Good Doctor Wigram (Rochestere), At Parsons' beards is raving: We sadly fear that we shall hear The Bishop's _head_ needs shaving. But whiskers were the great feature of the 'sixties. They had been "ambrosial" before, but now the thing became a monstrosity in its profuse luxuriance. For this was the age of "Piccadilly Weepers," and of Lord Dundreary, the eccentric stage peer created by Sothern in _Our American Cousin_. Sothern, be it remembered, was a hunting-man and a _persona grata_ in fashionable circles; and allowing for the element of caricature in his impersonation, it was at least based on firsthand knowledge of the type satirized. There is an interesting notice of the first production at the Haymarket of _Our American Cousin_ in which Lord Dundreary is described as "a double eye-glassed dandy, with dyed whiskers which he paws and throws over his shoulder," but the critic admits that in spite of all Mr. Sothern's "funny and fantastic caricaturing, there is a something true to nature in his almost every touch." The hold that Sothern's impersonation took upon public fancy is shown by the fact that for several years _Punch_ adopted "Dundreary" as a synonym for a vacuous, solemn, well-bred and prodigiously whiskered dandy, and in the Preface to Vol. xlii. Lord Dundreary is introduced as interlocutor in the usual dialogue. [Illustration: THE NEW AND DELIGHTFUL METHOD OF BRUSHING THE HAIR WITH MACHINERY] Tailors' pseudo-classical nomenclature was already a frequent theme with _Punch_. In the same year _Punch_ quotes a tailor's advertisement of a "Negligé Milled Tweed suit, consisting of cape jacket, vest and trousers for £2 2s. 0d.," which arouses the envy of the post-war Englishman. Hair-brushing by machinery is noted as a novelty in the autumn of 1863; we trust that the customers contrived to keep their whiskers out of the way of the brush. For the rest, we may briefly note the advent of the "Ulster" in 1871, and the prevalence of the single eye-glass in 1873. SPORT AND PASTIME [Illustration: A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK GRANDPAPA: "Bless his heart--just like me! Spare the _Nim_rod--spoil the child, I say."]