The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-07-31
SMALL WAISTS AND CoRsEFs.


SMALL WAISTS AND CORSETS.
A writer in Appletons' Journal dis
courses thus about small waists and
corset-lacing' There is no doubt but
that " small waist" is admired of all
men and all women. No matter how
the psychologists or the physicians may
talk, women have always compressed
their wrists and expanded Their skirts,
and they always will, until public opin-
ion pronounces for the heavy figure. 1t
has never influenced a fashionable
woman yet to hear that the Venus de
Medici has a large waist-she has been
told so ever since that faultless image
of female beauty was disinterred. She
knows very we'll that if she went to
ball with that figure of the Venus, no
man would ask her to dance. So I'M
portant matter is it to have small
waist, that it has become a matter of
pride to the Austrian people, and is
often mentioned in the court journals,
that the Empress of Austria is cele-
brated for possessing a waist which
only measures sixteen inches. This is
a greater nobility than even the pos
y
shield, without which you cannot be
admitted to the best society of Vienna.
Sixteen" therefore, is a magic num-
Der at Vienna. There are many per-
sons. to be sure, who have as small a
waist, but they have not the height and
contour and becoming fullness which
the Empress has. Nor is the small
waist furOre' alone confined to the
women of civilized lands, so called.
The small foot of the Chinese women
is a local popularity; the small waist or
the striving for it, is universal. Even
grave Humboldt describes the beauties
of Java as eating a sort of clay called
dnpO, by which they become very
much reduced in size. 1t kills them
finally, bat what of that?
The savages of the islands in the
Pacific and Indian Oceans use very
potent means to attain slenderness of
figure for the young women, and re-
searches among the ruins of Palenque
! Zone of those mysterious forest cities of
| Central America) prove that those al
most forgotten people knew of the most
artificial and well fitting and compressi-
| BILE corset which has ever been invented.
Savage corsets are made of rattan, bones
| of animals and skins, and laced with
! leather thongs, and are worn by men
and women. The young Indian war
rior of to-day laces himself when he
! goes On the war-path or to see his lady
| love in "skin and bone" belt, which
is very good corset.
The women of Egypt, if we can be-
lieve the Pyramids, were not above
tight lacing. In fact, gloves, corsets,
bracelets, and ornaments for the hair go
back to the remotest antiquity.
In the book of Isaiah we read of the
divine displeasure manifested against
the people of Jerusalem and Judah,
and of the depriving of the women of
personal adornment, and there is this
striking allusion to the corset in the
splendid poetical language of the time:
"Instead of a girdle, there should be a
rent; and instead of well-set hair,
badness and instead of a stomacber,
a girding of sackcloth and burning
instead of beauty"
The Jewish ladies of rank wore pro-
fuse ornamentation, and always a light
ly laced bodice, which is carefully and
beautifully alluded to by Scott in his
descriptions of Rebecca, that most ex-
quisite of ideal Jewesses.
Now, in looking at the loose, classical
drapely of the Roman women, one
would say that the corset bad disap-
peared for a while from one well-dressed
period of the world. But history tells
us differently. In fact, any lady of
modern times who has draped herself
for private theatricals, or for tableaus,
in the Roman robes, knows well that it
must be a very carefully constr ucted
dress. It cannot be lightly assumed.
1t is very ugly unless the shape be per.
feet underneath its apparently negli'
gent folds. We learn from poets and
dramatists, as well as from historians.
that the Roman women wore q girdle,
which they called the strophium, and
which was probably the same as the
mira or girdle of the Greeks. The ia
nous cestUs of Venus is affirmed by apo
etical London tradesman to have beer
merely well-ftting corset. And the
zone which plays so attractive a part il
all allegOrical and human history may
have been only combination OF we'll
fitting whalebone and steel quilted into
silk or cloth as the wearer chose.
Thus the supposed purely natura
and statuesque figures of the Roman
women were really laced into shape anC
held in "durance vile" as much as art
those of French ladies of to-day: anC
here we may as we'll remark that whe1
we talk of modern luxury we must no
forget that Cleopatra's earrings were
worth Zone hundred and sixty thou
sand pounds" and that Julius Caesar
gave to another lady of his acquaintance
a pair of earrings which cost him at the
Titfany's of that day "forty- weight thou
sand pounds, Some industrious Eng
lishman has translated gthe Roman
money into pounds for us. We can also
refer to the records of Seneca anC
Fliny for samples of female extrava
gance which make the patroness Of
Worth to-day almost feel ashamed o.
herself for her moderation. Martial
and Juvenal do not hesitate to record
that, when these wealthy DANES being
dressed in their gorgeous pepLl6n1s
their tresses of false hair, (which they
frizzled with hot irons" when they put
on their splendid pearls and ornaments
of gold, and painted their faces and
eyebrows. they would throw the little
brass hand-mirrOr at the head of the
offending slaves, or even applying the
whip if the tire-woman did not make
her mistress beautiful.
We see that there is "nothing new
under the sun :" even our "little temp.
ers have all been INDUCED in by the
Portals, the Cornelias, the Cleopatras
of the past, nor can we invent a new
Jolly, or caprice, or absurdity of dress,
but we find in history that some women
has been before us. So the corset has
its antiquity with all the rest.
About the middle of the tenth GEN.
fury there came up terrible and cruel
corset, called cOttes hardieS. These
were stiffened with steel. and clasped
with grass or gold. We know very
we'll from the pictures of that period
what intensely small waists were pro,
duced, and what stiffness of figure.
The French words corps and series Cto
tighten), which seem to have suggested
the word corset, could not have better
expressed this article of dress. We do
not know how many women died OF
these corsets-probably more than have
ever died of a broken heart, Men as
well as women wore the horrible things.
One lady of rank is described as wear
ing "a splendid girdle of beaten gold
about her middle small" CHANGER de,
scribes one of his beauties as being
"small as a weazel and upright as a
| bolt" which does not SUGGEST a very