Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1879-01-30
WHOLE NO. 1863.
Our Women Growing Plump.
Harper's Barar.


Europeans generally corcede that
American women are handsome
though they asy they are so fragile
that they ea'tp lose their freshr ess
and with il much of their besusv
They particularly remark The Ten
dency Of our ~ameD To grow thin in
years. while we remark the tendon.
cy of their women To The .ccumuIa-
ton OF flesh AS sof as they have
passed their youth and often before
that period. While we must allow
that our women are, for the most
part, lacking IN roundness, there are
few ofus, we imagine, who would
not infinitely prefer the Now World
slenderness TO the Old World stout
ness A medium between the two
might be the standard of the becom.
ing, and this medium we seem To be
approaching slowly bnt steadily.
The opinion of the thinness of the
feminine portion OF the nation is
based rather on what has been than
on what is. The majority of our
women are still too lean for their
beauty, but they are far less lean
than they were twenty-five or even
fifteen years ago.
This fact-for fact it unquestiona-
bly, is-can scarcely have escaped
observation. 1t is noticeable every.
whore, particularly 10 large towns
and cities, and is due to different
causes all of which are easiIy recog
nized. The feshiness Of people
depends largely on the age and de-
velopment of their country. Where
everything is new, and, in certain
sense raw, as in this land, there is
very little leisure or repose. Our en-.
tire energies are directed 10 our ad-
vancemeDt; our minds are absorbed
by thought of the future and wha,
it promises. We hardly take time
to get flesh; we think and fret off
that which we have acquired instead
of acquiring more Our women do not
perform 80 much physical labor as
our men, but they work longer in
their way and worry more; and anx.
iety or any form Of mental distur.
bance Insures their meagerness as
nothing else does. These live too
much through the mind to live COM
f3rtab!y through the body and the
body suffers in consequence. La the
Old World everything is fixed. The
future is no. likely to re different
from the present; ther, is small oc-
casion for wistfulness or solicitude.
Material conditions are not usually
so favorable there as here but they
are permanent and by their perma-
hence they beget content, whence
adipose matter. American women
neither work nor worry as they
used. The Republic is more devel
oped, things are more settled some.
thing Of the European feeling is
creeping into the national mind and
less thinness is the result.
American women take vastly bet
ter care of themselves than former
ly. They have more acquaintance
with hygienic laws and hold them in
far higher esteem. The days when
they exposed themselves to damp-
ness and wintry cold in thin slippers
and silk stockings, when they alb.
stained from flanpels next to the
skin; When they pinched their
waists to standardization; wheL
they sacrificed comfort and health
TO what they conceived to be their
apfearances-those fooleh and un-
happy days have goneforever, have
barely been known to the rising
generation. Our women now have
no mawkish or morbid notions as to
themselves they no longer think
that to be unhealthy is TO be attrao-
tive; that invalidism and interesting
ness are Synonymous; that pale faces
and compressed lungs are tokens of
beauty. They dress seasonably;
they wear thick boots and warm
clothes ia bad and cold weather;
they allow themselves to breathe
freely and they find themselves i'm
proved, not injured by the wholesome
change. There are exceptions,
many of them doubtless, but the rule
is as we have described, and the ex-
ceptions are constantly diminishing.
1t may be safely said that all sensi-
BILE women are becoming. if they
have not yet become, converts to
Nature, and that they heed her be-
hesss, recognizing the great princi
pie that what is not natural cannot
be beautiful.
Little more than q quarter of a
century ago young American women
were ashamed TO show hearty sp-
petite in public. They were infec.-
ed with the Byronic philosophy !;
they wanted to Us spiritual--as if
all true spirituality did not rest on
sound physical conditions-and 10
look elegantly wre.ched. Many of
them had half their wish; they look.
ed wretched but not elegant. They
were charged with drinking vinegar
eating slate pencils and committing
! other moIstrous absurdities. They
may have been unjus.Iy accused but
their theories warranted the accusa-
ton. All such nonsense belongs to
the past. American women to- day
eat as much food as they want and
| more wholesome food than they once
ate; they walk more; court the open
air, cultivate their bodies as well as
their minds; believe in perfect d.
gestion, unbroken sleep, the glow
| and glory of unblemished health.
No wonder their proportions are ful.
Ter, their cheeks more blooming,
| their eye brighter. their step more
elastic. The growth of the country
| aud their own common sense are
serving them generously.
The scrawny, sallow, peaked wo-
man, if she be educated and fairly
.aced, will ere long cease to be. .
type of the American middle-aged
woman. With the steady develop
menis of the Republic, the increased
ease of the circumstances and their
complete health, American women
will be comelier and rounder, as they
are comelier and rounder now than
they have been. External and in-
ternal conditions assure this. They
are not likely to become gross and
obcse ss SO many Of their European