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viii should always assume. We have therefore bestowed special attention on this article, since we are fully convinced that no lady can be properly dressed without it, unless indeed she should adopt the Oriental costume.

The principal writers upon the subject of Corsets have been medical men, who, great as is their knowledge of their part of the question, certainly know nothing of ours; and hence what they have written has been almost entirely without practical utility. If a corset-maker wrote an essay upon any medical contrivance—say, for instance, the use of the lancet or blister—we expect that she would meet with the derision of the whole faculty; and the medical practitioner must not be angry if he also should excite a smile when he speaks of things with which he also is unacquainted. That our readers may perfectly comprehend what we mean we insert here an extract from a medical work of the very highest authority, which contains at one view all the merits and demerits of this class of writers. The evils are all portrayed by a master hand, but there is not one hint that can be of the least service to the world by way of remedying it.