The Morning News

SENATORIAL HAIR.

Distinguished Legislators Who Boast of Hirsute Adornment.

From the New York World.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10.—"In his hair there is strength." This was the thought of Delilah when she pruned Samson's locks. The bald heads of the Senate are many, but the men of much hair are as brainy as they.

Senator Blair rode last week to the capitol with a red-headed boy, and he said, as he sat in the street car; "Why, your hair is red! But have hope; it may become darker. When I was a boy they called me 'Reddy,' and, indeed, my hair was as florid as yours."

Blair's hair is now a crushed strawberry, with a line of white here and there running through it. It is thick, long and glossy.

John C. Spooner combs his hair with a saw. It is brown and long and each identical hair stands out by itself, so that his head looks like a porcupine ready for battle. He is a singed cat, however, and he runs more to brains than to beauty.

We have half a dozen Pompadour Senators, and among these are Teller, Beck and Voorhees. These men comb their hair without parting, and they make their thatch stand out from the scalp. Cullom's hair is a long, sable silver, and it is combed much like that of John C. Calhoun. It rises up from a high, dark forehead, and lies as though combed by a hair-dresser. The bees of political ambition are buzzing about it, and the Presidential hornet clings close to his scalp.

Beck has beautiful hair. It is short and curly, and it forms many ripples on the top of his massive Scotch head. It was once jet black, and the gray now begins to creep around the edges, but it is as glossy as though it were polished and oiled, and the head beneath it is packed full of figures. Beck thinks while he is sleeping, and it is said that some of his bills he prepares in his dreams. He has gone to bed at night, as a boy, thinking of an abstruse mathematical problem, and awakened to find that his mind had solved it during the night. He wears chin whiskers and his eye snaps with vigor.

Voorhees' hair is shorter than Cullom's, and it is a cross between a red and a brown. It might be called a mahogany shade, and that is the fashionable color this season. Voorhees' head is one of the biggest in the Senate, and it almost vies with that of the man here in Washington who has sold his head to a museum for $250. He has used up the proceeds, and he is perhaps the only instance in history of a man who has eaten his head.

It is easy to see how the Presidential bee roughs up the hair of Sherman and Allison. A lock of black silver falls over Sherman's high forehead, and Allison's iron-gray thatch lies as though his scalp was covered with cowlicks. Manderson has very nice hair, and it is as fine as spun silk. He combs it well up from the forehead, and his parting is decidedly plain. Plumb's hair is as brown as the dried corn-silk of Kansas, and it is almost as long. Senator George, of Mississippi, has also brown hair, and he seems to comb it only on Sundays. Turpie's thatch is iron-gray and is plastered flat to a little round head.

Among the black heads of the Senate are the millionaire Stanford, the courtly John Daniel (who looks like Edwin Booth) and Senator Sabin, who represents Minnesota. Sabin's hair is jet-black and it shines like greased ebony. He keeps it well combed, and his clean scalp shines through it at the part. Stanford wears his hair pompadour, and his forehead is high. Chandler's head is the smallest in the Senate. He wears a No. 6 hat, and his thatch is like that of a badger, decidedly gray. Paddock is white haired, and Dawes has hair of silver. George Vest's locks are straw-colored and Ingalls well-trimmed head is covered with iron-gray hair. His hair is thick and it is as long as the hairs of a tooth-brush. He keeps it well combed and he has it cut twice every month.

Ingalls has a human scalp-book in his library. It is an Indian trophy. It hangs by his desk as he plans his bitterest speeches, and at times he wishes, no doubt, that he could use the scalp-knife as well as his tongue. It makes one's flesh creep to hear Ingalls describe how the Indian scalps his fallen foe. His eyes flash as he talks, and, in tones dramatic, tells how the savage grasps the lock in one hand and swings the knife in a circle of light about the head of his victim. He then, with a gesture, shows how, bracing himself with his feet on the fallen man's shoulders, the Indian jerks off the scalp, and it cracks like a pistol, the report being produced by the suction like the pulling of a wet piece of leather from a flat stone.

FRANK G. CARPENTER.