An Oft Told Tale

Southland Times, Issue 12768, 29 November 1893, Page 3

An Oft Told Tale

Mr Colo, of Cole’s Bock Arcade, Melbourne, who has laid the rising generation under no many obligations to him, has added yet another by the publication of a really entertaining little brochure on tightlacing, which every woman and every friend of woman-i'y should r*ad at least once in a lifetime, atd ot which the following sampba give a very good idea of the bulk No adult womans waist ought to measure lets in circumference than 24 inches at the smallest, and even this is permissible to slender figures only. The rule of beauty is that the waist should be twice the circumference of tho throat, lherefore, if one’s throat measure 12| inches round, one's waist ought to measure 25. The celebrated statue known as the Venus de Medici, the acknowledged type of womanly beauty’ and grace, has a waist of 27 inches, the h-.ight of the figure being only 5 feet 2 inches. Consider what important and delicate organs aio packed away insido a woman’s waist. Witbin that cincture lie the stomach, tlie liver,the upper parr of tho, intestine, the spleen, the pancreas; and im-

mediately abovo, the heart and lungs. It is something worse: than silly to compress ami lacerate these organs. Take the ‘coisot liver,’ as medical B'ndenls have learned fo call the livers of feraa'o snbjecls which go to the dissecting room. It is the ru’e, rather than the ex. ception, for three livc-ro to be bo deeply indented where tl.e ribs have been crowded against them by improperly worn clothit g that the wrist may easily bo laid in the groove. And lliis ia an organ which is a ma’eot blood vessels,through which every par iole of blood ought to circulate freely on its way to the i-ioait.' Recent experimetits.have been triad upon female monkeys. They were put into piaster of Paris jackets, in imitation of Mays; and a tight bandage wo» put around the waist io imitate a petticoat band. Several of the unfortunate sul j-mte died, and all showed signs of injuries resulting lr< tn the treatment. It was a lamentable remark which fell from the mouth of a fashionable London corsetiere the other day :—‘We seldom make a pair of corsets above 20 inches now for young ladies,’ and it showed and nfavorable sign of t ie limes when she addon that a rct’dy sale was found for thr.se varying from 4 to 8 inches less I The average waiet of a full grown woman rn< asun r 27 inchts in circnmfereuc-'. Tie average size of corsets worn is 23 inches I A total of 57,432 pairs of corsets ws-re sold- bv 20 of the leading houses of this art de lust year, in th;: following slz-.s ; — IG.incb, 237 ; 17-itcb, 362 ; 174-incb, 189; IS-mch, 543 ; 19-incb, 602 ; 20-mcb, 1073; 21-inch, 3451; 22 incu, 6689; 23-iuch 12,023 ; 24-incb, 19,807. It is computed that in Eigland there are about 3 543,000 corset wearers. Thu number of deaths directly 7 traceable to this fashion is put at 15,000 annually, and millions enduro Buffering more or less. £. M. Piancbe, in his Oyc'opoedia of Costume, says:—-‘The irjurious practice of tiglir-lacmg—a custom fertile in disease and depth-appears to have been introduced by the Normans as early as the twelfth Cvniuty, and the romances of tbo middle ages teem with a'lufions to ami laudations of the wasp like waists of the dames and tk tnois-lies of the period.’ John Bulw ,in hia Ait'.fieial Changeling, prinied in 1653, says :—‘Another foolish affectation tl ere is in young virgins,though grown big enough to be wiser, but they are led blindfolded by a custom to a fashion pernicious Ivyond imag lation, who,thinking a slender waist a g: eat beauty, strive all they possibly cm by strait-lacing themselves to attain unto a wand like smallness of waist, never th'nking themselves fine enough till they can span tbo waist, by which deadly artifice,while they ignorantly affect au august or narrow breast, and to that end by strong compulsion shut up their waists in a v. bale bone prison, they open die door to consumption.’