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CHAP. X.] body is too great, and I have often heard young men remark, by way of a joke, "I'm almost afraid to dance with Lady A., or Miss B.; I am afraid she'll break in halves, and I should not like to be responsible for her death!"

Although French ladies wear as tight corsets as their English sisters in folly, they do not suffer so much from their effects, and this for a good reason. English ladies pride themselves on being "always fit to be seen," and they therefore wear their corsets all day long, and remove them only when they go to bed. French women, on the other hand, have certain times at which they are "on view;" when they ride in the Bois or visit, and for evening wear they lace as tightly as the English; but when they are in their own houses and not going to receive, stays are thrown aside, and their tortured bodies are allowed to expand to their natural proportions. Hence with them the evil is confined to a few hours in the twenty-four, whereas with the English it extends to fourteen or more, and the harm done is correspondingly greater.

There is a well-known story of an English lady who, condoling with a Turkish matron on the seclusion of the harem, was answered by the remark that the harem was very good and proper, but it seemed dreadful "that English husbands should lock their wives up in iron cages." The Mahomedan was wrong in attributing such cruelty to English husbands; but she was right about the existence of the iron cages. Opinion about the raison-d'être of stays has altered in the East since