Arizona weekly enterprise., 1889-08-31
CORSETS ARE CURSA
SOMETHING cONcERNiNG HOW A
 WHEN THEY ORIGINATED.
Ovid Puts Them at the Head of Remedies Against Love-Oils and Unguents in De- velopIns the Human Form Divine-A Few Points Also About Foot Gear.

Against Love-Oils and Unguents in De-
 velopIns the Human Form Divine-A
 Few Points Also About Foot Gear.
 The small accessories of toilets, wheth- CT they be necessities or only pretty ad- iuncts, have made industries which have employed many people in their manu- facture, and have added largely to the growth of that passion for dress which | has, in different centuries, broken out in | both man and woman. Alteration for the human form has covered the feet | bedecked the hands with jeweled trif1es, and incased the body feminine in stiff whalebones until it has become of differ ent shape than nature intended. No art icle of apparel is so much discussed at this time as the corset; in truth, there IS an absolute war over it.
 TO MAKE THEM GRACEFUL
 Still, this same corset has held sway long and firmly. Even in the days when the Greek sculptors builded their ideal of beauty on the Venus de Milo writers in- weighed against large waists, Ovid put ting them at the head of remedies against love. They were an undoubted out growth from the bandages worn by the Greeks to restrain tendency to corpu- lency, and were as much used by men as by women, if we are to believe Aristo- phanes. History also relates that Marc Antony had need to resort to such means ito compress his swelling figure" The bands were three in number-the stro- phium, a bandage wound round the bust; a zona, or the waist belt, and the tenta, wound round and round below the waist. | Nor were the bandages worn alone for compressing undue rotundity of for1a They were made wider and longer and wrapped in large folds about slight fig ures to give them the grace of un- dulating lines. From the latter use, more than the former, has descended the repre- hensble habit of facing, the cause of the outcry against the stiff, whaleboned cor set of today.
 In the ancient days very thin, slender figure attained to Q much admired posi- tion by being enfolded in a large and
 voluminous strophium and tenta, and using only one thickness of bandage as the zona, producing the first effect of an
 unnaturally small waist. When this did
 not prove effectual in disgusting the lack
 of cushioning to their bones they resorted
 to oils and unguents for bathing the
 body; goose fat mixed with warm milk
 and the egg of partridge, the congloln-
 eration being highly scented, was deemed
 the most productive of the desired en-
 bonpoint. But great care was taken that
 not drop should fall on the body near
 the waist; in fact, while going through
 the fattening process the zona was worn
 day and night
 Since the days of incense burning in the
 temples, record of which is found in
 the books of Moses, have perfumes been
 used, and from the Egyptians, through
 the Jewish people, has passed tkc at
 making them, of burning aromatics and
 of carrying about richly wrought flacons
 of scent which have sometimes been
 made in the form of smelling bottles and
 again as perfume sprinklers. The fash
 ionable woman of today wears her an tique silver vinaigrette suspended from
 her chatelaine or carries her scent about in costly hacon, rich with chasings ol carvings, filigree work or enamel o fragile Venetian glass, or of metal thick ly studded with jewels, and none of ; greater size than can be readily carried , in the hand, which fashion Queen Eliza beth instituted in carrying about he
 pomander. By the way, it was in he reign that perfumes and scents began t be manufactured generally by Euro 2 peans, although as early as the Four z teenth century the Venetians compete'
 with tho dwellers in the far east in tn , manufacture of sweet odors
 !, Ingenuity today is not taxed to furnis fresh designs for scent bottles, as tn | gold and silversmiths have only to cop . the relics of other days preserved i s families and museums, the demand be t ing only for antiques, and the supply = largely of limitations. Some beautifl = patterns are devised in the form of tn f. most grotesque of goblins and dragons :, wrought out in gold and precious stone = Others are chased with scrolls and su
 mounted with coronets and coats arms, suggesting German workmanship }. others are carved of wood or some one = the semi-precious stones, as the ony. T the bloodstone, the carnelian and u
 like. These usually have a base or cr .o of gold or silver fligree work, and a -, usually of French manufacture, althouG # the carvings may be brought from lndi F. Switzerland and Italy; yet another is ,t silver inlaid with arabesques of gold, al 1f is evidently Moorish.
 ,o Who would suppose that the commc to use of shoes and all kinds of foot cove ,0 ings was of much later date than t lI carrying of scent bottles? No one, 1 a o sure; and yet the people of certain E m pean countries, long after they h ,tr learned to clothe their bodies in an ela o0 crate and costly fashion, were ill t ,o, habit of ''going barefooted." This W er the custom even so late as the Sixteen nd century, and in the Fourteenth warric IT, equipped in full armor rode about wit At out any covering on either feet or le bo below the knees. This would seem st of more strange than it does did one I ,or recollect that even in this enlighter ba day the Scots, who would scorn any sl ar eestion of barbarism, still cling to tn ar national dress, which leaves knees who is uncovered, despite the cold climate. , a earliest records bear witness, howev tlv that Moses and Aaron were command ,cs to take the shoes from off their feet IFS fore entering the temple, and in Egg.
 tt that time the rich and great wore s
 daIs incrusted with precious stones Co., which the soles were made of gold. ho, the bottom was engraved the names 5ht such people as had been conquered im- the owners, if they happened to be ar the conquering sex. Sandals with poi one elongated and turned up were the em elusive nronertv of royaIty.-Chic
 Herald
 Make not your sauce till you have cal out your fish.
 He lasts enough whose wife scolds at 1; he ner time.