Two Figures in Jersey.

Southland Times, Issue 9342, 7 October 1886, Page 4

Two Figures in Jersey.

The murderonsness of dress was insisted npon by a lecturer whom I listened to the other night. She was one of those mannish women who are in appearance all that any proud girl wouldn't like to become, and so, I fancy, everything she said had a convincing effect to the contrary. Her audience was composed of recent graduates of a female school, and she sought to convert them to the abolition [of the corset. Of course, she rehearsed the familiar old arguments about the evils of compression, and 1 am not going to write them out here again. It was only her novel device for illustratiog her subject that is worth describing. She used two yonng women for the purpose. They each wore a black silk jersey waist, with nothing whatever under it, so that the natural shape was shown smoothly and exactly. One was a counterpart, go the speaker averred, of the Venus of Milo, with a waist that had never been distorted. The other was very small in girth, either from nature or tight-lacing, and Bhe was a good exhibit of the hour-glass Style in females. 'Now, ladies,' said the demonstrator, 'I will show you the size, shape, and relative positions of the vital organs in this subject, and she made the big-waisted woman stand forth. With this piece of chalk 1 will draw on the surface of her body the outlines of her luugs, heart, stomach and so on.' With rapid skill she covered the jersey with white lines, and the woman soon looked like a living figure stepped out of a chart in a doctor's office. 'That is an exhibit of a woman as she ought to be, and I will proceed to chow you how most of yon are.' Then the prettily shaped young woman who could wear a nineteen-inch corset, and yet bad as much bulk as the other, though differently proportioned, was put und«r chalk tracery, The lungs and stomach were placed higher np than the other ; all of which was declared to be abnormally awful. But do you know what I observed 1 It was that her heart was in the rijrbt place. No artificial improvements on nature bad disturbed that Important orgao. And I guess that's the reason why girls of slender waists can beat the thick ones all to bits in winning the lovea of men. Girls, dear, let's keep our corsets on. — Clara Belle, in Cincinnati Enquirer.