Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/824

804, the bald-headed element was considerably larger. Of two nights when Patti sang at the Boston Theatre there were forty-six per cent of bald heads on one occasion and forty-two on the other. When De Lussan appeared in "Fra Diavolo" I discovered thirty-eight per cent of baldness, and at one of Matthew Arnold's lectures there were forty-six per cent. In fact, out of hundreds of observations, extending over several years, I have found that the higher the price of admission, and presumably the more refining nature of the performance, the larger the per cent of bald heads. One night I counted the occupants of a few settees in my immediate vicinity at an exhibition which John L. Sullivan gave at the Mechanics' Fair Building, and was surprised to find that less than twelve per cent of the men were bald. As this was a show where the spectators had the privilege of retaining or discarding their hats at pleasure, I think it was not a fair test.

In large cities, where over one half of the population is under thirty years of age, and where half of those who attend places of amusement can safely be placed at less than forty years, these facts are certainly interesting to every person who wishes to know what kind of a looking person the coming man is going to be. It is not uncommon to see men under thirty years of age whose crowns are totally denuded of hair. In one store in New York city are twelve shipping-clerks, all under forty years of age, and seven of them are bald, while two more are vainly trying to prevent baldness by using hair-restorers. There are more bald-headed men in Boston than there are who have black or red hair. Next to the brown heads, the bald heads have the largest number of representatives. In order to prove this, it is only necessary to go to any party or place of amusement or assemblage of any kind in New England. In my capacity as newspaper reporter I attended a funeral in Beacon Street, Boston, a few years ago, where the clergyman, the undertaker, and every one of the mourners were bald-headed! The only perfect head of hair I saw at the house was that of the fair young girl who lay in the casket. Instances showing the proneness, not only of Boston and New England, but of the whole country, to become bald, could be given indefinitely, but I think the foregoing will suffice.

Now, in view of these facts, can any one say that the coming man, of New England at least, will not be bald? If not, what is the present generation doing, or what can it do, to hinder such a fate?

The old physiological law of stock-breeding, that "like begets like," applies to men as well as to animals. If men at the age when they marry and begin to raise children are bald-headed, they can expect their children to enjoy the traits of their sires. A father and mother who become bald when young can safely predict a like result for their offspring. There is no reason why bald heads should not yield to the laws of heredity as much as curly heads or red heads. Anything else would seem unnatural.