The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-06-17
An Evil.
BY MRS. J. J. ANSLEY.

An Evil.
BY MRS. J. J. ANSLEY.
The slavish obeisance which many
otherwise sensible women make to the
barbarous dictates of fashion is a
shame upon q Christian civilization.
They present their bodies a hv!ng
sacrifice to the Mede and Persian
law, and deem 1t reasonable SER
vice.
A young lady said not long since,
at is the fashion to have slender
forms, so all of the girls are lacing."
She also told of a girl in Christian
institution of learning, who slept
with her body compressed in order TO
mould it to the fashion, and at the
same time had created an ulcer from
tight lacing. Could the worst form
of foot.binding be more barbarous .?
This college girl was a member OF q
missionary society, helping to send
some one to teach the heathen the
sin of foot-binding.
We have looked upon deformed
waists in this Christian land Of ours,
until they are really, by some, pro-
nounced 'good figures" Is there
beauty in deformity? Can we set up
a more perfect standerd of the beauti-
full than our Creator?
Just as the Australians admire the
nose peg, and the Malays black teeth,
we have come to admire distorted
waists. There is no difference the
aste which we condemn in them we
practice in q worse form.
When men and women of sound
Judgment look upon pointed toes and
bound waists, they have feelings very
nearly akin to those of our mission
aries in looking upon bound feet.
The same motive which prompts q
heather mother to bind the feet of
her child, prompts Christian moth
er to bind the waist of her child.
1t is the fashion there, and the fashion
here. Christians are on a level with
heathens in this murderous prac-
tice.
Has women, sensible in all else no
reason on this subject? Is she willing
to make unborn generations suffer for
the fashion of to-day? We have only
to 20 to those skilled iI the laws OF
health to find the multitude of evils
which result from waist binding. An
eminent physician said that if he was
asked what one agency stands at the
very head of morbific influences iD
causing frailty and malformation, he
would answer, woman's dress.
What effects the body, affects the
, mind. Waist-binding impairs the
health and prepares the way to make
our girls intellectual weaklings. II
destroys their power of endurance in
;; the very. bud of womanhood, and rem.
ders them unable to grapple with
things which quicken the. intellect
and afford broad culture. Thus theil
usefulness is crippled and they are
forced to go along in "hum drum
; way, the servant of others.
We hear much of women being the
intellectual equal of man; whether
she is or not, one thing is settled, 50
long as she remains the slave OF fash
ion. She is weakened at many point!
by this contemplate bondage. -,
Who is responsible for this evil
Are not the mothers to whom Goo
has committed the government o
their daughters They are the ones
to STAY this barbarous custom. Some
may say they cannot control theil
daughters on this point. Then lei
them hide their faces in shame. l;
they cannot govern their own OH
' spring, they abuse the sacred trusI
imposed upon them and openly &C
g knowledge that they are wanting ir
all of the chief elements of mother
e hood.
Mothers, more than all others, know
e the innnmerable ills which grow ou
of waist-binding; how unpardonabl'
: therefore in them to allow their daugh
ters to 20 on committing gradual sui
= eide. A beautiful and gifted young
woman died not long ago from gallop
= ing consumption brought on by waist
binding. 1t was as much suicide as /
] she had taken knife to her throat
Innocent she doubtless was, but tina
: is the very reason we should "cry
aloud and spare not" Our girls arr
t ignorant of the danger. The compla
cency with which Christians disre
gard the moral side of this question Il
: alarming. Very few frown upon it
others accept it as an evil so strongly
D intrenched that it is in vain to wag'
3 war against it. Thus we 60 on while
it is destroying the very vitals OF {
/ large majority of women, and mana
; ing down weakness and disease Il
future generations Wesleyan Christ
: tia1a advocate.
One day. when the lesson was the