Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1875-12-31
Small Waists.

There Is no doubt but that "small
waist is admired by all men and all
women. No matter how the Psychologists
or the physicians may talk, women have
always compressed their waists and ex-
panded their skirts, and they always will,
until public opinion pronounces for a
heavy figure. II has never influenced a
fashionable woman yet 10 hear that the
Venus de Medici had large waist she
has been told so ever since that faultless
image Of female beauty was disinterred.
She merely shrugs her shoulders and
draws her lacos tighter.
She knows very well that, If she went TO
n ball with that figure of Venus, no man
would ask her to dance. So important =
matter is il to have small waist that 1t
has becomaa matter of pride TO the Aus
trian people, and II is often mentioned In
the court journals that the Empress OF
Austria Is celebrated for possessing waist
which only measures sixteen inches. This
is d greater nobility than even the pos
session of sixteen quarterings on your
shield, without which you cannot be all
mitted to the best society of Vienna.
"SiXteen," therefore, is magic number
ut Vienna. There are many persons, to
be sure, who have as small waist, but
they have not the height and contour
and becoming fullness which the Empress
has.
Nor Is the smal-wast furor" alone
confined to the women OF civilized lands,
so-called. The small foot OF the Chinese
women Is a local peculiarly; the small
waist, or the striving for it, is universal.
Even grave Humboldt describes the beau
ties of Java as eating sort of clay called
ammo, by which they become very much
reduced in size 1t kills them finally,
but what of that?
Undoubtedly there will always be fool
ish mothers who make their daughters
sleep in their corsets, and many foolish
women who will always draw their laces
too tight; but the golden mean remains;
a figure we'll but not too stiiily supported,
waist slender, round, but not too small
for the adjacent figure, is the grand de-
sideratum of female beauty.
Nothing is so unbecoming as too
tight garment. A shoe that is too small
spoils apretty foot; glove which squeezes
the hand ruins the effect; and waist in
Judiciously compressed ruins the figure
and the face. The blood is forced into
the hands and arms; the figure is pressed
out of proportion; and the whole effect is
singularly unpleasant. A large woman
in France, where women have taste for
the becoming in dress conferred upon them
by Providence, wears ample dTaperies,
loosely fitting garments, and a corset
which does her the best possible service,
for it makes her look and feel at her case
no labored breathing, no unnatural red
ness, no fear of sutfocation she is simply
large, beautiful object, instead of pill
low tied in the middle, with q general air
of asphyxia.
Large women should remember that no
tight lacing makes them look any smaller.
The size is like all other matter-it must
60 somewhere, and the effect of squeezing
the figure is never good. Every woman
cannot rejoice in the willow pattern"
which is so beautiful in young girls. Age,
which reduces everything else, is apt to
add ON to the figure of woman, and time
brings an undesirable stoutness. This
cannot be better treated than it was by the
late Duchess of Devonshire, one of the
most beautiful of women, who grew at
forty, as English women are apt to do,
very stout.
"How have you kept your complexion
so pure, my dear Duchessg" said one Of
her fellow-ladies in waiting at the court
of Queen Victoria.
BY dressing at ease and keeping my
temper" said the handsome Duchess
Appiet0RS' Journal