Morning journal and courier., 1886-11-24
OORSKTS AND BUSTLEs.
A Candid Discourse on Some of the
 FolIies of Fashion.

| GClara Belle in the Cincinnati Enquirer1 The slghtliest girl have seen in 8 month was one who played ring sticks, new out 1 door game, at fashionable country seat. The veranda was full of her friends, and so | of course she was trying to show of for all she was worth. Her poses and motions, as she tossed and caught the rings with the sticks, were bewitchingly graceful and she quite enraptured all spectators. She was instinct with life from her pretty head to her twinkling feet-save for 8 six-inch section at her waist. She had foolishly taken up the new and reprehensible whim of dispropor- tionately small waists, and her corset was so tight that I'll be bound she could have been cut in two by a surgeon without feel ing 1t any more than if she had been sat urated with cocaine at the point of dissec- tion. I am awful afraid the compressed waists are going to make hard winter for some of us. The same ridiculous tighten ing of corsets was visible in a few of the lawn-tennis and croquet players. I ask you to critically examine the pictures that I have put into this letter, and then make up your mind whether, in every case, the girl would not be more symmetrical and pretty with two or three inches more of belt measure.
 One of the effects of the fashion of long, small waists is evidenced by the changes which are being made in the shape of the corset, which is becoming longer, not only in the waists, but elso around the hips, which are completely incased, while long pointed extension, front and back, incloses the abdominal regions in wall of whale bone and cord stitched into the stuff of which the corset is made. This garment is exceedingly suggestive of the torture which must be endured by the wearer, but she is assured that ''it is constructed on a grace ful model for the present style of dress, the shape being permanently retained by 8 series of narrow whalebones placed diago- nally across the front, gradually curving in and contracting at the bottom of the busk, whereby the size of the figure is reduced, the outline is improved, permanent sup port afforded and fashionable, elegant appearance secured" Now none but 8 shapeless mass of fat ought ever be in duced to wear such a garment. Of course it is needed by self-indulgent, full-feeding, indolent women, whose favorite fashion journals abound with advertisements not only of ''corsets to give slender, grace ful figure to the wearer," but with reme- dies for obesity in the form of 'textracts and pills of sea wreck" Few American women need either English-shaped corsets or English anti-fat remedies. Long may they retain their independence in this and many other respects, but I am afraid they will not. Already equestriennes are seen with their forms forcibly compressed at the waist and in order to increase the effect of small girth there, built out at higher point. It is believed that women who will wear an 'improver" with their riding habits are ca pablo of rouging the Venus di Milo.
 The human form divine ought to rebel at this insult to it's symmetrical lines, which ordinarily show to great advantage on horse back. At any rate a thoroughbred steed would be justified in throwing it's rider when she wears bustle The figure can be kept graceful and upright by the proper exercise, diet and general mode of life suitable to the age of child. How many naturally finely formed young women are disfgured by stoop- ing shoulders, a hollow chest and a slouch- ing gait, and now comes distortion too.