Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1882-12-19
Ant,-Corset Philosophy and History

Anti.GOTset fhisOsOphy and History.
From Knowledge
One poison is no rule for another in such mat
tiers. The letters In The English Nechanic and
little book full of Others selected from now
extinct periodical which l met with about ten
years ago. called Figure Training. and others
subsequently, in the same magazine, amply
prove that The great majority of the writer's
may say all who wrote from their OWN expert
ence-sad they had found the tightest acing
they could bear, especially in stays quite stiff in
front. both peasant and beneficial and among
them was a surgeon. Some. however, find it
eXpedent to remain under contraction only
few hours in the morning. and the surgeon dis
carded his stays when taking strong exercise
which seems natural; but others lace tightest
for riding. and ladies mostly in the evening and
some enjoy and recommend confinement I'm STAYS
all night alsO-an old practise 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 aud walk much longer in
them than without. and that their health re-
lapsed whenever they gave it up. Many had
begun it under some kind of colnpulsion but
had soon come to like it. even after severe treat
ment at first. AS said before the philosophers
got much the worst of it in NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS..
My philosophy about it is that all those state
ments of personal experience. with their varia-
lions in detail. are worth infinitely more for
practical purposes than all the talk about lungs
and daphragmS and capacity OF chests (Which
vary great deal naturally. nature and anato-
my, Greek women in flesh and marble and the
unquestioned bad effect of unduly tight lacing,
which proves nothing but itself. Such multi
tu1e Of persons of all ages and kinds cannot pos
sibiy be either mistaken OF lying about the tact
of their own good health, or that of their chill
dren. pupils, sch0olfell0ws sisters. mothers and
friends, notwithstanding. or in consequence Of
their having been contracted into the smallest
circumference they could bear for many years of
their ives 1t is very easy TO be mistaken in
attributing either good or bad health to par
ticular cause, but the fact of it cannot be doubt
ful. AND that. with sundry medical letters such
as 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 face of manifest
warnings that they We're iniuring their health,
and of course did so.
l remember reading years ago. in an extract
from some medical newspaper. think that the
Empress of Austria was killing herself with
tight-lacing for she happened to be ILL., and was
famous for the slnallness of her waist-which
seems to be specially cultivated 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 Ut IL at UrSt, as was the case
with many others Of the aforementioned writ
ers. Well, she is now grandmother and we
are told every year that she is still conspicuous
in our hunting fields for her riding and her fig
ure. In one of those letters an old lady of eighty
five said that she used to be contracted into is
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 aro from very early times as
the standard to be aimed at 10y ladies. and fire.
quently reached. and occasionally even thirteen
but more IN foreign countries than this. though
there was one confession of it in the book on
fSure-training. OF course am not advocating
those extreme and foolish and dangerous re-
auctions, but only using the fact that ladies
lived long and in good health under them to
prove the m0HstrOus eXaggerations about the
danger OF waists which contain twice as much
as those You, at any rate. will see at once
that a 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 adv F. Harber-
ton has been reading-or not rcadny-to write
such amazing things as that tHent y-eght inches
Is the proper size for young woman's waist
when it is a full size for wel-made young
man.
1t Is Just worth notice on the reiterated as
sertiOns about Greek laxity that the term
"wasp-waisted, in several forms. is as old as
AristOphanes Andit is certain that the Romans
severely laced and shOulder-strappsd their girls
and even starved them. if necessary to make
them slender and upright "Juvenca ct grac-
les ct sic amantur." Terrence says: and Maccau-
ley. who had read everything. said that the
Roman ladies did still worse things to preserve
their forms. Whatever are the reasons for it.
1t is quite clear from history that corsets and
tight-lacing in one form or another have been
the wlnumills of dress-refOrming Quxotes for
LOCO years at least. The wind has sometimes
lulled, and they have fiattered themselves that
they had stopped the sails but 1t has always risen
again and Knocked over the philosophers, ''cleri-
cal. medical and general" and probably always
will; so they may as well save their preaching
for something more amenabe, or at any rate
preach more nationally than they do.
The Ufune.Kiln Clnh