Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1889-08-29
.CORSETS ARE CURSES.
SOMETHING CONCERNING HOW AND
WHEN THEY ORIGINATED.

rev fotntn Also Aoout HooS 0eAfs
The small accessories of toilets. wheth-
er they be necessities or only pretty ad-
juncts, 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 triAes,
and incased the body feminine in stiff
whalebones until il 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 Ia
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 bdilded 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 we're an undoutted out
growth from the bandages worn by the
Greeks to restrain a 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
"to compress his swelling figure" The
bands were three in number-the stro-
phium, a bandage wound round the bust;
q zona, or the waist belt, and the tenta,
wound round and round below the waist.
Nor were the bandages worn alone for
COMPRISING undue rotundity ef form.
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-
hensible habit of lacing, thI cause of the
outcry against the stiff, whaleboned cor
set Of today.
In the ancient days a very thin, slender
figure attained to much admired posi-
tion by being EMBODIED in u large and
voluminous strophium and tenta, and
using only one thickness of handage as
the zona, producing the first effect of an
unnaturally small waist. When this did
not prove effactual 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 a partridge, the conglom-
GRAFTON 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. wf I
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 the art of
making them, of burning aromatics and
of carrying about richly wrought facons
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 tiacon, rich with chasings or
carvings, tiligree work OF enamel of
fragile Venetian glass, or of metal thick
ly studded with jewels, and none of a
greater size than can be readily carried
in the hand, which fashion Queen Eliza
beth instituted in carrying about her
pomander. BY the way, it was in her
reign that perfumes and scents began to
be manufactured generally by Euro
peans, although as early as the Four
teenth century the Venetians competed
3 with the dwelers in the far east in the
manufacture of sweet odors.
Ingenuity today is not taxed to furnish
fresh designs for scent bottles, as the
gold and silversmiths have only to copy
the relics of other days preserved ii
families and museums, the demand be
] ing only for antiques, and the supply il
largely of limitations. Some beautiful
patterns are devised in the form of the
, most grotesque of goblins and dragons
wrought out in gold and precious stones
Others are chased with scrolls and sur
| mounted with coronets and coats o
arms, suggesting German workmanship
others are carved of wood or some one o
: the semi-precious stones, as the onyx
the bloodstone. the carnelian and tn
like. These usually have a base or GU
Il of gold or silver filigree work, and ar
y usually of French manufacture, although
the carvings may be brought from India
Switzerland and Italy; yet another is o
silver inlaid with arabesques Of gold, an
is evidently Moorish.
Who would suppose that the common
use of shoes and all kinds of foot cover
ings was of much later date than tn
carrying of scent bottles? No one, l. ar
sure; and yet the people of certain Er
pean countries, long after they ha
learned to clothe their bodies in an elat
crate and costly fashion, were in th
habit Of "going barefooted." This wa
s the custom even so late as the Sixteent
a century, and in the Fourteenth warrior
equipped in full armor rode about will
out any covering on either feet or les
below the7sknees. This would seem sti
more strange than it does did one NJ
K recollect that even in this enlightene
t day. the Scots, who would scorn any SUI
! gestion of barbarism, still cling to the
national dress, which leaves knees who'll
uncovered, despite the cold climate. II
earliest records bear witness, howeve
that Moses and Aaron were commando
!" to take the.shoes from off their feet b