The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1889-09-20
C0RSETS ARE CURSES.
SOMETHING CONCERNING HOW AND
WHEN THEY ORIGINATED.

2
Few Points Also About Foot Gear.
The small accessories Of toilets, wheth-
er they be necessities or only pretty adj
/ 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. Abortion for
the human form has covered the feet
bedecked the hands with jcwelci trifies,
/ 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 dc Milo writer's 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 a tendency to corpu-
Iency, and we're rs 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-thc stro-
phiua, a bandage wound round the bust;
a iona, or the waist belt, and the tenta
wound round and round below the waist
Nor were the bandages worn alone for
| composing undue rotundity Of form
| They were made wider and longer and
wrapped in large folds about slight fig
ures to give them the grace of IN
dulating lines. From the latter use. more
than the former, has descended the repre-
hensible habit of lacing, the cause Of the
| outcry against the stiff, whaleboned cor
set of today.
In the ancient days a very thin, slender
figure attained to a much admired posi-
ton by being EMBODIED III a large and
voluminous strophium and tenta, and
using only one thickness Of bandage as
| the IONA, producing the first effect of an
unnatuallv 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 a partridge, the conslom-
Grafton being highly scented, was deemed
the most productive Of the desired en-
bonpoint But great care was taken that
not a drop should fall on the body near
the waist; in fact, while going through
/
day and night.
Since the days of incense burning in the
temples, a 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 aromaties and
Of carrying about richly wrought fiaeons
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 a costly hacon, rich with chasings or
carvings, filigree work or enamel Of
fragile Venetian glass or Of metal thick
" 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 bs Euro
peans, although as carly is the Four
teenth century the Yenetians competed
with the dwellers 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 silyersmiths have only to copy
the relics Of other days preserved in
families aud museums, the demand be-
ing only for antiques, and the supply is
largely of limitations Some beautiful
patterns are devised in the form OF the
most grotesque of COLLINS and dragons,
wrought cut in gold and precious stones.
Others are chased with scrolls and sur
mounted with coroncts and coats of
arms, suggesting German Workmanship;
others are carved Of wood or some one of
the semi-precious stones, as the onyx,
the bloodstone, the carnelian and the
like. These usually have d base or cup
of gold or silver filigise work, and are
usually of French manufacture, although
the carvings may be brought from India,
Switzerland and Italy; Yet another is OF
silver iniaid with arabesques of gold. and
is evidently Moorish
Who would suppose that the common
use of shoes and all kinds Of foot cover
ings was of a much later date than tho
carrying of scent bottles? No one, am
sure; and yet the people Of certain Eu-
pean countries, long after they had
learned to clothe their bodies in an elab-
crate and costly fashion, were in the
habit Of going barefooted." This was
the custom even so late as the Sixteenth
century, and in the Fourteenth warriors
equipped III full arnaor rode about with
out any covering Oh either feet or legs
below the knees. This would seem still
more strange than it does did one not
recolIect that even in this enlightened
day the Scots, who would seorn any sug-
gestion of barbarisni. Sill. cling to their
national dress, which leaves knees wholly
uncovered, despite the cold climate The
earliest records bear witness, however,
that Moses and Aaron were commanded
to take the shoes from of their feet be-
fore entering the temple, and in Egypt
at that time the rich and great wore san
dal5 incrusted with precious stones, Of
which the soles were made Of gold On
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