126 POPULAR EllUORS. 



dress which is mis-named stays, and which is liad recourse to during 

 Uie growing period of childhood, with the view of affording assistance 

 to nature, and hy its own especial pressure on the yielding hones of 

 the chest, to mould it, as the staymakeV promises, and the credulous 

 parent believes, to a more exquisite degree of grace and symmetry 

 than unassisted nature would produce. As an article of dress, how- 

 ever, for young females, and employed as it is before they have 

 attained their growth, and with the design of directing it, no tenns of 

 condemnation can be too strong. 



With a view to show its inutility as a means to an end, and that it 

 is not only useless, but pernicious, I have only to invite your consider- 

 ation to the circumstances which must accomjiany the use of such 

 means, and the effect which must result from it. 



The laws which regulate the growth of the human body arc the 

 same which regulate the growth of every other animal, ant] each animal 

 grows unaided by art after its o^vn kind, and as an exact copy of its 

 parents. The long and slender limbs of the foal, from their totteiing 

 under the weight they sustain, might seem to require some suppoit, 

 and to need the aid of art to secure them from becoming deformed 

 during the period of their gi'owth ; but I need not add that no such 

 aid is used or needed, and that they grow into the beautiful symetry 

 of form and proportion which belongs to the adult animal. And what 

 is true of the horse, is true also of every animal ; no mechanical art 

 being used, and no mechanical art being capable, if used, to effect 

 any improvement in the form of the growing animal. But here I 

 must go on to add, that although no improvement can be made 

 in the fonn, yet a change can be made in it during the development 

 of its growth; for a large proportion of what becomes bone in 

 the adult animal, is caililage in the young one, and is easily affected, 

 therefore, by pressure, and may be altered in its form, and be diverted 

 from the natural direction of its growth. In the lower animals no 

 such absurdity is committed as to employ the aid of mechanical art 

 to improve their fonns. But it is greatly othei-wise with the female 

 children of this country, with whom the stays are employed to form 

 the slender waist. I say form — not to preserve — for no art is required 

 to preserve a beautiful figure, or aid its development ; since, if the 

 natural growth of the figure is in the natural direction of symmetry, 

 no aid wiU be needed, any more than in the foal or the greyhound. 



