" To learn how these "Horrid Bushes of Vanity" were
despised by a real live Puritan wig-hater one needs only to read the
many disparaging, regretful, and bitter references to wig-wearing and
wig-wearers in Judge Sewall's diary, which reached a culmination when a
widow whom he was courting suggested most warmly that he ought to wear,
what his very soul abominated, a periwig.
Eliot had also a strong aversion to tobacco, and denounced its use in
severe terms; but his opposition in this case was as ineffectual as it was
against wigs. Allen said, "In contempt of all his admonitions the head
would be adorned with curls of foreign growth, and the pipe would send up
volumes of smoke."
Rev. Mr. Rogers preached against long natural hair,--the "disguisement of
long ruffianly hair,"--as did also President Chauncey of Harvard College;
while Mr. Wigglesworth's sermon on the subject has often been reprinted,
and is full of logical arguments. This offence was named on the list of
existing evils which was made by the General Court: that "the men wore long
hair like women's hair," while the women were complained of for "cutting
and curling and laying out of hair, especially among the younger sort."
Still, the Puritan magistrates, omnipotent as they were, did not dare to
force the be-curled citizens to cut their long love-locks, though they
instructed and bribed them to do so.
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