The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-12-14
DIMENSIONS OF GIRLS.
Physical Construction of 100
Young Ladies Analysed.
THE TAPELINE AT WELLESLEY.
Interesting Facts About Waist Measure
ments and Arched Insteps- -Stand-
ard OF womanly Beauty.
New York Times.


Hill and Miss Anna Wood. the director
and examiner, respectively, of the Welles-
ley college gymnasium, many curious facts
are discoverable. The carefully prepared
chart shows the physical construction
with the lung capacity of LOO women of
from somewhat over Is to 81 years of age.
For facility in computation, measures of
weight and bulk are presented both in
millimeters and Kilograms, and in inches
and pounds, the French scale, however,
permitting of greater minuteness.
Iaking. then, these / 100 students, the
shortest being 56.3 inches, the tallest 67.7
inches, the heaviest young woman was the
Oldest and weighed 1925 pounds. The
average of weight was 1875, the highest be-
ing 1865 pounds. The average height was
o. inches. In sitting the proportions of
height do not necessarily follow. A girl
OF Is years and 10 months, 1913 in height,
when seated, measured 81 inches, while
the tallest person, of ST., when seated
measured 34.4, and two others. of 66.9 and
67.3 inches, would, when seated, measure
also 34.4. The general average when seated
was 80 inches.
From the foot to the knee the proper
ton appears to hold closer, when height
is considered, the measure of the shortest
being 14.9 and Of the tallest Ill inches, so
that from foot to knee the length would
be close to one-fourth of the whole height.
The average was l6.5 for height Of knee;
Girth of head average Els, with that Of
neck II. Variations here were marked,
the circumference of neck not following
the proportion of average heights. Cues
tons Of antropometrical waist measure
show that normally the differences are
not great. Slim, wasp-like waists are the
result of false and injurious mechanical
devices.
81 cannot" said q well-known Ameri-
can artist, whose fame is European, 'sem-
ploy slim-waisted woman as q model
1t is never natural, but has been made.
Then what follows? Unnatural exagger-
ations in other parts of her body, which
make her hideous aud impossible to draw.
She is entirely wanting in symmetry.
Hips are deformed and legs thick, and she
is without grace. Unless she adopts
bantingism all her proportions are lost"
Waist measurements of the slimmest,
according to these tables, were 1871, and
the fullest were 25.2. The women, 663,
$50, 67.3 and 67.7 inches in height, all had
the same waist-252. The average was
24.2. This measurement may be correct
for American women, but it is tribe too
little and below that of European women.
A Dutch squat figure inclines to a thick
waist, and may to some be considered with
out beauty, but in physiological sense it
has its great advantages. Difference of
climates and food may in a measure have
brought about in the United States these
changes. Students of comparative anat-
omy declare, however, that no mechanical
processes should disturb nature when she
builds up the human form.
Indian mothers have no babies born
with depressed crania, though for ages
children's heads, as among the Flathead
tribes, have been artihcially nodded.
calves of legs differ, the right calf being
more developed in women than the left by
o. Where the right calf was 1872 the left
calf was 10. Small or thick ankles vary
from 7.6 to S.4 inches for the right ankle,
and rs to S.3 for the left ankle. The gen.
eral average is eight for the right and 7.9
for the left. 1t all depends on height-and
height normally means bulk. So how
could rs ankle be discoverable when a
woman is five feet eight inches in height
1t is asking too much. That wonderful
mechanism of the ankle does not increase
notably in bulk or size with work. The
development of the dansuese is in the
calf of the leg, the thigh and the
sinews. The foot of the dansuese rarely or
ever is a neat one any more than is the fist
of the pugilist pretty one: but neither
does the form of the ankle in the premiere
fgurante or the wrist of the prizefghter
lose its fineness.
Insteps, arched or not arched occupy the
attention of those who look for beauty in
the female foot. That arch belongs to race.
Though Spanish gypsy girl has trodden
the ground shoeless, her heel and toe seem
to spurn the soil, and there is space under
her foot. my girl has such fine foot that
she will walk over my gun-barrel," says a
Spanish smuggler, ''and never touch it. u
But anthropometric measurements do not
give the poetic foot, only girth, and so
we have an average of s.4 for the right in
steps and So for the left. Wrists will vary
in girth from Sc to 81 for the right-hand
one, with about an OIL inch less for the left,
the two averages being So and 81 inches.
When we come to the depth of chest
this is a serious question, for lungs have
to do with it, How can a man or woman
breathe easily, oxygenate all the blood.
urements follow very generally heights
and weights. From 6.3 it is at its max
imum with 81, and the average depth is
SIS. Seven inches through seem little
enough for all the work the chest has to
do. Depths of heads in women we know
little about. because of the methods OF
wearing hair, and even woman, when
cropped, conceals her tonsure by artificial
means. Depths of head is then only an
anthropometrical curiosity, and has moth
ing TO do with brains. Young women
then, with heads 81 inches thick, or So
the average, being 5.7-an possess an
average amount of ability, and somehow
according TO received aesthetic ideas of the
Rosetti school, bow-window heads OF
rotunda heads are not considered mice y
Hence banging the hair.
Here are feet again. What was
the size of Cinderella's last? II
that Spanish gentleman drank a toast in
the slipper of his beloved mistress, what
was the liquid contents of that pantoude
sented at the Wellesley college, is the same
whether for the right or left, and measures
81 inches. 1t follows, as it naturally
should, height and weight. from SIS to 9.C
inches Why should we expect 1872.
pounds to stand on the same pedestal as
does 1904. A woman on stills would be as
useless creature as is one of the emperor
of China's spouses.
What is the measure of a woman's arms
when outtsretched? Fifty-nine inches foI
height of 5s.3 is curious, because it repre-
sents seyen-tenths OF an inch more than
the stature of the woman. The tallest
woman being 675 inches, from tip TO tip OF
fingers, the measure was 6S.S inches The
average is ca.
Lung capacity deserves especial study,
chest depth having been tabulated. The
anthropometrists here must have taken an
endless amount of pains and trouble but