A terrible time was it for hair-dressers, who then carried on a thriving business, when pigtails and hair-powder were abolished at one fell swoop. It was in reality to them like the repeal of the Navigation laws, in idea, to the ship-owners, or free-trade to the farmers. We were amusingly reminded of it only a few weeks since. Being on our travels, with rather a wilderness of hair upon our head, we turned into a barber’s shop, in a small town through which a railway, lately opened, runs. The barber had a melancholy look, and seemed to be borne down by some secret sorrow, to which he gave utterance from time to time in the most dreadful groans. At length he found a voice, and rather sobbed than said, “Oh sir, these railways will be the ruin of the country!” Did our ears deceive us? Or was the barber really gone mad? We were silent, but, we suppose, looked unutterable things, for he continued, “Yes, sir, before this line was opened, I shaved twenty post-boys a day from the White Hart, and now if I shave one in a week I am in high luck.” Unhappy shaver, to be thus shaved by the march of improvement! And inconsistent George Hudson! thou talkest of the vested rights of shipowners and landlords, and yet didst thou ever stay thy ruthless hand and project a line the less that country post-boys might flourish, and country barbers live by shaving their superfluous beards? O! most close shaver thyself, not to make compensation to thy shavers thus thrown out of bread and beards by thy countless innovations!