price of flour, caused through the bad harvests. Using flour for the hair instead of for food was an old grievance among the poor. In the "Art of Dressing the Hair," 1770, the author complains:-- "Their hoarded grain contractors spare, And starve the poor to beautify the hair." Pitt's estimates proved correct, for in the first year the tax produced L210,136. The tax was increased from a guinea to one pound three shillings and sixpence. Pitt's Tory friends gave him loyal support. The Whigs might taunt them by calling them "guinea-pigs," it mattered little, for they were not merely ready to pay the tax for themselves, but to pay patriotic guineas for their servants. A number of persons were exempt from paying the tax, including "the royal family and their servants, the clergy with an income of under L100 per annum, subalterns, non-commissioned officers and privates of the yeomanry and volunteers enrolled during the past year. A father having more than two unmarried daughters might obtain on payment for two, a licence for the remainder." A gentleman took out a licence for his butler, coachman, and footman, etc., and if he changed during the year it stood good for the newly engaged servants. Powder was not wholly set aside by ladies until 1793, when with consideration Queen Charlotte abandoned its use, swayed no doubt by her desire to cheapen, in that time of dearth, the flour of which it was made. It has been said its disuse was attributable to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Angelica Kauffmann, and other painters of their day, but it is much more likely that the artists painted the hair "full and flowing" because they found it so, not that they as a class dictated to their patronesses in despite of fashion. The French Revolution had somewhat to do with the change; a powdered head or wig was a token of aristocracy, and as the fashion might lead to the guillotine, sensible people discarded it long before the English legislature put a tax upon its use. With reference to this Sir Walter Scott says, in the fifth chapter of "The Antiquary:" "Regular were the Antiquary's inquiries at an old-fashioned barber, who dressed the only three wigs in the parish, which, in defiance of taxes and times, were still subjected to the operation of powdering and frizzling, and who for that purpose divided his time among the three employers whom fashion had yet left him.