A MAN TRIES TIGHT-LACING.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3698, 22 May 1883, Page 4

A MAN TRIES TIGHT-LACING.

Richard A. Proctor, tho well-known lecturer on astronomy, has tried the experiment of wearing a corset, and thus describes tho result: —" AVlieii the subject of corset-wearing was under discussion in the pages of the 'English Mechanic,' I was struck with 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 fair trial. 1 read all the instructions, carefully followed them, and A-aricd the time of applying pro sui-o 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 tho attempt to reduce by artificial means that superabundance of fat on which only starvation and much exercise, or the air'of Americ, has ever had any real reducing influence. But I awis reckoning Avithout my host. As the Chinese lady suffers, I am told, Avhou her fcot-bindings are taken oft', and as the flat-beaded baby lioavls 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 lavish. 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 tho end of about that time I was my oavii man again."