WOMEN’S WAISTS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1321, 26 June 1883, Page 4

WOMEN’S WAISTS.

especially those of the upper ■clanes, who are not obliged to keep ■ themselves in condition by work, lose ■ after middle age (sometimes earlier) ■ a considerable amount of their height, ■ not by stooping as men do, but by I actual collapse, sinking down, mainly ' to be attributed to tne perishing of the muscles that support the frame in consequence of habitual and con* slant pressure of stays and dependence upon the artificial support by them afforded. Every girl that wears stars that press upon these muscles, and restrict the free development of the fibres that form them, relieving them from the natural duties of supporting the spine, indeed incapacitates them from so doing, may feel sure she is preparing herself to be a dumpy woman. A great pity I Failure of health among women when the vigor of youth passess away is but too patent, and but too commonly caused by this practice. Let the man who admires the piece of pipe that does duty for a human body picture to himself the wasted form and seamed skin. Most women from long custom of wearing these stays are really unaware how much they are hampered and restricted. A girl of twenty, intended by Nature to be one of her finest specimens, gravely assures one that her stays are not tight, being exactly the same size as those she was first put into, not perceiving her condemnation in the fact that she had since grown five inches in height and two in shoulder breadth. Her stays are not too tight, because constant pressure has prevented the natural development of heart and lung space. The dainty waist of the poets is precisely that flexible slimness that is destroyed by stays. The form resulting from them is not slim, but a piece of pipe and as inflexible. But while endeavoring to make clear the outrage upon practical good sense and sense of beauty, it is necessary to understand and admit the whole facts of the case. A reason, if not a necessity, for some sort of corset, may be found when the form is very redundant. This, however, cannot be with the very young and slight, but all that necessity could demand and that practical good sense and fitness would concede, could be found in a strong elastic kind of jersey, sufficiently strong and even stiff, under the bust to support it, and sufficiently elastic at the sides and back to injure no organs and impede no functions. Even in the case of the young and slight, an elastic band under the false riba would not be injurious, but perhaps the contrary, serving as a con* ■tut hint to keep the chest well forward and the shoulders back] but every stiff unyielding machine crushing the ribs and destroying the fibre of muscle, will be fatal to health, to freedom of movement, and to beauty, It is scarcely too much to say that " the wearing 'of such amounts to atu* pidity in those who do not know the consequences (for over and over again warning has been given), and to wickedness in those who do.—" Nineteenth Century."