The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1895-12-28
4 WoAANs WAIST.
lxEspafabas Injury Doas by Tight IAo
m1.

II IL matVCI lOI ICJOACAu8 tA1oU AekSAAASAA
is no longer to decree slender waist as
something Indispensable to propriety
and grace. The natural waist of the
woman Of average height is about 90
inches, and any less size is attained
only through arrested development. or
compression Of means of whalebone and
steel. The amount Of room inside these
es inches is absolutely needed for the
proper working of the machinery OF
the internal economy. In spite of this
fact girls very often bind the yielding
ribs into such narrow compass that the
waist measures 20 or % inches only,
and you will now and then hear some
mother OF a family, with very differ
ent waist now, boast as if it were some
thing to be proud of that when she was
10 her waist measure was 10 too. 1t is,
however, of no use to talk to young peo-
pie about the injurious effect of COM
preston on stomach, heart, lungs, liver
and the arterial system. They are not
anatomists, and they do not compre-
hend the matter nor want to do SO;
they observe that they feel as well now
as they did before, and without weigh
ing the thought that it requires time
to work ruin, take it for granted that
they always will feel as well, although
they have been told and taught that in
post-mortem examinations it has been
found that wherever tight lacing has
been the rule, every organ was out of
place and seriously injured. But al
though it does move them a trif1e to be
told that red noses and eruptive skins
and fat chests are to be laid to the ac-
count of the too slender waist, yet on
the Whole neither common-sense nor
auld-wife wisdom nor doctors have the
power of conviction that fashion does.
and when fashion says that there is no
beauty in a wasp's waist, but that the
lines of nobility and health made by
deep breathing are the really lovely
lines, fragility being something rather
to be feared than loved, why then
fragility begins to be avoided. and the
lines of the Venus de Milo, of the Diana,
of the Pallas, begin to come in.
The habit of tight lacing has already
done almost irretrievable injury. If it
were continued there is no knowing
what shape it might eventually have
developed Even no sculptors declare
that model with natural waist,
sloping outward rather than inward.
is something not to be found, even the
most charming figures otherwise hav-
ing the hour-glass tendency, in how
ever slight form sufficient to spoil
them for posing for anything de-
manding the freedom, the beauty and
grace OF the antique. The Greek
woman supported and stayed her
self with bands of linen, but there
was no compression in the swathe, and
her natural waist made her of a perfect
beauty; and to-day the natural waist
of the Circassian does not interfere with
the reputation of her loveliness. The
adoption of European dress by ladies
of the harem, and of japan, showing,
as it does, either a want Of the knowl-
edge of true beauty or willful aban'
donment of it's principles, will prob
ably lead to tight lacing in the orient
Just as we are relinquishing it here.
Why anyone should ever have imag-
ined that a waist which looked as IT 1t
were going to break in two could be
more attractive than a waist which
looked capable of supporting its head
and arms ard shoulders is mystery
SO great mystery that the effort to
solve it is to be given up in satisfac-
ton over the report that the foreign
creators Of the mode have recently
asked themselves the question it the
shape that the Creator chose for the
human body was one they could I'M
rrove.-Harper's Bazar.