{"id":"01KG8AMETE430ANR42QG94P0Z2","cid":"bafkreifw3wsah4sbolhjrjp4szt5k3d6yyj5i7kqhordctsss44365ssii","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":13625,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.278Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":13555,"text":"CHAPTER LXXXV.\r\nTHE GREAT MASSACRE OF THE BEARDS.\r\n\r\n\r\nThe preceding chapter fitly paves the way for the present, wherein it\r\nsadly befalls White-Jacket to chronicle a calamitous event, which\r\nfilled the Neversink with long lamentations, that echo through all her\r\ndecks and tops. After dwelling upon our redundant locks and\r\nthrice-noble beards, fain would I cease, and let the sequel remain\r\nundisclosed, but truth and fidelity forbid.\r\n\r\nAs I now deviously hover and lingeringly skirmish about the frontiers\r\nof this melancholy recital, a feeling of sadness comes over me that I\r\ncannot withstand. Such a heartless massacre of hair! Such a\r\nBartholomew’s Day and Sicilian Vespers of assassinated beards! Ah! who\r\nwould believe it! With intuitive sympathy I feel of my own brown beard\r\nwhile I write, and thank my kind stars that each precious hair is for\r\never beyond the reach of the ruthless barbers of a man-of-war!\r\n\r\nIt needs that this sad and most serious matter should be faithfully\r\ndetailed. Throughout the cruise, many of the officers had expressed\r\ntheir abhorrence of the impunity with which the most extensive\r\nplantations of hair were cultivated under their very noses; and they\r\nfrowned upon every beard with even greater dislike. They said it was\r\nunseamanlike; not _ship-shape;_ in short, it was disgraceful to the\r\nNavy. But as Captain Claret said nothing, and as the officers, of\r\nthemselves, had no authority to preach a crusade against whiskerandoes,\r\nthe Old Guard on the forecastle still complacently stroked their\r\nbeards, and the sweet youths of the After-guard still lovingly threaded\r\ntheir fingers through their curls.\r\n\r\nPerhaps the Captain’s generosity in thus far permitting our beards\r\nsprung from the fact that he himself wore a small speck of a beard upon\r\nhis own imperial cheek; which if rumour said true, was to hide\r\nsomething, as Plutarch relates of the Emperor Adrian. But, to do him\r\njustice—as I always have done—the Captain’s beard did not exceed the\r\nlimits prescribed by the Navy Department.\r\n\r\nAccording to a then recent ordinance at Washington, the beards of both\r\nofficers and seamen were to be accurately laid out and surveyed, and on\r\nno account must come lower than the mouth, so as to correspond with the\r\nArmy standard—a regulation directly opposed to the theocratical law\r\nlaid down in the nineteenth chapter and twenty-seventh verse of\r\nLeviticus, where it is expressly ordained, “_Thou shalt not mar the\r\ncorners of thy beard_.” But legislators do not always square their\r\nstatutes by those of the Bible.\r\n\r\nAt last, when we had crossed the Northern Tropic, and were standing up\r\nto our guns at evening quarters, and when the setting sun, streaming in\r\nat the port-holes, lit up every hair, till to an observer on the\r\nquarter-deck, the two long, even lines of beards seemed one dense\r\ngrove; in that evil hour it must have been, that a cruel thought\r\nentered into the heart of our Captain.\r\n\r\nA pretty set of savages, thought he, am I taking home to America;\r\npeople will think them all catamounts and Turks. Besides, now that I\r\nthink of it, it’s against the law. It will never do. They must be\r\nshaven and shorn—that’s flat.\r\n\r\nThere is no knowing, indeed, whether these were the very words in which\r\nthe Captain meditated that night; for it is yet a mooted point among\r\nmetaphysicians, whether we think in words or whether we think in\r\nthoughts. But something like the above must have been the Captain’s\r\ncogitations. At any rate, that very evening the ship’s company were\r\nastounded by an extraordinary announcement made at the main-hatch-way\r\nof the gun-deck, by the Boat-swain’s mate there stationed. He was\r\nafterwards discovered to have been tipsy at the time.\r\n\r\n“D’ye hear there, fore and aft? All you that have hair on your heads,\r\nshave them off; and all you that have beards, trim ’em small!”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJVX0DG3QG3ASDM4V0FBS","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMETERQMA2Q7ZNFWJCC05","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:37.710Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:55.092Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}