It is not surprising to find in the formal life of the English court the poor little tormented, sickly, sad child of Queen Anne wearing, before he was seven years old, a large full-bottomed wig; but it is curious to see the portraits of American children rigged up in wigs (I have half a dozen such), and to find likewise an American gentleman (and not one of wealth either) paying £;9 apiece for wigs for three little sons of seven, nine, and eleven years of age. This lavish parent was Enoch Freeman, who lived in Portland, Maine, in 1754. Wigs were objects of much and constant solicitude and care; their dressing was costly, and they wore out readily. Barbers cared for them by the month or year, visiting from house to house. Ten pounds a year was not a large sum to be paid for the care of a single wig. Men of dignity and careful dress had barbers’ bills of large amount, such men as Governor John Hancock, Governor Hutchinson, and Governor Belcher. On Saturday afternoons the barbers’ boys were seen flying through the narrow streets, wig-box in hand, hurrying to deliver all the dressed wigs ere sunset came. No doubt the constant wearing of such hot, heavy head-covering made the hair thin and the head bald; thus wigs became a necessity. Men had their heads very closely covered of old, and caught cold at a breath. Pepys took cold throwing off his hat while at dinner. If the wig were removed even within doors a close cap or hood at once took its place, or, as I tell elsewhere, a turban of some rich stuff. In America, in the Southern states, where people were poor and plantations scattered, all men did not wear wigs. A writer in the _London Magazine_ in 1745 tells of this country carelessness of dress. He says that except some of the “very Elevated Sort” few wore perukes; so that at first sight “all looked as if about to go to bed,” for all wore caps. Common people wore woollen caps; richer ones donned caps of white cotton or Holland linen. These were worn even when riding fifty miles from home. He adds, “It may be cooler for aught I know; but methinks ’tis very ridiculous.” So wonted were his eyes to perukes, that his only thought of caps was that they were “ridiculous.” Nevertheless, when a shipload of servants, bond-servants who might be stolen when in drink, or lured under false pretences, might be convicts, or honest workmen,—when these transports were set up in respectability,—scores of new wigs of varying degrees of dignity came across seas with them. Many an old caxon or “gossoon”—a wig worn yellow with age—ended its days on the pate of a redemptioner, who thereby acquired dignity and was more likely to be bought as a schoolmaster. Truly our ancestors were not squeamish, and it is well they were not, else they would have squeamed from morning till night at the sights, and sounds, and things, and dirt around them. But these be parlous words; they had the senses and feelings of their day—suited to the surroundings of their day.