a youth of rare loveliness of person and saintlike piety.

It was an affecting sight, this beautiful creature, amid the flames of the stake, the light from above converting his golden curls into an aureole, he lifting his blue eyes to heaven and singing praises to God in his clear, young voice. At length overcome by the torture, he cried out in a loud voice: "Oh, Lord! avenge the blood of thy saints."

At the same moment the people beheld, as it were, his heart burst in twain, and a little jet of blood darted therefrom, and hit the cruel baron

on the temple; whereat he fell down in a strong fit, from which he did not recover.

The baroness gave birth to a fair child after this event, and it was observed that he bore a red mole on the temple upon the spot where the blood of the dying martyr had fallen upon the baron. Since that period one child after another of their descendants has appeared bearing the fatal mark. These have always been fair, blue-eyed, and most lovely in person; but all die from some hemorrhage which no medical skill is able to assuage, and hence the designation of Bleeders applied to them.

This sounds like some old monkish superstition, which I tell as it was told to me when a child. I have seen dim allusions to something of the kind in my old archæologic reading, but am not able to tell where. Perhaps some of the contributors to NOTES AND QUERIES may be even more familiar than myself with the legend. E. O. S. Patchogue, N. Y.

Long Hair.-Looking over some old New England records, we came across one worthy of making a note of, and that was of an association of the most respectable members, established in New England in 1649, for the extraordinary purpose of destroying the growing evil of long hair. Soon after Governor Winthrop's death, Mr. Endicott, the most rigid of any of the magistrates, being Governor, he joined with the other assistants in an "association against long hair." form and purpose of the association was thus promulgated:

The

"Forasmuch as the wearing of long hair after the manner of ruffians and barbarous Indians has begun to invade New England, contrary to the rule of God's words, which says it is a shame for a man to wear long hair, as also the commendable custom generally of all the godly of our nation until within this two years.

"We, the magistrates who have subscribed this paper (for the showing of our innocency in this behalf), do declare and manifest our dislike and detestation against the wearing of such long hair, as against a thing uncivil and unmanly, whereby men doe deform themselves, and offend sober and modest men, and doe corrupt good manners. We doe therefore earnestly entreat all the elders of thi jurisdiction (as often as they shall see cause) to manifest their zeal against it in their publick administrations, and to take care that the members of their respective churches be not defiled therewith; that so, such as shall prove obstinate

interest to our readers, being a copy of a medical license granted by the General Assembly of Connecticut in 1652: "Thomas Lord, having engaged to this Court to continue his abode in Hartford for the next ensuing year, and to improve his best skill among the inhabitants of the towns upon the river within this jurisdiction, both for the setting of bones and otherwise, as at all times, occasions and necessities may require, this Court doth grant, that he shall be paid by the country the sum of £15. for all the ensuing year; and they

also declare that for every visit or journey that he shall take or make, being sent for to any house in Hartford, 12d. is reasonable; to any house in Windsor, 5s.; to any house in Withersfield, 35.; to any house in Farmington, 6s.; to any house in Mattasebeck or Middletown, 8s. (he having promised that he will require no more); and that he shall be freed, for the time aforesaid, from watching, warding and training, but not from finding arms, according to law."

It is most true that uncongenial marital relations give rise to endless bickerings, and mar the sweetness of the finest tempers; yet these strike a less killing blow to the moral sense than that easy license which leaves men, women and children to follow the bent of their own inclinations. In the former case good may spring out of it, as the greatest of all poets has said:

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

Their simple yea and nay, pleasantly modulated, seemed to penetrate the entire man and woman, and produced a winning simplicity and sweetness. The women were like nuns; and the men, recluse and sober, impressed one with a gentle austerity. I observed the women were not left to perform the more severe duties of the family; but were kindly aided by the brethren, who brought wood and water, and kept the out-door premises scrupulously neat. Some young girls looked quite charming in their lawn caps; but the gown brought the belt up under the arm-pits to the utter confusion of all grace and comeliness. Somehow, despite the material comforts and the careful thrift and spiritual enthusiasm, which really did exist, Shakerdom lacked the geniality of a home. The women seemed out of place. They have visions and dreams, prophecies that quite go beyond the so-called Spiritualists, to give something like zest and stir among them. I observed that they fondled

To remedy the hardships of the family relation, well-designing men have proposed various Communities in which the child is to be exempt from parental oversight, and become a ward of the State, or at least of the presiding regulations of the Community. Of course this process would neutralize parental forecast, and all that tender affection which becomes the bond of a family.

As a searcher after the highest and best truth, it has been our privilege to visit several of these institutions designed to obviate the discomforts which their founders believed inseparable to a household; we went as an observer, never as an acolyte. We passed many and most delightful days with several of the communities known by the name of Shakers. Their simple yea and nay, so expressive of unadulterated truthfulness, commanded admiration as well as respect.

Their religious dance and singing, measured, solemn, became to me a low, earnest wail of the soul seeking for light. They were hospitable, kindly, diligent, orderly and thrifty, as everybody knows. A few children swung upon a gate-little uncouth, unkissed, unwhipped monsters, that seemed less children than tight-made, unfledged Shakers.

Human affections must find expression, and are not easily obliterated. There are no progressive ideas tolerated by the Shaker. The revelations of Ann Lee, or "Mother Ann," as she is called by them, are still authoritative and unquestioned. They go from place to place in their huge covered vans, two sisters comfortably seated in high-backed chairs, and in front two brothers in their broad brims, in better keeping and taste than the scant bonnets of the sisters.

The Shaker rejects marriage, contemns progress, stifles the affections, and hopes to win the favor of heaven by a total negation of the laws of life. His cold, solitary existence has little to recommend it as a substitute for the tenderness, the stir, the responsibilities of the household, with its bickering and sorrows even included.

Next comes the Phalanx, so much lauded by reformers as the grand panacea for all social ills. Here, too, was thrift, but allied to the utmost latitude of opinion. All doctrines were hospitably entertained. Religion of any kind or no religion at all was left to individual freedom. The family relation was accepted or rejected, as best suited believers in the doctrines of Fourier. Every man, woman, and child was expected to earn his way by toil of some kind, and as nearly all were thinkers, it was natural that those able to

contribute in this line with acceptance, escaped most of the drudgery of manual labor, which fell heavily upon those who joined the Community penniless, and were followers rather than leaders in opinion. There was much intellectual stir, as may be supposed-conversation at stated intervals, essays, recitations, music, dancing, and the drama, in which there was no contemptible acting.

Children romped and played and screamed to their hearts' content, for coercion was inconsistent with harmony; and proclivities and affinities were to be respected. But even children must pay their way; and it was comical to see a little one of six or seven years old calling for such articles upon the table as best suited her taste, and pencil in hand gravely setting down the price and adding up the cost.

"How are you going to pay for this ?" I inquired. "Oh, I take care of the castors and spoons, and keep them nice," was the reply; and subsequently I saw her with her neat little apron going about her duty in pretty housewife style.

The men of the Phalanstery were mostly those of high culture, intermixed with disaffected, thoughtful men, sorely perplexed at existing social evils, and much in the state of mind of the poor miner so affectingly described by Dickens, who found it "all a muddle." The women were far inferior to the other sex in point of education and mental questioning, but the mothers far more solicitous for the well-being of the children than the fathers. Pretty women and cultivated women have matters their own way everywhere; it is among the homely, unprepossessing and labo rious that unfavorable surroundings press most heavily, and in such a community as the Phalanx such unfortunates found themselves solitary and neglected, while in the outer world in the family relation they would not fail to find associates adapted to the mental organization of herself and her children, and where they could give and receive social ameni

ties.

Of the children born under these circumstances I can truly say I never saw any so neglected, ill-mannered and uncouth; and more than one such mother expressed to me her regret at the mistake she had made in joining the

institution.

Brook Farm, an educational Community projected by Mr. George Ripley, and sustained by such minds as Horace Greeley, Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller and other transcendentalists, was more ideal, and was an attempt to reconcile the disabilities of manual labor with the requirements of study and high culture. Ladies familiar with French and Latin might be seen scrubbing the floor and washing pots and kettles, Gentlemen learned in Greek and Hebrew and Sanscrit followed the all-accomplished founder, holding the plow and renovating Augean stables. When prosperity was seemingly ready to smile upon the Community an unfortunate fire scattered its members and disappointed the hopes of Mr. Ripley, by consuming his property and leaving him deeply in debt.

Of the Oneida Community and Mormonism it would be unbecoming to speak in an article like this; but they have done their full share in producing the unhappy contempt for the family relation so conspicuous in our time.

I believe that many break away from social relations and

join these Communities from absolute laziness, and willingness to shirk the responsibility and labor of supporting a family.

Because our fathers were stern and unyielding, exacting the utmost submission on the part of children, coupled with the closest religious observance, we have fallen into the opposite fault of over-indulgence, or rather indifference; so that annoyance and trouble be escaped, children may do as they will. Ah! well did the Saviour say that while we sleep the enemy will sow tares. Something may undoubtedly be left to natural or beautiful instincts, but most of us need training, soldierly drill from the first, and then hardly are we kept up to sober, judicious, human requirements. We were taught one of the most beautiful of all the sentiments that lies at the root of all that is graceful and ennobling-reverence. Reverence toward God, reverence for the good and the great, and reverence for character in ourselves and others. That this was no blind, superstitious reverence, the story of the Mayflower, of William Penn, and the culmination of our independence as a people abundantly testifies.

Where is the absence of this quality landing us? Look at the disruption of families, the frequency of divorce, and the prison filled with men who with brains crammed with learning, ostentatious in worldly splendors, honored and respected, were still nothing but felons; without reverence for themselves, the law, or the dictates of humanity.

There is something handsome and becoming in an orderly, well-managed family. It is the only primal, all-enduring fountain-head of the virtues. Women are happier presiding over this little kingdom, an epitome of all law and all government; men more rational, genial and more virtuous; while it is rare indeed that the children from such a household, trained and drilled to all moral responsibilities, go far astray.

No Community in which the family relation is set aside can ever fulfill the designs of Nature, or supply the inherent requirements of a being made for companionship, longing for the tenderest affections, and endowed with an intellect to understand the present and forecast the future, no less by divine intuition than by the light of experience.

Duty, the great law of life, is first and last to a rational being. Not cold and unsympathetic, but conjoined to the gentlest and most unselfish emotions. A man or woman may only be said to be highly cultured, highly developed, fully civilized, when this great law is to them the law of life. And where but in a virtuous household can this most lovely and serene sense be so well cultivated?

Wordsworth in his fine "Ode to Duty" thus apostrophizes this "stern daughter of the voice of God," and with a fine imagination includes the very stars as being held in their appointed orbits by this living, breathing moral element absorbed into the material:

Human Hair.-In every age and country, the hair of woman has been considered an object of beauty; and St. Paul states that long hair is a glory to her. The form of human hair varies from that of a delicate round tube to that of a minute flat ribbon; and it is supplied through the interior with an oil, from which it receives its peculiar color. Round hair is straight and is generally soft, while flat hair is usually crisp or curly. The ancient Greeks and Romans admired yellow or golden hair as a mark of female beauty; but tastes differ in individuals and nations. It cannot be questioned, however, that long, soft hair, whether flowing in spirals or in a waving form, and of whatever colorblack, brown or yellow-is attractive and much admired. Every woman seems to be animated with a natural desire to obtain long hair, and every man seems ambitious to preserve his natural head-gear in all its native strength.

As baldness is generally considered a calamity by both sexes, its cause should be investigated in order to provide a remedy, if this is possible. Baldness is always an unnatural and therefore a diseased condition, though it by no means implies general derangement in all cases. It is believed by some to indicate power and activity of mind, and this may sometimes be the case; as undue mental exertion, by producing a febrile condition of the head affects the hair in the same way as a fever, though not in the same degree. It has been said that baldness, oftener than anything else, indicates the wearing of our modern water-proof and air-proof hats, which keep that portion of the head which they cover constantly heated and unventilated. In corroboration of this remark, it may be observed that the hair is generally thick and healthy below the point covered with the hat, and that women who use no air-tight covering for the head are seldom bald.

But as if to contradict this latter theory of the cause of baldness, however, we are told that of all the honors conferred upon Cæsar, there was none that he accepted more gratefully than the right to wear the civic crown, which served to conceal his baldness. Cæsar certainly never wore one of our modern water-proof, air-tight hats; but he possessed an intensely active mind, which may have caused his baldness. We also read that the prophet Elisha was bald, though he surely never had the misfortune to wear an airtight hat; for he went uncovered. Baldness is certainly due to a disease of the scalp or the roots of the hair; but the cause of this disease is not understood. A recent writer upon this subject in England, states that the ancient Britons in their barbaric state possessed hair long, strong, and sufficiently thick to resist the cut of a sword; and the prevalence of baldness in Englishmen of the present day he attributes in a great measure to increased mental pursuits.

Innumerable are the lotions and compounds now sold under the pretence of keeping the hair from falling out; others under the pretence of producing long, flowing hair; while others again profess to cure baldness and restore the hair to all its youthful vigor. Hogsheads of liquids are sent forth under such pretences; but the Phrenological Journal comes nearer the truth respecting the preservation of the hair than all the professors of hair fertilization. It asserts that vigorous health conduces most to preserve the hair, and says, “When all the vital functions are in good working

order and activity, we find the hair bright, glossy, and pleasant to the touch; but on the contrary, when the body is diseased, the blood impure, or the system feverish, the hair becomes harsh, dry, and coarse, and the head covered with dandruff. With returning health, the hair resumes its original quality and condition."

With advancing years, the hair of the head loses the color of youth and becomes white. Gray hair is simply a mixture of white with hairs of the previous color, brown or black. The change of hue is not caused by disease of the hair itself, but from a want of the oil supplied by the hair follicles. White and gray hair grow as luxuriantly as the best crops of red, brown, or sable. The cause of the natural-colored hair oil becoming deficient is not well known. It is on creditable record that many persons have become suddenly gray from fear and grief. Byron, in his immortal "Prisoner of Chillon," touches on the topic with a master hand:

My hair is gray, but not with years,

Nor grew it white in a single night.

We are acquainted with a gentleman whose hair turned from a jet black to gray within two weeks, during intense mental study and anxiety; but, strange to relate, all those gray hairs afterward departed, and his dark locks returned again. In some families early gray hairs are hereditary. The members of a large family of men and women known to us, have become gray at from twenty to twenty-five years of age, and almost snow-white at thirty-five. Their hair is strong, and they are not subject to early baldness. The hair of the father of this family became white at an early age.

In order to retain a youthful appearance many persons dye their gray hair. Preparations of the nitrate of silver are chiefly used for this purpose. For the bald-headed the only sure receipt to impart a more youthful aspect is the use of an uncomfortable wig. During the early part of the last century wigs were fashionable, and were worn by both old and young folks. When we gaze upon the pictures of the great men of that era, with their splendid flowing locks, it should not be forgotten that they were indebted to the wigmaker for them.

In the days of

Many customs have prevailed among the fair sex respecting the mode of arranging the hair, and they have a right to adopt a variety of changes; but cutting the hair short and wearing it like boys is not commendable. Men have at different times worn the hair long. This has ever been condemned as an unscriptural custom. Charles the First of England, the Cavaliers, who despised close religious forms, wore long hair, while the Puritans cut theirs short, and were called "Roundheads." It has been calculated that by continual cutting and shaving of the hair about seven feet in length is removed from a man in twenty. five years. Some writers assert that the practice of the close cutting and shaving tends to weaken the body. Such writers draw a powerful argument from old Samson, who, when all unshorn, slew several thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass.

All the native people living under the tropics have black hair, while the light-haired races are chiefly found in the cold regions. But this is not an arbitrary distinction, as all