fortune in the external air, especially when 

 we see this important privilege conceded to 

 females in every rank of life, and of the most 

 delicate constitutions. 



If any part of the human body be allowed 

 to be uncovered in these days of observation 

 and improvement, certainly the throat of man 

 has the best claim to exemption from the 

 punishment which it undergoes at present. 



However, we are not quite so outrageous 

 now-a-days, in some things, as we were when 

 I was a lad. I remember well the time when 

 cravats of enormous height and thickness 

 were all the go. 'Twas said that these 

 jugular bolsters came into fashion, on ac- 

 count of some unsightly rosebuds having 

 made their appearance a little beloAv the ears 

 of a royal dandy. This may have been 

 scandal for aught I know to the contrary ; 

 but certain it is, that the new invention 

 spread like wildfire, and warmed the throats 

 of all in high life. A connexion of ours 

 placed so much stress upon the necessity of 

 it, that he never considered himself suffi- 

 ciently well dressed until he had circum- 

 vented his t neck with seven cravats, — only 

 two less in number than the aqueous folds 

 which surrounded the body of Eurydice, 

 when she was in the realms below, where 



" Novies Styx interfma coercet : 



" Fate had fast bound her 

 With Styx nine times round her." 



My own cravat, although it had nothing 

 extraordinary either in size or shape, had 

 once very nearly been the death of me. One 

 night, in going my rounds alone in an adja- 

 cent wood, I came up with two poachers : 

 fortunately one of them fled, and I saw no 

 more of him. I engaged the other ; wrenched 

 the knife out of his hand, after I had parried 

 his blow, and then closed with him. We 

 soon came to the ground together, he upper- 

 most. In the struggle, he contrived to get 

 his hand into my cravat, and twisted it till I 

 was within an ace of being strangled. Just as 

 all was apparently over with me, I made one 

 last convulsive effort, and I sent my knees, 

 as he lay upon me, full against his stomach, 

 and threw him off. Away he went, carrying 

 with him my hat, and leaving me his own, 

 together with his knife and twenty wire 

 snares. 



I cannot possibly understand why we 

 strong and healthy men should be doomed by 

 fashion to bind up our necks like sheaves of 

 corn, and thus keep our jugular veins in ever- 

 lasting jeopardy. I know one philosopher in 

 Sheffield who sets this execrable fashion 

 nobly at defiance, and always appears with- 

 out a cravat. How 1 revere him for this ; 

 and how I condemn myself for not having 

 sufficient fortitude to follow his example ! 

 The armadillo and land tortoise of Guiana, 

 although encased in a nearly impenetrable 



armour, have their necks free. Indeed, man 

 alone is the only being to be found in the 

 whole range of animated nature who goes 

 with a ligature on the throat. 



Thus it would appear that fashion brings 

 torment to our toes, and peril to our throats. 

 But what a still more unfavorable opinion 

 must we entertain of this inexorable goddess 

 when we reflect that, by her invention of 

 tight stays, she dooms thousands of young 

 females to lose their health and symmetry, 

 and to sink at last into the cold and dreary 

 grave long before their time ! 



The crocodile, although sheathed in ada- 

 mant both above and below, has his sides 

 free for the expansion of his body ; and this 

 most necessary provision has been kindly 

 given to him by old Dame Nature, for the 

 well working of his iron frame. Shall, then, 

 our own thoughtless dames of fashion, with 

 this example before their eyes, allow their 

 still more thoughtless daughters to counteract 

 the plan of Nature by putting those parts 

 into prison, which, as they value their health, 

 ought always to remain free ? 



No sooner are the external parts sent in 

 by the ligature of stays, than the internal 

 parts begin to suffer from the unnatural pres- 

 sure ; and then the heart, and lungs, and ad- 

 jacent vitals, robbed of their means of full 

 expansion by this ugly, bad, and cruel pro- 

 cess, no longer can perform their duty as they 

 once were wont to do. In the meantime, 

 health sees closing in upon her a train of dis- 

 eases, wan, and hideous, and terrible to think 

 of. Irregular beatings of the heart, loss of 

 appetite, loss of health, and loss of sleep, are 

 the certain consequences, in a greater or less 

 degree, of circumventing the body with a 

 pair of tight stays. 



Nature must and will be free. If you press 

 her on one part, she will protrude at ano- 

 ther ; and there she will cause a permanent 

 deformity, if you continue to torment her. 



In Prussia and in Italy, nothing can exceed 

 the horrible distortions brought upon the 

 human frame by the use of swaddling clothes. 

 In these countries may be seen the spine in 

 every stage of deformity that the most vivid 

 imagination can conceive, with a misshapen 

 breast as a counterpart to it. When the mo- 

 ralist shall have made his tour through these 

 regions, where a most lamentable deficiency 

 of common sense in the proper application 

 of wearing apparel has exposed the frame of 

 civilised man to all the horrors of spinal 

 curvature and decrepitude, let him repair to 

 the forests of Guiana, in which Nature has 

 had her own way in training the human 

 frame. During the whole of the time I 

 spent in those interminable wilds, I never 

 observed a female, either young or old, who 

 was laboring under a complaint of the 

 spine. These obedient children of good 



