The village barber, with his arms bared, and the flowing, o’er-ample legs of his Aradan-Lasgird pantaloons tucked up at his waist, like a washerwoman’s skirt, a bunch of raw cotton in lieu of lint under his left arm, and his keen-edged razor, looks like a man who thoroughly realizes and enjoys the importance of the office he is performing, as from the bared arm or open mouth of one after the other of his neighbors he starts the crimson stream.  The candidates for the barber’s claret-tapping attentions bare their right arms to the shoulder, and bind for each other a handkerchief or piece of something tightly above the elbow, and the barber deftly slits a vein immediately below the hollow of the elbow-joint, pressing out the vein he wishes to cut by a pressure of the left thumb.  The blood spurts out, the patient looks at the squirting blood, and then surveys the onlookers with a “who-cares?—­I-don’t” sort of a grin.  He then squats down and watches it bleed about a half-pint, occasionally working the elbow-joint to stimulate the flow.  Half a pint is considered about the correct quantity for an adult to lose at one bleeding; the barber then binds on a small wad of cotton.

Now and then a customer gives the barber a trifling coin by way of backsheesh, but the great majority give nothing.  In a mere village like Lasgird, these periodical blood-lettings by the barber are, no doubt, regarded as being all in the family, rather than of professional services for a money consideration.  The communal spirit obtains to a great extent in village life throughout both Asia Minor and Persia; nevertheless backsheesh would be expected in Persia from those able to afford it.  Some few prefer being bled in the roof the mouth, and they all squat on their hams in rows, some bleeding from the arm, others from the mouth, while the inevitable crowd of onlookers stand around, gazing and giving advice.  While the barber is engaged in binding on the wad of cotton, or during any interval between patients, he inserts the handle of the razor between his close-fitting skull-cap and his forehead, letting the blade hang down over his face, edge outward; a peculiar disposition of his razor, that he would, no doubt, be entirely at a loss to account for, except that he is following the custom of his fathers.  As regards the customs of his ancestors, whose trade or profession he invariably follows, the Asiatic is the most conservative of mortals.  “What was good enough for my father and grandfather,” he says, “is certainly good enough for me;” and earnestly believing in this, he never, of his own accord, thinks of changing his occupation or of making improvements.