THE LADY'S DRESS ON HORSEBACK. 51 



all comfort in riding will be destroyed. I am confidently 

 of opinion that half the ladies who canter their horses 

 in the park and never attempt to trot them, only adopt 

 the fashion because they themselves are too tightly laced 

 to effect the rise in the saddle. This system of compression 

 is a great mistake. If ladies could only be induced to 

 believe it, it certainly adds nothing to their charms, for 

 Nature will not allow herself to be put out of sight, and 

 the figure that is crushed in at the centre by unduly 

 tightened corsets must bulge out above or below them — 

 sometimes both — in a manner that is by no means pleasant 

 to contemplate. Putting aside, therefore, all questions 

 connected with hygienic principles, the fashion of squeezing 

 the waist is not one to be recommended. 



I believe that a great many ladies who are not by any 

 means naturally stout or clumsy, are made to appear so by 

 wearing cheap and ill-fitting corsets ; while, on the other 

 hand, figures that are inclined to embonpoint can, with the 

 assistance of a judicious and capable stay-maker, be 

 invested with an appearance of grace and slimness that is 

 not by nature their own. To expect a habit-cutter to fit 

 a bodice over a seven-and-sixpenny corset, with two long 

 bones, bald and unsoftened, sticking up at the top of the 

 back, hip-pieces too wide, and front steels long and 

 obtrusive, is as great a piece of injustice as to expecj; an 

 artist to paint a picture with broken brushes, or a cook to 

 furnish a banquet without the proper materials. 



I cannot refrain from dwelling a little upon this subject, 

 because it seems to me that ladies are very often — without 



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