Mexico weekly ledger., 1886-07-08
THE LEDGER
THURSDAY, july 5, 1886.
Our Girls Danger.

our GirFs Danger.
What kind of material for good
Christian wives and mothers have we
among girls brought up in fashion
able idleness, unaccustomed even to
active housework, or any form of
useful labor, and who live most of
the time in shaded rooms, and there
fore have little chance for physical
development, and who, before their i
physical bodies are fully developed,
are subjected to stays, corsets, lac
ings and tight dresses, till the most
horrible deformity results, and the
very existence of our race is threat
ened; unaccustomed to labor, to sun
light, imperfectly developed, with
the most fearfulIy deformed waist,
with laboring heart and lungs, and
with the abdominal organs crowded
down on the reproductive organs,
causing the most troublesome and
serious displacements and diseases,
what chance have such girls to be-
come competent wives and mothers!
A sensible man looks with pain
and unspeakable sadness on small
waist. The man who will tell wo-
man he is pleased with her deformed
waist, will do to stand by the side OF
the woman who will, from similar
motives, tell q man she is delighted
with the smoke from good cigar,
and with the smell of good tobacco ;
the intelligent, sensible woman looks
beyond the present, and abhors the
smoke from such a poisonous weed
How can woman who is worthy te
be the wife of a good man tell any
man she is delighted with the smoke
and smell of tobacco, and thus en-
courage him to spend his strength
health and money in lndulging IN
habit which stands next to using in
toxicating drinks?
In our estimation, the prevalen
custom of allowing girls to grow VI
in fashionable idleness, and oftel
not even requiring them to assist il
housework, and Upthers often max
ing slaves of themselves by doins
that which it is SO necessary tn
daughters should do, in order tina
they may become well developed an
healthy, are potent in preventing tn
development and impairing tn
health of our girls.
1 am earnest in my assertion tina
tight dressing is the chief caus
which is so rapidly destroying tn
native American woman's ability t
nurse her children. "My daughte
does not dress too tightly exclain
the mother, s' it is her natural form
you see" Natural, indeed! If s
it is inherited from the perverte
form of the mother-the deformit
of the parent visited on the daughte
1t is manifest to every careful oil
server that our native women, as
rule, are not proportionally as we
developed as the men. 1t is, ther
fore, certain that they are violatir
the laws of physical development al
health to far greater extent tn:
the men. And the misfortune is tn
such violations affect the unborn
both sexes the infant and the litt
boys and girls, and the older gir
as well as the adult women.
many parts of the country The ladi
are striving nobly and we'll to he
the men in enacting laws to preye
the manufacture and sale of into.
eating drinks. Cannot the gentlem
reciprocate their kindness by strivi
to pass laws to prevent the public
ton and sale of the fashion plat
which contain such miserable carit
lures of the female form, and viii
enter our homes but to pervert a
destroy our young girls? We C
hardly realize the injury these pu
lications are doing.