Dec. 



1882.] 



KNOWLEDGE • 



479 



better or -n-orse for it. It is idle to guess that they are 

 " weaklings," and no fair specimens of the human race. 

 They and their friends know and say that they are not at 

 all so, and give all manner of proofs of it. If you ask 

 what can make the difference between stomachs and wrists 

 or knees, you may possibly remember that one is hollow 

 and the other solid ; one has to bend continually and the 

 other has not, except in certain work and exercises, for 

 which tight lacing is found to be unfit, especially for men, 

 who breathe lower down than women. Some of the most 

 severe female tight-lacers say that they take a great deal 

 of exercise, and every one knows how they can dance for 

 hours, besides riding and walking as briskly as any girl of 

 the " Bunch " order, whom Sydney Smith likened to a 

 •mile-post. 



Another of your fmmy analogies was that we might as 

 well argue that everybody should wear a truss because it 

 is necessary for persons with a particular ailment, as that 

 everybody should wear stays because they are necessary to 

 some people. But who ever did say so 1 Not I. The 

 iigure-reformers denounce corsets altogether, except for 

 some invalids. I answered that they have never proved 

 anything against them, and that no arguments of theirs are 

 worth anything against the experience of those who declare 

 they have found tight-lacing in stiff stays pleasant, useful, 

 and beneficial in a variety of ways. If it does no more 

 than preserve and improve their figure and carriage, and 

 expand the chest, or even only makes their dress tit and 

 look better, that is answer enough to those who can prove 

 nothing against it; and would be so if it ever cured 

 indigestion, or prevented corpulence or any other real evil. 



We happen also to have had now some experience the 

 other way. For aliout a dozen years before the Law-et 

 began to be alarmed at the evident revival of tight-lacing, 

 it had been very much out of fashion with both sexes, and 

 what was the consequence ? Women were losing their 

 figures, and growing round-shouldered, and fat, and old 

 prematurely. Somebody invented the euphemism of the 

 " Grecian bend," to palliate it. But even that, and all 

 your statuesque arguments and others (for they are all old 

 enough) did not prevent women from seeing that they 

 were wrong, and that the corset is a real necessity in our 

 artificial way of life, though savages and hard-workers can 

 do well enough without it. I have read several times that 

 even Turkish ladies have taken to it at last, though they 

 are obliged to conceal it by their dress ; as a good many of 

 the male tight-lacers said they did, until fashion set them 

 free again to show it. Advertisements of various new 

 corsets reappeared in all the illustrated papers, and shoulder 

 and neck-straps were invented to help girls to be upright ; 

 from which it is clear that nothing is so good as tight- 

 lacing over the old-fashioned perfectly stiff busk in front, 

 besides its being better for the health, as several have 

 written. Exercise alone will not always succeed, as any 

 one can see by observation among his own acquaintance. 



I agree with you that wide hips under a contracted 

 waist look ill for men. Hips anj thing near as wide as the 

 chest are a defect in men, and arc a female characteristic. 

 Consequently, actresses who affect male dress only look 

 like ill-made and weak young men. Width all over 

 may be a good form for rowing races, and perhaps for 

 a Hercules or a c()al-lu'a\er, but not for a J ason or Apollo, 

 as you say truly that the sculptors know full well ; and it 

 is not more the form of activity than thick ankles or large 

 feet, nor the shape which any man desires or admires. 

 Your own case proves that a young man with an m\- 

 usually large chest may have a waist of only 28 in., just 

 two-thirds of his chest, which I gave, and rightly, as a full 

 size for a well-made young man of ordinary general size. 



Unfortunately, hips cannot be narrowed artificially, and 

 therein women have a great advantage in figure-making 

 over men. But they can be made to look worse 

 by wearing trowsers loose over the hips, with large 

 pockets, which the dandies of thirty or forty years 

 ago never tolerated. It is true that men generally 

 require waist contraction much less than women, 

 though there has been ample proof that they often benefit 

 by it in the same ways. E\en if they only like it, 

 or do it to improve their figure and dress, and consequent 

 appearance, that gives pleasure to other people as well as 

 to themselves, and I can see no kind of reason against it. 

 Yet nobody can be more impartial than I am, as I never 

 had the smallest pretence to a good figure myself, though I 

 had more than average strength generally, and was fond 

 of using it. But I have always admired those who have 

 that much valued gift of a naturally good figure, male or 

 female, and make the best of it ; and so I find does everj-- 

 one practically, when he sees such persons, however he 

 may theorise about it and profess to believe that they owe 

 nothing to artificial assistance. 



Di-c. 8. As Observer. 



STAYED WEAKNESS. 



By Eiciiard A. Proctor. 



I MUST leave to next week the continuation of my 

 remarks on the Corset as an Aid to Philosophy, 

 which will involve the response to most of " An Observer's " 

 remarks ; but, to avoid the inconvenience of including 

 irrelevant matter in a set article, I may make now the 

 following comments on some of the livelier portions of his 

 rejoinder : — 



1. I can very well believe, though I have not seen 

 " Figure Training," that modem costume, including stays 

 — nay, necessarily involving stays — attached to a marble 

 figure, not yielding to receive stays, would have a grotesque 

 efiect ; though this would not prove that beauty in ancient 

 times missed stays. Nigger costume would look equally 

 ridiculous. It is begging the question to find here an 

 argument for the corset. 



■2. I think the good health claimed for corset-wearers, 

 must equally mean " good, in those respects in which 

 it is not bad or ruined " ; for waists in such condition that 

 contraction to 7 or 8 inches is found essential to comfort, 

 may be very fairly compared to the disabled feet of the 

 Chinese ladies. 



3. The '• multitude of people" prove just what I said, 

 by their co)is>:>t!<iis in asserting that they find themselves 

 better in stays. This shows that contracting waist does 

 weaken the stomach ; and if it does, it must. (" Bunch ' 

 is not in question ; no one asserts that a mile-stone has a 

 fine feminine figure ; yet a woman may as reasonably shape 

 herself after a milestone as after an hour-glass. ) 



\. A truss is necessary for persons with a particular ail- 

 ment. But it seems from the arguments of the corset 

 wearers themseh es that stays are necessary for divers ail- 

 ments — as the tendency [to t'nihoiij'ouif, indigestion, stooping, 

 and so fortk The truss alone can remedy the first ailment ; 

 exercise and attention to diet will remedy the others ; only 

 it is easier to strap on a corset I shall presently, by the 

 way, give much more evidence from experience than " An 

 Observer's " case can bear without breaking down ; and 

 amongst this I shall note some wluch indicates a closer 

 connection between the truss and the corset than he seems 

 to think of ; for overwhelming medical testimony shows 

 that those who lace tightly are exposed to serious risk 

 of rupture. 



