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CHAP. VII.] culty is a real one, but it can be overcome by a more rational plan of fastening clothing and a more even distribution of its weight. If stays are not worn, petticoats and drawers are fastened round the waist with bands or strings, and have to be fastened tightly, or else they would slip over the narrow hips natural to girlhood. This is both uncomfortable and hinders natural growth; but in the majority of cases stays are worn, and are tightened at the waist to "give a grip" in very young children when the drawers and petticoats are buttoned on to them, and in older girls to make the hips a basis of support for those garments, which are then fastened round the artificially-formed waist.

When girls are old enough to dress themselves, although they would not willingly compress their bodies, they may adjust their stays loosely enough at first, but carelessly, and in ignorance of harm, they may not let them out for months; and thus, although the girls grow bigger, the stays do not, and compression takes place almost without their being aware of it. An inelastic corset effectually hinders the gradual enlargement of the body of a growing girl, and presses on her soft bones like a vice. At no period of life is pressure on any part of the body so terribly injurious as during the period of growth, for not only are the bones soft and easily deformable, but every organ of the body has its duty of development to perform, and this development is cramped and hindered by external compression. To take an analogy from the vege-