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MORE ABOUT CHIGNONS.

The chignon is coming to the front again.  By this we do not mean that it is worn, or likely to be worn before—­in saying which the word “before” is not used by us in its acceptation of previously, but in that of front; although, now that we come to think of it, the chignon certainly has been worn before, as may be seen by consulting old-fashioned prints, in which it is shown worn behind.  This, to the ordinary mind, may seem rather confused; and so it is; but what else could you expect from a writer when he has got chignon upon the brain?

For newspapers the chignon is just now a teeming subject.  Every day or so somebody writes to a paper, saying that be has discovered a new kind of parasite, hatched by the genial warmth of woman’s nape from some deleterious padding or other used in the manufacture of her chignon.  Sometimes it is vegetable stuff, sometimes animal, but it always teems with pedicular creatures akin to that low and vulgar kind not usually recognized in polite society.  All these horrors come and and don’t make much difference in the chignon market; but PUNCHINELLO has a new one that is calculated to create a sensation—­about the nape of the female neck—­and here it is.

In the beech forests of Hungary, as is well known to Danubian explorers, there exists a very remarkable breed of pigs, one of their peculiarities being that they are covered with wool instead of with bristles.  These pigs are shorn regularly every year, like sheep.  Their wool, which is very stiff and curly, is used for stuffing cushions and mattresses of the cheap and nasty kind.  Since chignons have come into fashion, a vast amount of pig’s wool has been imported for their manufacture.  By microscopic investigation the wool of the Hungary pig has been found swarming with trichinae; to a fearful extent.  Now, it is easy to imagine that the trichinae obtained from a hungry pig must be of a very insatiable and ravenous disposition, and this is but too often realized by the silly wearers of the porcine chignons, into whose brains, (when they happen to have any,) the horrible little parasites worm their way in myriads, rendering their hapless victims pig-headed to an extent that defies description either with pen or pencil.

The Pig-faced Woman exhibited some time ago in Europe was once a very pretty girl, her hideous deformity being the result of wearing a chignon stuffed with Hungary pigs’ wool.

In purchasing a pig chignon, then, the Girl of the Period had better look out that she does not get “too much pork for a shilling.”

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MATCHING THE MATCHLESS.

Matchmaking has always been traditionally supposed to be the chief end of woman.  No wonder that, with the spread of the new theories of woman’s rights, therefore, we find them invading departments of industry which were formerly supposed to be peculiarly the domain of the stronger sex.  We have recently seen running matches, swimming matches, rowing matches, and other fancy matches, made by women.  And why not?  The women are wise in thus preparing themselves for proficiency in the arts of primary elections, ballot stuffing and the rest, incidental to untrammelled suffrage.