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In reference to a sign displayed as an advertisement for a barber’s shop, the phrase free shave tomorrow, and variants such as tomorrow we shave free, are used of any incentive or reward that is perpetually promised but never actually delivered: since tomorrow is always a day away, the promise is eternally deferred.
—Synonym: free beer tomorrow.—Cf. also the phrase two more and up goes the donkey.
—Note: In quotation 6, below, the phrase tomorrow we shave free is explicitly a translation of French demain on rasera gratis.
The earliest occurrence of this French phrase that I have found is from the column Indiscrétions, published in Satan (Paris, France) of Thursday 18th May 1843 [page 3, column 2]:
—Étienne Denis Pasquier (1767-1862) held various public offices during the First French Empire (1808-1815), the Bourbon Restoration (1815-1830) and the July Monarchy (1830-1848); he was appointed Chancellor of France in 1837:
On le trouvera toujours fidèle à son serment, disait dernièrement un des amis politiques de M. Pasquier, dans son salon.—Auquel ? s’avisa de demander Mme de T…..— Au dernier, repondit [sic] la caution du chancelier de France.
Cette réponse rappelle fort le mot du barbier qui avait écrit sur sa boutique : Demain on rasera gratis. Ce lendemain était toujours à venir ; comme pour M. Pasquier le dernier serment n’est jamais si bien le dernier qu’il n’y en ait encore après lui.
translation:
You will always find him faithful to his oath, was recently saying one of Mr. Pasquier’s political friends, in his salon.—To which one? suddenly asked Mme de T…..—To the last one, replied the Chancellor of France’s advocate.
This answer very much reminds one of the barber who had written on his shop: Tomorrow we will shave free. This tomorrow was always to come; like with Mr. Pasquier, whose last oath never is the last one since there are more after it.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the phrase free shave tomorrow, and of variants such as tomorrow we shave free, that I have found:
1-: From “Signs of the Times.” A Key to the Smoky City Signboards, by “Our Jerry”, published in The Daily Post (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA) of Friday 4th August 1871 [page 1, column 5]—Smoky City refers to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Oakland is a neighbourhood in Pittsburgh:
“Free shaves to-morrow.”
This is a mockery, a delusion and a snare, as to-morrow never comes, and the Oakland barber knows it.
2-: From Gossip from Paris, dated Sunday 1st May 1887, by ‘Theoc.’, published in The World. A Journal for Men and Women (London, England) of Wednesday 4th May 1887 [page 21, column 1]:
—Le Figaro is a French newspaper founded in 1826; it was named after Figaro, a barber in several plays by the French author Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-1799)—the phrase moyennant finances translates as: for a fee:
Rossini was dug up out of his grave in the cemetery of Père la Chaise yesterday, in presence of some old friends and admirers of the maëstro […]. The remains, in almost perfect preservation, […] will be conveyed to Florence, and laid in Santa Croce side by side with Michael Angelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Cherubini, and all the great Florentines who sleep there under the guard of the statue of the divine Dante. Strange that the French newspapers have so little sense of propriety! Figaro, in giving an account of the exhumation yesterday, contrives to give a fine advertisement to the keeper of a flower-shop on the boulevard, always, I presume, moyennant finances, for Figaro only shaves gratis to-morrow.
3-: From The Morning News (Wilmington, Delaware, USA) of Monday 26th September 1892 [page 4, column 4]—the reference is to the letter of acceptance of the Democratic Party’s nomination of Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) for President of the USA:
Mr. Cleveland’s letter of acceptance is promised for this week. That letter is very much like the barber’s “free shave to-morrow.”
4-: From Socialism and Humbug, published in the Eagle and County Cork Advertiser (Skibbereen, County Cork, Ireland) of Saturday 8th December 1894 [page 2, column 4]:
The ministers […] have put their bills forward as a shopkeeper exhibits his goods in his window to show what an enterprising fellow he is. In other words they are meant for show, and to humbug the people into the belief that something is going to be done for them. It reminds one of the barber, who put out a sign, “Free shaving to-morrow.” To-morrow being always to-morrow, and never to-day, there was never any free shaving, but there was an excellent advertisement. The Liberal Government has given itself an excellent advertisement in a similar manner; but it has neither the power nor the intention to fulfil its own promises.
5-: From a letter to the Editor, on the Irish question, by one P. O’Mahony, published in The Boston Daily Globe (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) of Friday 15th March 1895 [page 5, column 4]:
At the time of Parnell’s death home rule held the first place on the liberal program. But today, when poor Parnell is lying in his cold grave in Glasnevin, where is home rule? Where are all the other good things Gladstone promised if Parnell was sacrificed? Are the evicted tenants restored? Are the political prisoners released?
Yet there are some who say that all these things will come to pass yet. I wonder if such people ever heard of the barber who put a card on the outside of his shop with the words “free shaving tomorrow.” But tomorrow never came. Is it not the same with every English promise to Ireland?
6-: From Artistic Street Signs: Revival of an Old Custom as Seen in Paris, by Ernest C. Peixotto, published in The St Louis Republic (St. Louis, Missouri, USA) of Sunday 15th January 1905 [The Sunday Magazine, page 7, column 1]:
In the middle ages there existed a fierce rivalry in signs, and each man tried to outdo his neighbor in imagining the strangest and the one most capable of attracting public attention. Some tradesmen went in for the witty, like the barber who put above his door: “Demain on rasera gratis” (To-morrow we shave free), others went in for the politic [&c.].
7-: From a correspondence from Paris, dated Saturday 12th January 1907, about the French telephone service, published in The Chicago Sunday Tribune (Chicago, Illinois, USA) of Sunday 13th January 1907 [page 8, column 3]—“this department” refers to the telephone administration:
M. Simyan, undersecretary of state for this department, promises to effect great improvement in two years. Similar promises have been made by his predecessors so often that one is reminded of the old sign in a barber’s shop, “We shave gratis tomorrow.” Where the telephone service is concerned improvements are always to be made tomorrow—next year.
8-: From a transcript of the speech that the British trade unionist and Labour Party politician John Robert Clynes (1869-1949), Member of Parliament for Manchester, delivered at the combined Labour and Socialist demonstration held at Heaton Park, Manchester, on Sunday 23rd June 1907—transcript published in The Manchester Courier (Manchester, Lancashire, England) of Monday 24th June 1907 [page 7, column 5]:
The Liberals, he suggested, had not made use of the opportunity which had been for years awaited by their supporters, and which they were now enjoying. The free breakfast table was still as far off as ever; the daily necessities were weighted down with taxation as great as ever. They had the promise, he admitted, that two and a quarter millions would be placed aside to form the nucleus of an old age pension fund, but political promises were like the hackneyed tale on the barber’s sign, “Free shaves here tomorrow.” They were broken as regularly as they were made.
9-: From Miss Lee’s Letter Box, in Tales and Topics for the Children, published in the Fall River Daily Globe (Fall River, Massachusetts, USA) of Saturday 28th November 1908 [page 6, column 5]:
Dear Miss Lee:
I hope my letter will win a prize. It is about“A DAY THAT NEVER COMES.”
Upon a time, as stories go,
A barber of Seville
Devised a plan to help his trade,
And thus his pockets fill.He hung upon the wall this sign,
Where everyone could see:
“My friends, I beg to tell you all,
Tomorrow we shave free.”Of course the morrow never came;
And he would blandly say
When questioned: “I see the poster reads
Tomorrow, not today.”[…]
Tomorrow never comes, my dears,
There’s danger in delay;
Whatever good you have to do,
Be sure you do today.
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