50 



KNOWLEDGE 



[.Ta\. 2C, 1883. 



accordingly used for food as pulsp, like our own peas, 

 haricot lioans, scarlet runners, vetches, lentils, and so forth. 

 Hence it is particularly necessary for them to guard against 

 the depredations of animals, and this many of them have 

 done by acquiring prickly pods or by curling themselves 

 round into inconspicuous little balls. Gorse, jiowever, is so 

 far protect<'d already by its stout sharp leaves that it does 

 not require any special device of such a sort : it is sufficient 

 that the little pods sliould not protrude beyond the average 

 length of the surrounding bristles. If they were very long 

 and pendulous, animals and birds might pick them ofi' with- 

 out getting pricked ; as it is, the whole bush is so self- 

 contained, and forms such a compact bristling mass, that 

 nobody ever attempts to molest it in any way. If they do 

 succeed even in getting ofl' one pod, tlie harsh hairs on the 

 surface are quite enough to prevent them from ever re- 

 peating the experiment Indeed, all of us who have once 

 tried to pick a beautiful blossoming spray of gorse in early 

 spring, with all our civilised appliances of gloves, hand- 

 kerchief, and pocket-knife, know by hard experience that 

 its proud motto is " Nemo me impune laoessit." To the 

 lower animals, it proves indeed an unapproachable enemy, 

 always on the defensive alone, but always ready to repel 

 the slightest attack upon its individual rights and liberties. 

 For good or for evil, it seems the very model of a truly 

 British plant. 



STAYS AND STRENGTH. 



By Richard A. Proctor. 



MUCH space has already been given to this subject 

 (but it is one of great importance), therefore I 

 must be brief in what remains to be said. To say truth, 

 if I can judge from the letters which reach me, very few 

 hold the views which have been so stoutly maintained by 

 " An Observer," and it seems the less necessary to advocate 

 at any length the contrary and (I cannot but think the 

 common sense) doctrine. 



I set on one side all I had intended to say on the artistic 

 aspect of the matter — adding only a few words in response 

 to " An Observer's '' remarks on this point in our last. He 

 appears to think that only some American artist regards a 

 tightly-laced waist as a deformity. I have talked with 

 many artists both here and in America on this question, 

 and I have never yet met with one who held a different 

 opinion. Not a few admit that in portrait painting the 

 deformity must be left, — ^just as a natural deformity 

 (Cromwell's wart, for instance) would be left. In paint- 

 ings like Frith's, again, the deformed waists must be shown 

 — to remove them would be falsifying the history of our 

 time. "We see them in Hogarth's paintings (he even cari- 

 catures the absurdity, and in his illustrations of the " line 

 of beauty," ridicules it sharply) ; they are seen in pictures 

 belonging to almost every age of civilization, from Egyptian 

 times to the present day. This proves, if " An Observer " 

 will, that slender waists are admired ; so they are, and very 

 justly ; so are small feet and small hands admired ; and many 

 whose hands or feet are not small, though their brains 

 are, wear gloves and shoes too small for them, spoiling 

 the shape in trying to reduce the size. That is just what 

 the tight-lacers do with the waist. A girl will say she 

 wears "fives" in glove.?, "twos," or less, in shoes, as if 

 that of itself meant pretty hands and feet. In the same 

 way, a girl who wishes to match her brains with her waist, 

 will talk of nineteen inches waist measurement (speakin" 

 even of that as " immense," to try to make folk believe 

 that if she pleased she could pinch it to sixteen or seven- 



teen inches*), as if small circuit meant beauty, and .shape- 

 liness counted for nothing. The beauty of a really shapely 

 waist is seen far more in its narrowing from front to back, 

 than in its compression from side to side ; but it is seen 

 even more in the undulating outline of its horizontal 

 section ; and more still in grace of movement. On these 

 points all sculptors and painters are agreed, and as I should 

 imagine all who have any ej'c at all for beauty. They are 

 not likely to change their views because there " come you 

 in " cei'tain women with pigeon-toed feet, glove-bursting 

 hands, and waist comprtssed to hideous roundness and 

 rigidity. 



On the health question I leave doctors to speak. I 

 know that ninety-nine out of a hundred oppose tight- 

 lacing with whatever form of stays, and of the hundredth, 

 whether in private practice or as army surgeon (with 

 " unusually wide shoulders and 23 inch waist "), I shall 

 only say that no profession can be absolutely free from 

 the unwise, and that I trust no one in whom I take 

 interest may ever come under that hundredth person's 

 medical ministrations. 



Longevity proves only that Nature can adapt herself 

 amazingly. Creaking gates hang proverbially long on 

 their hinges. 



But I happen to have facts for " An Observer " — not a 

 multitude of facts, for the great multitude of men have 

 simply nothing to say, having never tried lacing at all, 

 while those who have tried it and have got no good from 

 it are apt to hold their peace for very obvious reasons 

 (wliich is perhaps the reason why all the arguments are 

 one way, and all the evidence — i.e., stated evidence — of 

 facts, the other). 



I offer first my own evidence, not very willingly, for I 

 am not particularly proud to have it to offer. When this 

 matter was under discussion in the pages of the English 

 MecJianic, I, like " An Observer," was struck with the 

 apparent weight of evidence in favour of tight-lacing. I 

 was in particular struck by the e^-idence of some as to its 

 use in reducing corpulence. I was corpulent (I am not 

 lean now, but I was some 20 lb. heavier then). I also 

 was disposed, as I am still, to take interest in scientific 

 experiment. I thought I would give this matter a fair 

 trial. I read all the instructions (by the way, what a 

 nuisance that word " read " is, one can never tell whether 

 it is past or present, — I mean it here to sound as " red ") ; 

 carefully followed them ; varied the time of applying 

 pressure with that " perfectly stifl" busk," about which the 

 correspondents of the English MecJianic 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 the attempt to reduce by artificial 

 means that superabundance of fat on which only starvation 

 and much exercise, or the air of America, has ever had any 

 real reducing influence. But I was reckoning without my 

 host As the Chinese lady sutt'ers, I am told, when her feet- 

 bindings are taken off, and as the flat-head baViy howls (so 

 Dr. Leigh informs me) when his head-boards are removed, 

 so for a while was it with me. I found myself manifestl}' 

 better in stays. And now, perhaps, " An Observer " will 

 see what I meant when I said that if a man finds himself 

 better in stays it shows that stays are weakening. I 

 laughed at myself no longer. I was too angry with myself 

 to laugh. I would as soon have condemned myself to using 

 crutches all the time, as to wearing always that beast of a 



* " An Observer " seems cot to hare cauglit Dr. Lewis's 

 sarcasm on this point. The tight-lacers, hand-pinchers, and foot- 

 sqneezers always speak of their manufactured waists, hands, and 

 feet as "immense" — first to suggest natural smallness, but chieBy 

 as fishing for compliments, 



