A PICTURESQUE BARBER OF NEW YORK

When Beaumarchais created his brilliant character of
"Figaro," that engaging scamp whose intrigues form the
basis of "The Barber of Seville" and "The Marriage of
Figaro" he unconsciously provided a prototype for one
of the most extraordinarj- characters known in Old New
York.

This was a barber who flourished his razor under the
grandiloquent style of "John Richard Deborus Huggins,"
Empereur de Frisseurs, Roy de Barbers, Autocrat of
Fashions, etc., etc. From 1794 to 1800 Huggins kept his
shop in the basement of the Tontine Coffee House, then
conducted by Mr. Hyde. This was his professional
pasteboard:
 

John Richard Deborus Huggins

Knight of the Comb

Ladies' and Gentlemen's Hair Dresser

Tontine Coffee House

New York
 

His clientele included Talleyrand, Governor Wolcott, Col.
Richard Varick, Archibald Gracie, and Thomas Buchanan.

Walter Barrett says : "In those days the ladies had their
hair dressed with great care, and sometimes it was the
case with gentlemen. Many of our old merchants have
kept awake, and not laid down their heads, for fear of
disarranging their hair after it had been fixed (perhaps two
days previous) for a great ball."

Huggins was an oracle of news, the fashionable intelli¬
gence of the day furnishing his principal gossip, but his
talents were not confined to the personal ministrations of
his vocation.    He was an advertising adept of no mean
 

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