The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-08-07
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WHY NECKS ARE BONY.
AMERICAN GIRLS NECKS NOT As
PLUMP AS THEY SHOULD BE.

Why the Corset Is to Blame for Many
Irregularities in the Forms of Hand
some Women-How Many Deformities
May BE Corrected by Vigilance.
How many American girls do you know
with a well poised head supported by a
graceful neck rising from straight, well set
shoulders? How many have arms of which
it can by any stretch of the imagination be
said, as Heine wrote of the arms of Grisi,
''They are those the Venus de Milo has
lost?" How many have not those horrible
hollows on either side Of the throat, known
for some mysterious reason as salt cei-
lars" instead of kissing dimples? What
IS the reason of it ALL and what are we 60
ing to do about it?
One must be forgiven for a repetition of
ancient history, but it cannot be denied
that the corset is responsible for much that
is disappointing in the beauty Of the
American throat and shoulders. A west
ern physician, who has been devoting the
past fifteen years to the study of the hu.
man figure, AYERS as the result of his in
vestigations among different n. naliti
that the American girl is deformed an
mas waist all out of proportion to her
body.
The average waist measure is 80 per cent.
of the height of the figure, while the waist
of the immortal Venus is IL per cent. of
her stature. But the fragile American
woman wears a girdle that is only "A per
cent. of her height. 1t isn't romantic, but it
IS true to say that woman's liver is larger
than mans, though her heart is smaller,
and she is more disastrouSly affected by
pressure about the waist than q man would
be- The compressed liver is the secret of
many a bad complexion, but Of course has
nothing to do with the hoIlows IN the
neck.
The cage with which provideut nature
has inclosed ones vital organs IS an OBJ
stinate and aggressive piece of mechanism.
You press 1t IN about the waist and it is
bound to throw itself out somewhere, and,
just to be aggravating, chooses that some
where in the most undesirable place. But
that isn't the worst of it.
Take a young girl in the transition
period, wl-en from rapid growth all her
organs are easily disturbed and indolently
inclined, and do her up in a corset, and the
poise of the body, which is as delicate as it
Is beautiful, is destroyed about the waist
The body doesn't hold itself up at all, but
depends entirely upon the steel support,
and leans this this way or that, as the cor
set allows.
That throws the head out Of poise, too,
and lets it fall too far forward on the spine,
because it seems easier to support itself
there; and so the different processes crys-
talIize into womanhood, all out Of trim
and just as they happen to feel inclined,
and that is the chief reason that artists
!
good back and shoulders, or if they have
those they develop an awkward angle at
the neck by carrying the head too far for
ward, or have prominent shoulder blades,
or a trick of carrying one side of the figure
in advance Of the other.
Corsets are not so detrimental to the
fully developed woman as the ranters try
to establish, and woman dressed in any
thing but a Mother Hubbard wrapper is
more comfortable with them than without
them. If mothers would insist on dressing
their daughters in the loose, comfortable
frocks worn by children, and never intro
dUce them to cOrsets until they were eight
cen years years old, there would be more
Threats that didn't need covering like that
of beautiful Queen Louise, whose pictures
are always taken with a scarf across the
neck.
Another thing that mothers could do to
insure the beauty of the coming woman is
10 feed her well, for just at the time when
d girl needs most nOurishin food she is
apt to cultivate morbid e for sweet
meats and pickles, and few mothers appre-
Ciate that the diet of such girl ne,sls
quite as much supervision as that of a
teething baby.
And, finally, taking a lesson from the
1.-THE, straight peasant maiden, with the
beautifully poised, graceful neck, who
spends her life carrying burdens on her
head, let the slight, STOPPING girl walk for
ten, twenty or even thirty minutes a day
with an ever increasing weight upon her
head, until the lazy muscles of the throat,
through exercise, become firm, and uncon-
sciously hold the burden Of the head stead
lily and proudly in place.
There Is, Of course, no necessity of add
ing that light gymuastic exercises of vari-
Gus kinds, and particularly outdoors, are
more desirable than any of the patent
braces, which are as cruel TO wear as they
are Intellectual in result. But there are
plenty of women who were girls quite a
time ago that are still obliged, through
conventionality, TO uncover a neck and
shoulders of which a cold and cruel world
makes uu6iud criticism.
Your efforts are not so certain of success
as they would have been twenty years ago,
but it's worth trying now TO fill the hollow
with firm flesh.
In the first place, don't take off your
corsets, but loosen them. OF course We
understand they are not tiEht now. and
YOU could turn around in them without
christening their clasps, but unite the
laces and let your long, deep inhalations
TX their size for a little while
Every night and every morning throw
your hands back until they strike behind
you, st first ten, then twenty nifty, and a
hundred times.
w. I your chest held high and your eyes
on tbs frieze of the room. take twenty full
breaths, inhaled slowly and exhaled for
cibly.
Turn your head slowly around on the
trunk one way until you see a few constel-
latioas, and then give 1t few turns the
other way, all very slowly and carefully,
and only few times in the beginning. You
have heard all this before. but have Won
tried 1t: And if You did try it, how many
nights in the week did you forget II, and
how many mornings We're You too late 70
spend time2 And how much over month
did You Persevere in your etTorts2
And while YOU are working thus about
your neck your arms VIII have been grow
Ing plumpcr and fuller all the time above
the elbows, and If You take a pair Of dumb
bells and turn them sharply and vigorous
~ IN your hands the hands down at the
sides, eight times. the hands stretched 0ut