The Rumanian government has declared war on the custom of wearing beards favored by the Rumanian rural population.
Uniformed government couriers yesterday departed on a tour on horseback of Rumanian villages to announce the new regulations banning the wearing of the hirsute appendage without a permit.
The couriers, by bugle calls and drum-beatings, assembled residents of the villages in the public squares to announce the new ruling to them. It reads in part:
“Beards are prohibited. Those who want to keep them must possess a special permit. In one week those persons wearing beards without having obtained a permit to do so will be forcibly shaved and fined.”
The regulation has created consternation among members of the orthodox Jewish population who, by Mosaic law, are not allowed to cut their beards.
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