irst to give
up in modern times the use of the razor. Quite a sensation was caused
towards the close of 1892 when it became known that the Archbishop of
York did not approve of the moustache among his clergy. In several
quarters the barber was visited, and the cherished moustache and beard
swept away, it is said, to please the head of the Church in the Northern
Province. Not so with a moustached candidate for Orders from Hull. He
had been spending two or three days at Bishopthorpe before ordination,
but gentle hints failed to induce him to make a clean shave. As a final
effort the chaplain of the Archbishop asked him if he thought it was not
time he cut off his moustache. He replied that he did not think of doing
so, and asked why he should. "Well," said the chaplain, "you see the
saints in the stained glass windows have not any moustaches." "That may
be so," said the candidate, "but as I am not intended to be a saint and
stuck in a window, I mean my moustache to remain."

Speaking at a reunion of the Leeds Clergy School held on June 6th, 1899,
Dr Eden, the Bishop of Wakefield, said he recently noticed a paragraph
in the newspapers which said that the Bishop of Wakefield had given it
out that he was very much against the clergy wearing moustaches. "After
a little while this legend increased in definiteness, and the next
paragraph I saw was that the Bishop of Wakefield had 'commanded' the
curates of his diocese to shave clean. A little while after that I took
up a London paper, and I saw it stated: 'The Bishop of Wakefield has
joined the anti-moustache brigade, and we believe he has the sympathy of
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.' I waited a little longer, for I
felt sure something more would come, and then I took up another paper
and found that an exceedingly respected Prebendary of St Paul's in
London had been uttering remarks, either in public or to the
reporters--I don't know which--in which he held up the Bishop of
Wakefield as being one of those foolish people who had largely exceeded
their episcopal powers. I was given a very round lecture upon the
contrast of my conduct with that of my predecessor, who would never have
thought of issuing such a foolish order to the curates to shave their
moustaches. The curates were recommended to do nothing of the kind, but
a fear was expressed that a large number of them would probably comply
with the demand. Still that was not quite the end of the legend; I had
of cour