The Wilmingtonian., 1885-06-13
Tight Lactng

Unfol tunately, in spite OF common sense
this abominable fashion seems to be coming |
in again. Women have been told over and |
over again that it makes them red-nosed, |
muddy-skinned and dyspeptic. 1t ruins
their temper and their intellects. Most |
women are nsulted when told that they
are inferior to men in intellect. Yet it is a
fact and always will be, that women who
lace themselves in at the waist can never
accomplish any good intellectual work.
How, for instance, could Henry Ward
Beecher deliver one of his eloquent, thrill
ing sermons with his his lungs and stomach
squeezed till it made his head swim and his
eyes fairly pop out of his head. That is
absolutely the case with numbers Of we'll
dressed women whom one sees in New
York streets For your life you cannot
resist the thought that if one of them should
drop her handkerchief and attempt to stoop
over and pick it up, something would burst
and there would be loud report or explo-
sion, a collapse ami flying of fragments of
corset steels and laces in the air. The
women are squeezed in so stiff and tight
that it is with difficulty they are able to go
up or down a flight of steps. We have seen
them wriggle sideNay and twist them
selves this way and that in endeavoring to
sit down in street car.
To use ones brain, large amount of
blood must flow to the head. The bright
red life giving fluid must circulate freely
through the trunk, aud carry power and
food up to the brain cells i'll a great, mag
netic stream. How can it do so when the
large arteries are squeezed to a third of
their diameter II George Pilot had drawn
her corset strings as tight as those of New
York belle, "Middie" would never have
been written. You can set that down. Do
you think Joan of Arc ever wore corset Z
There is Rosa Bonheur, the lion painter,
the only woman who ever lived that proved
heresrlf the equal of the best man in hei
field of art. Fancy, now, Rosa Borheur in
the iron grip of a numbering corset, starving
and poisoning her splendid brain, for tht
sake of having an IS-inch waist. What al
idiot she would be, to be sure II she haC
been such an idiot, depend on it, there woult
have been no magnificent animal paintings
. 1t would have been as impossible as getting
. blood from turnip. George Sands woulC
not be trammeled by her clothes and 81
France had the greatest woman of her time
To do intellectual work one must not fee
+, his clothes. One woman we call to mine
a is a shining illustration of the truth of this
She has large fine brain, noble physique
n by nature. In intellectual and bodil
strength and endurance few men coult
y excel her at her best. She could accomplish
anything she wished if she wnuld set lie
head to it. Yet, of all women she was mos
{ miserable. Unhappy uncomfortable, give,
q q 20 long black fits Of gloom and "blues," lif
!, is burden to her, and occasionally TO tlos
,e around her, because OF her. She is stou
Il woman, and in order to conceal this sh
4 laces herself to a degree which i! makes on
n shudder to contemplate. She has no healt
;. no serenity of soul. She accomplishe
nothing in mental work. Andno one dare
If to say to her, "You are running yoursel
re- soul and body, by tight lacing." That
I the cause of her misery, and nothing else.
I So when we tell you that tight lacing
~ coming in fashion again, don't follow
= That is, unless health, comfort, happine
,f aud ability to use your intellectual faculti
o weigh less in the balance than and IS-inC
,r waist.