The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1882-12-28
Anti-Corset Philosophy and History

Ouo pOloOn 10 uO Iulc lOT dIlOUn6T IN
such matters. The letters in the Eng
fish Mechanic, and little book full of
others, selected from a now extinct
periodical which met with about ten
years ago, called Figure Training, and
others subsequently in the same ma
gaZine, amply prove that. The great
majority Of the writerS-I may say
all who wrote from their own expert
ence-said they had found the highest
lacing they could bear, especially in
stays quite stiff in front, both pleasant
and beneficial, and among them was
surgeon. Some, however, find it
eXpedient to remain under contraction
only few hours in the morning, and
the surgeon discarded his stays when
taking strong exercise, which seems
natural; but others lace tightly for ri
ding, and ladies mostly in the evening,
and some enjoy and recommend con-
tinement in stays all night also-an
old practice which used to be enforced
in some families and schools. Men
generally prefer belts, but not a few
wrote that they found regular long
and stiff stays much nicer and better
for their health. Two or three
said they could stand and walk
much longer in them than with
out, and that their health re-
lapsed whenever they gave it up.
Many had begun it under some kind
of compulsion, but had soon come to
like it, even after severe treatment at
first. AS said before, the philoso-
pliers got much the worst OF it in
those discussions.
My philosophy about it is that all those
statements of personal experience,
with their variations in detail, are
worth infinitely more for practical
purposes than all the talk about lungs
and diaphragms and capacity of chests
(Which vary great deal naturally,
nature and anatomy, Greek, women in
flesh and marble, and the unquestioned
bad effect of unduly tight lacing,
which proves nothing but itself.
Such multitude Of persons of all
ages and kinds cannot possibly be
either mistaken or lying about the fact
of their own good health, or that of
their children, pupils, school-fellows,
sisters, mothers and friends, notwith-
standing, or in consequence of their
having been contracted inthe smallest
circumference they could bear for
many years of their lives. 1t is very
easy to be mistaken in attributing
either good or bad health to a partIcu-
lar cause, but the fact of it cannot be
doubtful. And that, with sundry
medical letters such as L have alluded
to, is the summary of all those letters
containing any personal experience.
There were one or two about ladies
who had obStinately persisted, in the
of i'm
were injuring their health, and, of
course, did so.
l remember reading years ago, in an
extract from some medical newspaper,
L think, that the Empress of Austria
was killing herself with tight-lacing,
for she happened to be i'll, and was
famous for the smallness of her waist
which seems to be specially cult
waited there, and is even enforced on
boys as well as girls, according to a
gentleman who was at school in
Vienna, and learned there to enjoy
being laced as tight as possible in
long and stiff stays, though he was
very angry at it at first, as was the
case with many Others of the above
mentioned writers. Well, she is now
a grandmother, and we are told every
year that she is still conspicuous in
our hunting fields for her riding and
her figure. In one of those letters an
old English lady of eighty-five
said that she used to be contracted
into fifteen inches when she was
young, and, indeed, the compass
of their own span, or from fourteen
to fifteen inches, was often spoken
of, up to about forty years ago from
very early times, as the standard to
be aimed at by ladies, and frequently
reached, and occasionally even thir-
teen, but mOre in foreign countries
than this, though there was one;con-
fession of it in the book on figure
training. OF course / am not advo-
eating those extreme and foolish and
dangerous reductions, but only using
the fact that ladies lived long and in
good health under them to prove the
monstrous eXaggerations about the
danger of waists which contain twice
as much as those. You, at any rate,
will see at once that waist of twenty
inches contains twice as much as one
of fourteen, and eighteen nearly half
as much again as fifteen.
/ cannot imagine what books Lady
f. Harberton has been reading-or not
reading-to write such an amazing
thing as that twenty-eight inches is
the proper size for a wOman's waist,
when it is full size for a well-made
young man.
1t is just worth notice, on the reit-
Grated assertions about Greek laxity,
that the term "wasp-waisted," in sew
eral forms, is as old as Aristophanes.
And it is certain that the Romans Sc
verely laced and shoulder-strapped
their girls, and even starved them, if
necessary, to make them slender and
upright. "Suvenc@ ct graciles
ct sic amantur," Terrence says
and Maccauley, who had read
everything, said that the Ro-
man ladies did still worse things to
preserve their forms. Whatever are
the reasons for it, it is quite clear from
history that corsets and tight lacing
in one form or another have been the |
windmills of dress reforming Quixotes
for 1000 years at least. The wind has
sometimes lulled, and they had flat |
tered themselves that they had stopped |
the sails /; but it has always risen
again and knocked over the philoso- |
pliers, clerical, medical and general" |
and probably always will; SO they
may as well save their preaching for |