Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1873-09-19
A Good Word for COrSets.


there is so much nonsense talked and
written as about corsets. 1t is the fash
ion Just now to denOunce them as inge-
NOUS devices of the enemy, and a good
deal Of cheap popularity has been secured
in this way. In this, as in most other
matters pertaining to the dress reform
movement, facts have weighed little while
all sorts of foolish assumptions have been
treated as axiOms.
Now we know perfectly we'll that some
women lace themselves too tight, although
it is not at present fashionable to do so.
We know, too, that many women have Sc
riOusly injured their health while some
have sacrificed life itself on the shrine of
a slender waist But the wearing of the
corset does not necessarily, and, in fact,
does not commonly end in tight-lacing;
while lacing, and that, too, of very
hurttul sort, may be and frequently is &C
cemplished without the use of corset at
all. We have seen mems clothes worn as
tightly as any corset ever was. The con-
demnation of tight lacing is perfectly
just, of course, as everybody having the
smallest knowledge of anatomy knows.
But many women who never lace wear
corsets and derive great benefit from
their use. It is certainly very absurd to
demand that these people shall forego a
comfort-giving article of apparel merely
because they could turn it into an lnstru-
ment of torture if they were fools. They
find that to put the entire weight Of their
clothing upon their shoulders is to give
themselves pain, and in order to divide it
they let part Of their apparel depend upon
the hips for support. To do this without
a corset it would be necessary to wear
the garments altogether tighter about the
waist than they should be worn, and to
bind them around a single mar
row zone which would be both un-
comfortable and unwise. The cor
set, however, distributes both the
weight and the pressure over the strong
muscles of the hips, and as it is less yield
ing than the flesh it obviates the necessity
of tight Wristbands altogether. The cor
set properly used, in other words, furnish
es the very best remedy for tightlacing,
particularly now that taper waists have
gone out of fashion. So &
We are told that corsets ruin the health;
that they make people nervous, irresolute,
and weaklings generally; that our race is
growing feebler every day since we have
no more mothers of the old Roman type
But stop moment History tells us that
the fine old Roman mothers themselves
wore cOrsets Coming on down we find
that our sturdy Saxon forefathers wore
very close fitting sort of corset, extending
from the arm-pits to the waist, made at
first of stout linen and afterwards of heavy
leather. Worse and worse, the Crusaders
and other knights of the middle age, who,
whatever other faults were laid to their
charge, have never been accused of weak
ness, nervousness, or irresolution, wore a
corset, or, as they called it, cuirass,
made of two plates Of metal, the one fit
ting the back and the other the chest, the
two being buckled togeth er at the side
and forming about as stiff and unyielding
a corset as can we'll be imagined The
Germans, too, are commonly accounted as
sturdy race, and even when living in our
land of shaky nerves their women are
deemed model mothers in all physical re-
CARDS. And yet it was they who first gave
the idea of the modern corset to the
French, and through the French to the
world. They wore clumsy continuance
of heav and rude workmanship. The
French made it lighter after the revolu-
ton, and gave it something more of shape
illness, and the corset of to-day stood con-
fessed
w
condemn as heartily as anybody the prac-
tice of COMPRISING waists, but we do not
believe either that the use of the corset
necessarily fosters that practice or that
the abandonment of corsets will cure the
evil. We do believe that the corset prop
erly worn is of great service in keeping
women erect, in distributing the weight
of their clothes over the hips, and in OBJ
waiting the necessity thatwould otherwise
be upon them of binding their skirts too
tightly about their waists. 1t is foolish
waste of words to attribute to the corset
itself evils which spring from it's misuse
Many people, perhaps most people, wear
shoes which are too small for their feet,
and an anatomical shoemaker once told
us that his entire secret lay in making
peoples shoes a size or two larger than
they were accustomed to wear them. But
shall we therefore denOunce shoes as the
authors of bunions? Let us at least De
sensible in these matters whether we can
manage to be strictly just or not. Let us
enlighten our daughters in regard to their
own bodies, so that they may know how
hideously tight-lacing defOrms them, and
with what terrible dangers to life and
health it is attended. 1t is idle to talk
nonsense to them instead, and to tell them,
as one sensationalist did not long ago,
that ''any corset, no matter how loosely it
is worn, is sure to produce heartdisease." y
Every sensible girl knows well enough
that such statement is absurdly false,
and falsehood never yet did good SER
vice for the truth. Men do not gather
grapes of thorns-Hearth and Home
A MAN in Warrenton, Va, poisoned
melons Ii his garden for the benefit of
thieves, and killed yalanahle colt of his.