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126 as to give elasticity to the envelope, and ease to the wearer; and when this is perceived, it only requires sufficient mechanical genius to ensure an adaptation which shall preserve the figure and be conducive to the general health. Half an hour spent in our anatomical gallery will convince any lady or medical man, not only that all this can be, but that it is done by us every day, and that numbers treading the down-hill of life are grateful to us for the ease and comfort which we have been enabled to give them.

If we have been earnest in our condemnation of dressing in an unnatural manner in the earlier periods of life, we would, if possible, lay a stronger emphasis upon our warning in middle age. At this time nature will have lost much of the vigour with which she repaired and renovated the system. The waist can no longer bear the cutting with strings and violent compression to which it is too often subject in the heyday of fashion. It is natural that ladies should desire to retain as long as possible the charm of beauty and the appear­ance of youth; but it should always be kept in mind that, to do this, Nature must be obeyed. Art may, and often does aid her, but nothing can ever compensate for the native vigour of the system