, 1889-07-20
CORSETS ARE CURSES.
SOMETHING CONCERNING HOW AND
WHEN THEY ORIGINATED.

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 t~rifles,
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 50 much discussed at
this time as the corset; in truth, there is
an absolute wal over it.
To MAKE THEM
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 mead of remedies against
love They were an undoubted 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
AAhoh h11 ~ W ANoCAh ~ rd1A AlthAAh
'to compress his swelling figure" The
bands were three In number-the stro-
phium, a bandage wound round the bust;
a IONA, or the waist belt, and the tenta,
wound round and round below the waist.
MOI were the bandages worn alone for
COMPRISING undue ~rotundity of form.
They were made wider and longer and
wrapped in large folds about slight fig
aNraa - -awa IT,. a.
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 in a large and
yoluminous strophium and tenta, and
using only one thickness of bandage as
the IONA, producing the first effect OF an
unnaturally small waist. When this did
not prove ffectual 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 n partridge, the conglom-
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
the attening process the IONA was worn
day and night.
Since the days of incense burning in the
temples, a record of which Is found in
the books of Moses, ave 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 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
uque silver v~inaigrette suspended from
her chatelaine or carries her scent about
in n costly %tiacon, rich with chasings or
carvings, fligree work or 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 theslenetians competed
with the dwellers in tho 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 in
families and 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 out in gold and precious stones.
Others are chased with scrolls and sur
mounted with coronets 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 nave a base or cup
OF gold or silver filigree work, and are
usually of French manufacture, although
the carvings may be brought from India,
Switzerland and Italy, yet another is OF
silver inlaid 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 the
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 in full armor rode about with
out any covering on either feet or legs
below the knees This would seem still
more strange than it does did one not
~recollect that even In this enlightened
day the Scots, who would scorn any sug-
gestion of barbarism, still 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
dals incrusted with precious stones, Of
which the soles were made of gold. On
the bottom was engraved the names of
such people as had been conquered by