A MAN TRIES TIGHT-LACING.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3158, 17 May 1883, Page 2

A MAN TRIES TIGHT-LACING.

Richard A. Proctor, the well-known lecturer on astronomy, has tried the experiment of wearing a corset, and thus describes the result: —“ When the subject of corset-wearing was under discussion in the pages of the “English. Mechanic,” I was struck with the apparent weight of evidence in favor of tight-lacing. I was, in particular, struck by the evidence of some as to its use in reducing corpulence. I was corpulent. I also was disposed, as I am still, to take an interest in scientific experiment. I thought I would give this matter a trial. I read all the instructions, earefnlly followed them, and varied the time of applying pressure with that ‘ perfectly stiff busk’ about which correspondents were so enthusiastic. I was foolish enough to try the thing for a matter of four weeks. Then I laughed at myself as a hopeless idiot and determined to give up the attempt to induce by artificial means that superabundance of fat on which only starvation and much exercise, or the air of America, has ever had any real reducing influence. But I was reckoning without my host. As the Chinese lady suffers, I am told, when her feet-bindings are taken off, and as the flat-headed baby bowls when his head-boards are removed, so for a while was it with me. I found myself manifestly better in stays. I laughed at myself no longer. I was too angry with myself to laugh. I would as soon have condemned myself to using crutches all the time as to wearing always a busk. But for one month of folly I had to endure three months of discomfort. At the end of about that time I was my own man again.”