Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-05-19

corset question has been discussed ovel
and over again since the days when tbeir
wearers called them ''stays," and wore
something like small ironing-board in
them, which they called a ''busk"
Specimens of these in struments OF torture
are still to be found in old garrets in coun-
try houses; but corset of the present gen.
GRAFTON need not be an unhealthy or IN.
comfortable thing. 1t generally is, though
The inch or two that it should have at the
belt, and the inch or two that should be cut
off of the length, convert it into the cause
of misery and disease.
A very neat and useful thing corset
might be, and is, when worn short, not toe
tight, and is made with a few flexible
whalebones. No observer knows the differ
ence; and the wearer can stoop, rechne,
button her own shoes, and pick up any
thing she happens to drop (and gallantry
being on the decrease, this is a great point) ;
yet she will exist in a state of agony, long
ing for the time when she may ''get that
tight thing off, simply that any one with a
tape measure at hand could declare that she
was twenty two inches around the waist
instead of twenty-four. She will wear
skirts that weigh enough to make walkin g
misery, because a dress-maker tells her
she must, when a skirt might be an actual
feather weight and have precisely the same
effect. That is psint for which-Heaven
knows why-any one who is not her own
dress-maker has TO contest tercely.
The heavy skirt is not desired by any one.
Every woman must be conscious that II
hurts her, that she can not walk gracefully
in it, anu now and then, in its last days, she
Divers it of superiority of drapery and
lining, and finds, to her surprise, that it
looks much prettier.
Cloth is actually too heavy for WON.
ans dress. The tailor-made girl, or her
mother pay in the small coin of petty tort
ures for their superior elegance; but they
are comfortable in comparison with the
victim of an unskined and vulgar dress
maker, who festoons about the hips Of her
customers great masses of cloth, as though
they were lambreQuins for window, or
those decorations which we see on pub
&c buildings when great man dies.
"How happy one feels in a tea gown"
heard a lady say the other day; and when is
is SO easy, why not be happy always'
A matron looks better in a tea gown than
in any thing else she wears; and youth and
beauty who venture on the aesthetic on
festive occasions are both charming and
COUlOrtaOte- CT the very women VINO
would be relieved of many aches and pains
by the general adoption of beautiful COS
tunes which suit the personality, the taste
and the physical needs of the wearer, sneer
at and profess themselves shocked by
''these aesthetic people" who will, how
ever, have their way at last, fancy, be-
cause they have common sense on their
side.
Then, too, science is having much more 70
do with our lives in every direction than i,
used to have: and Ssthetics-which, as we
all know, Is the science Of taste''-nuss
assuredly have its place According &c
present ideas, the most.elSgant lady is the
one whom you can not tell, with her back
to you, from the thing of wood and metal
called IN uodistes' establishments "ths
FORM" if they do but wear the same clothes.
1t Is not original 70 refer any one to the
Venus OF Milo as what a woman ought TO be,
and therefore l viii only mention that she
could wear sn aesthetic dress, and so could
any other antique female statue, and come
TO life in It Ia Galsses very gracefully
y, Y. Ledger.