Bald Heads as Railroad Signals
The singular sensitiveness of the
prophet ELISHA to the remark of the
little children, who said to him as he
was going to Beth-el: "Go up, thou
bald head; go up, thou bald head," must
have struck every thoughtful reader
of II. Kings ii. 23-24. That forty-two
children should be eaten up by two
she-bears for this reproach must be regarded
as a parable, as a warning to children to
be respectful to their elders. Living in
the open air in a world as yet uncursed
by the tall hat and the "derby," the
pastoral patriarchs and the prophets
must have kept their locks well. The
almost universal custom of shaving the
head as a sign of mourning may have
given baldness an unpleasant connotation
in the early days. If such a
prejudice there was against the bare
poll, more humane or scientific
conceptions now prevail. Sages have
demonstrated or asserted that baldness is a
mark of high civilization, a
badge of intellect or rapid transit living,
and that the hairless age of man
has come or is on the way.
A bald head of the right order of
architecture is a sublime spectacle and
has been the good fortune of many. It
imposes upon the eye and mind of many. It
is invaluable to a young professional man.
There are men perspiring with prosperity
the cause of which is nothing else than
the earliness or the grandeur of their
bald heads.
There are few more majestic objects
in nature or art than an artistic bald
head. Seeing such a splendor, you feel
that there was less jest than truth in
EDWARD FITZGERALD'S fear lest the
great high dome of his friend JAMES
STEDDING should be mistaken by ships
in the Channel for the Cliffs of Albion.
Beautiful and useful as this decoration
of genius
is, we have not been prepared
for its new and brilliant application
in railroading. Consider the case
of PETER WALKIRK:
"An hour after PETER laid him down to sleep on
the railroad bridge that spans the Columbia River,
a Great Northern express, speeding to make up
lost time between Spokane Falls and Northern
division, came bowling around the curve leading
to the bridge. The engineer had a vision of his
train going over the bridge like a hunted cat along
the fence, when the glare of his headlight suddenly
picked up something white and glistening on the
track dead ahead. It glistened and shone and
menaced, and the engineer, fascinated, reversed
his engine and brought the train to a standstill ten
yards from the shining patch of white, which as
the train became nearer had become brighter still.
Then he went out to investigate and found the bald
head of PETER WALKIRK looming up like a beacon.
He was still asleep. He was awakened and brought
to St. Paul, glad that he is alive and bald."
There is absolutely no reason to
believe that this hero, this life saver, had
been dallying with the cup that beers.
He had the right to be sleeping and to go
to sleep, and he forgot to consult the
time table before he went to bed. His
innocent error has been the means of
discovering a new system of signalling.
The red flag must be hauled down. It
is useless in the fog or darkness, whereas
a bright bald head is a perpetual searchlight
and pillar of fire.
(THE END)
