Page:Science ofDress152.png

152 is entirely different from that given by Nature. (See Plates 1, 2, 3, and 4.) The natural waist of a well-formed woman (Plates 1 and 3) of average height would measure from twenty-seven to twenty-nine inches, and in form it would be elliptical from side to side instead of round, as we generally see waists. In fact there is naturally but little difference between the proportionate size of the male and female waist. But by the baneful practice of tight-lacing, the waist is seldom allowed to be even twenty-five inches; women whose waists measure twenty-four and even twenty-one exclaim with horror if accused of tight-lacing, and these are the majority; but many reduce their waists to much under twenty inches, and at a certain fashionable stay-maker's I saw corsets measuring only fourteen inches, which the maker assured me she supplied to many customers. (See Plates 2 and 4.)

Unfortunately, people rarely think of what is inside them, and indeed they consider it rather wrong to do so. A good illustration of this occurred to me a night or two ago. I was crossing a ball-room on the arm of an old friend, when a girl passed me whose waist must have measured about sixteen inches, while from the development of her liberally exposed shoulders, it was evident that its natural size would have been twenty-five inches or twenty-six inches. Almost involuntarily I exclaimed, below my breath, "What can have become of her liver?" He caught this observation, which was not intended to be heard, and exclaimed in a shocked tone, "How can you think of such dreadful