THE PERFECT WAIST.

Evening Star, Issue 6505, 23 January 1884, Page 2

THE PERFECT WAIST.

The more closely a woman can get her bust to approximate to the shape of a pegtop the prouder and happier she usually is. Why the peg-top has attained to the high distinction of serving as a model for woman is one erf the many puzzles connected with dress. The Greeks, who certainly knew something about the human form, assigned to their ideal waist dimensions quite intolerable to an English woman of to-day. Morever, they made it oval, whereas the modern waist is round. It is a physiological fact that there is about an oval waist a de« lighful suppleness and elasticity, while the round waist, so common at the present day, is hard, rigid, and unsympathetic. The fact is that some women are blessed with waists naturally small and oval, as every waist naturally is, while other women, lessfavored by nature, are determined to outdo the smallness at no matter what cost. But no discriminating critic can even fail to perceive the difference between natural bnd artificial smallness. Perhaps if this were better understood, women would cease to ruin their health and weaken the muscles of their back by going out in a tight-fitting cuirass, even at the risk of appearing to depart conspicuously from woman's dress. They would then find that some other problems, such as distribution of weight, would settle themselves without much diffi culty,—London 'Times.'