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walls of the abdomen are bound down, and its capacity seriously 
diminished, to the detriment of the action of all the important 
organs it contains. You will perhaps say, why are these conse- 
quences not more felt and serious symptoms immediately produced ; 
I answer the practice is commenced so early in life that the organs, 
with that wonderful adaptability which they fortunately possess, 
have time to accommodate themselves to the unnatural conditions, 
but they are nevertueless slowly but surely affected by it, and 
eventually langour, hysteria, dyspepsia, headache, backache, 
neuralgia, bad complexion, skin eruption, red noses, and a host of 
other ailments are produced, ad the whole race is gradually 
deteriorated. Mercifully the stays are taken off at night, so, as most 
women spend a large froportion of the twenty-four hours in bed, 
nature has time to recuperate. But enough of medical detail, and 
let me tell you how stays came to be worn. There wasoncea 
cruel butcher, who had a very talkative wife; to restrain her 
loquacity he used to lace her up in a jean waistcoat so tightly that 
she could scarcely breathe, much less talk. This cruel practice 
became after a time, so popular with husbands, that the ladies, in 
self defence, adopted it as a fashion, and followed it as such ever 
since. Jam not so sanguine as to imagine that any words of mine 
will have any influence in altering fashion, it is too deeply rooted, 
and of too unreasonable a nature to be affected by arguments ; but 
if I have succeeded in impressing on even one of my audience the 
follies of some fashions, and the unhealthiness and mischievous 
consequences of others, I shall not have spoken wholly in vain. 
The Rey. C. Bosanquet, in proposing a vote of thanks to Dr. 
FitzGerald, defended the practice of wearing stays as supports, 
and remarked that women were not so bad in this respect as they 
used to be. He could remember that his nurse used to ‘‘ creak”’ 
when she moved, which was not the case he believed with nurses 
now. 
Dr. Tyson seconded the vote of thanks, which was carried with 
acclamation. 
Dr. FitzGerald in acknowledging it, concluded with a few more 
rapid delineations of fashion’s phases on the black board, and ex- 
pressed a hope that his lecture would he followed by one on 
modern dress. 
