Page:TIGHT-LACING - 29.png

Rh to the organs of digestion; and confines all the motion occasioned by breathing to the upper portion of the lungs. By noticing the motion made in breathing, it is easy to see who is laced, for those who are laced, will heave the upper part of their chests greatly, but the entire region of the abdomen will be motionless; the consequence of which, is, a most fatal torpor of the whole digestive apparatus, that gradually but effectually stops the manufacture and flow of vitality at its foun­tain head; weakening the powers of life while we live, and bringing them the sooner to a fatal cessation.

One appeal more, and, if possible, still more cogent. It is directed to ­the very organ that makes our woman lace—to their vanity. Properly are you called fair. You are called fair, beautiful, lovely, handsome, pretty, graceful, charming, &c. God has made you so. Beauty is in­deed a valuable addition to the character of woman. Man is constitu­ted to love female beauty, And whatever adds to your beauty, should be sedulously cultivated. Whatever detracts therefrom, should be entirely eschewed.

Now what effect has tight-lacing on beauty? —­always, necessarily. You think it makes you handsome! But, think you that the wasp-like waist is in itself more beautiful than the waist given by nature? Think you that girting the waist can improve the beauty of the works of God? How would Venus de Medicis look with a little pent up waist? As well pinch up or destroy any other portion of the system, and then call it handsome! Nature is always beautiful; nature distorted is always homely. Look at the same woman, or upon two women, alike except that the waist of the one shall be distorted and her motions cramped by corsets, and the other free, her motions natural, easy and graceful, and then tell me if a naturally full waist, rendered small artificially, is not a deformity?

But, this is but a small part of the reason why lacing renders a woman homely. Can a poor, scrawny, pale-faced, spare-featured ghastly-looking woman, possibly be handsome? Beauty is always ac­ ompanied by a plump person, and a ruddy cheek. But sickness always impairs the beauty; and death, by rendering the cheeks sunken and the looks haggard, destroys true beauty. And for this reason. A full cheek and a plump person indicate health; and this, a full supply of that animal vigour on which life and happiness depend. Now, lacing impairs the health, and diminishes the action of the lungs and stomach. This enfeebles vitality and invites death, and thus effaces beauty. Beauty cannot exist without health and a fresh countenance, and they cannot exist with tight-lacing. Lacing diminishes both the size and the vigour of the whole vital apparatus, and this causes the cheeks to fall in. But vigour of lungs and stomach both fill out and also redden the cheeks, and hence promote beauty. But tight-lacing has been shown to destroy both. One reason why marriage impairs the beauty, is because it impairs the health. But not to dwell here. I take the broad ground—a ground supported by both observation and science—that no woman having an artificial waist can be handsome. Tight-lacing would make Venus herself homely—will make any woman homely, tame and uninteresting, by making her thin, spare, scrawny, and haggard in appearance. I wish this point were fully understood. It alone would break up lacing.

But this is not all, nor even the worst. Tight-lacing diseases the lungs, as well as retards their action. Now who does not know that this inaction is a most powerful promoter of disease. Action is known to work off most kinds of disease. Let a healthy man keep still for a few weeks, and disease gathers and deepens on him, till he is compelled, either to go to work again, or else to die. The virtue of Rammagi's tube consists in its giving exercise to the lungs. Let those who are predisposed to consumption but inflate their lungs daily and hourly,