494 



• KNOWLEDGE 



[Dec -29, 1882. 



of ix-irsots, the adoption of a simple, pliysioloitical dress, 

 with the exercise which tliis cliajiye in dress renders easy. 



I'he changi' iu health and capacity often seemed magical. 

 1 1 thi.*: j>aper were designed for the eyes of medical men 

 c !.ly, certain facts miyht be given which would surprise 

 th. ui. and leave no doubt that we have utterly failed to 

 c..nipnhend the mischief done to the growing form by the 

 ir>-ent modes of dress. 



HiP reader may think tliat camp-life in the mountains 



f California, a course of training in the Normal School for 

 I'hvsical Education, or four years' drill in tlie school at 

 Lfxinijton, will account for happy changes without any 

 change in dress. We saw many ladies in the mountains 

 staking healtlj in long skirts and corsets, and their health 

 inipri'\ed, but the physiologist will assure us that the im- 

 prov.iiient could not be muscular and radical. As to 

 I X. r. ise in the gymnasium, the observation of thirty years 

 in ladies" seminaries leads to the conviction that girls in 

 corsets seriously endanger their welfare when they try to 

 exercise beyond gentle walking and dancing. All attempts 

 at free arm or leg work must prove mischievous. For 

 many years we have cautioned corseted women against the 

 gymnasium, and have seriously urged easy-chairs and 

 lounges. The advice given by Dr. Edward Clarke, and 

 rejK-ated by thousands of doctors to their lady patients, to 

 lie down as much as pissible, and periodically spend a 

 week in bed, is, if a corset be worn, not only wise and 

 merciful, but indispensable. To ladies who declare that 

 they cannot abandon their corsets, the writer uniformly 

 gives the same advice. 



The errors in women's dress arc : — 



1. The corset, which reduces the waist from three to 

 f-fteen inches, and pushes the organs within, downward. 



2. Unequal distribution. AVhile her chest and hips are 

 ■ ften overloaded, her arms and legs are so thinly clad that 

 tlieir imperfect circulation compels congestion of the trunk 

 and head. 



3. Long, heavy skirts, which drag upon tlie body, and 

 inipe<le the movements of the legs. 



4. Tight shoes, which arrest circulation, and make 

 walking ditlkult High lieels, which increa.se the difli- 

 culties in walking, and so change the centre of gravity in 

 the body as to produce dislocations in the pelvic viscera. 



Lock of space forbids details under each of these heads, 

 BO we speak mostly of the corset^by far the greatest evil. 



Do women practise tight-lacing 1 Since beginning this 

 paf*er, we have asked this question of more than a score of 

 Indies. The answer is "No." One lady, whose waist has 

 Ijcen reduced more than eight inches, declares that she has 

 heard aVjout tliis lacing all her life, but has never seen it. 

 8ho adds : " I wear a corset, though, from my immense 

 nwj- (ninct<;en inches), you would hardly think it. And I 

 fancy that ladies generally manage about as I <lo ; they 

 wear a corset to keep their clothes in shape, but it hardly 

 touch'-* them." In forty years' profe.ssional experience 

 witli the wearers of corsets, we cannot now recall a single 

 confession, even from those who had reduced their waists 

 by from ten to tifteen inches. One can write freely on this 

 subject, with no fear of hurting the feelings of lacing 

 women, for no one of them will imagine licrself guilty ; 

 and one can speak as disparagingly as lie pleases of 

 diminutive figiinM, for the smallest woman regards herself 

 u " pr-rfectly immense." 



Wc have talked with several corg<;t-makerB, and sum up 

 their fwtimony as follows :— Eafihionable ladies, and 

 thouxandg who imitate them, purchas*; corsets which arc 

 from thr<e to t<-n inches smaller than tlieir waists, and 

 then lace them so as to reduce their waists from two to 



eight inchcF. More than one corset-maker has placed the 

 averages higher than these tigures. 



Many inquiries have been made of those artists who 

 make a special study of the female figure. Their testimony 

 is stronger than that of the corset-makers. One artist, who 

 is a recognised authority in this department, has assured 

 us that in painting portraits of women, no good artist will 

 paint the laced ligure. The suV>ject must hide with drapery 

 what the artist regards as a hideous deformity. An 

 eminent artist, with a good eye and thorough knowledge of 

 proportion in the female figure, permitted the writer to sit 

 by his side on a thoroughfare when ladies were out in force, 

 and expressed his opinion about their waists. 



"That one is reduced six inches ; that one ten inches; 

 that young lady five; that one twelve : that largo woman 

 has reduced her waist fully fifteen inches." " What pro- 

 portion of these ladies would you paint in their corsets 1" 

 lie w as asked. " 1 have not seen one that I would paint 

 without asking her to cover her deformity." 



If any one will devote an hour to a study of tlie female 

 figure as seen in classic art, and will then give another 

 hour to street observations during the fashionable pro- 

 menade, with an aching heart ho will go over to the ranks 

 of the discouraged. He cannot forget that these are to be 

 the mothers of our next generation. 



A STRANGE CATERPILLAR, 



AND ITS KEMARKABLE METUOD OF CAPTURING PREY. 

 BV 0. F. HOLDEH. 



VMONC; the many interesting creatures that have been 

 unearthed by scientific investigation during the past 

 few years, the Peripatus deservedly stands foremost in the 

 rank, not alons for its peculiar individuality, but for certain 

 habits shown when obtaining food and defending itself from 

 attack. According to late classitication, it forms the single 

 insect of the sub-class Malacopoda, and is only represented 

 Ijy a single genus — Peripatus. It is considered an ex- 

 tremely ancient form, from its wide and peculiar distribu- 

 tion, being found at Cape of Good Hope, St. Thomas, 

 Australia, New Zealand, Chili, and Isthmusof Panama, and 

 thought tlie nearest extant representative of the ancestors 

 of our air-breathing anthropoda, spiders, itc. 



In appearance the I'ci-ijiatuK aijieimis is exceedingly dis- 

 agreeable, resembling a large black caterpillar, three inches 

 or more in l<;ngth. From the head protrude a pair of 

 curious jointed horns like antennie that incline forward, 

 seemingly used as feelers, though the head bears a small 

 pair of simple eyes. Beneath is the mouth, with its 

 singular turned lips and double pair of horny jaws, well 

 adapted for crunching the larger game it allects. The 

 seventeen pairs of feet are short, fleshy, and provided with 

 two short claws adapt<<l for clinging upon rocks or trees. 

 The body is eylindrieal and soft, tlu; integument not chiti- 

 nised, and head not separate from the body, its great differ- 

 ence from other anthropods being in its " two widely sepa- 

 rated minutely ganglionated nervous cords sent backward 

 from the brain ; also in the minute numerous tracheal twigs 

 arising from the many minute oval openings situated irre- 

 gularly along the median line of the ventral surface of the 

 body." It calls to mind features of Lingualuliiia and Tar- 

 digrada by its curious soft clawed feet, and, according to 

 Packard, is not a worm, but an intermediate between them 

 and the sucking myriopods. Its method of breathing is 

 peculiar in the extreme. Instead of the tracheal tubes 

 opening to the exterior by small stigmata arranged along 

 the body in regular order, as in other animals that have 



