The West Australian, Tuesday 17 January 1893, page 3

IRE SIN AND SCANDAL OF

TIGHT-LACING."

TheGentlewoman has commenoed what it

describes a
"
A ernsade againBt this modern
madness." Those women who have not been
guilty of the folly and iniquity of tight-lacing,
or, being free!from it personally,
have given
'

no thought to the subject,1 will (says the

editor)- stand aghast at the widespread
wickedness that ia praotised by girls and
women who are addicted to'this pernioions
habit. I have been led to take this step
because the hundreds of letters whioh have
reached me from the young asking advice
how to aohieve a narrow waist, and from
older ones giving their experience and des-
cribing their|sufferings, all proved,whatI bad
not previously imagined, that the tigbt-lae
ing habit had become a sin and a scandal.
A corset is a perfectly innocent and useful
feminine requirement when not applied with
that tension which strangulates. Woman
may continue to wear them and exhibit a

waist, although when this desire first began

to exort itself is hidden in the mist of
antiquity. That she recognised its possibili-
ties in the days of the Greeks is certain,- for
did she-notenoirole herself round the middle
with golden zones? And this became a
p^actioe which one need not reprehend for
there was no harm! therein ; but it was a

beginning of more serions things. Still, we

have to come down to the time when Gaul

became Romanised to find the introduction
of the corset, in the form of "a corselet of
thick stuff whioh moulded the form, rather
than an instrument of torture whioh distorted
its lines." So says M. Robida in his " Ten
Centuries of Toilette." The following extracta
from a number of letters wbioh I have
received will (adds the writer) give some
idea of the sacrifices endured ia order to
attain a foolish and undesirable end :

i
"I want to ask your advice abont the
easiest way to rednoe the size ef my waist.
I (live with relative who insists that I must
a

reduce my waist to 17 inches, as she says,

'
No man will marry a girl unless she looka
smart.' Wbat would be the best set of
oprsets, or would it be a good thing te wear
a leather belt strapped on underneath thom;
o* would it be best to sleep in a corset, and

National Library of Australia http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3044264

o* would it be best to sleep in a corset, and
tighten it gradually day by day ?"
¡
"
Will you be so kind as to tell me, when you
have the space in your interesting paper, if
you have ever heard of anyone beginning
tight-lacngas early as this? A friend of
mine has a wonderfully Blender figure, whioh
she says is the result of her mother pntting
á flannel band round her, when she was only
a year old, to mould her soft bonec At six
she wore a corded ooreet with whalebones,
and at thirteen h.*r mother had her tightly
laced, making her waitt only fifteen inches.",
";
I ara a confirmed tight-lacer, and enjoy
the feeling so much. I am tall, and rather
inclined to stontnees, I ne per let my
though
waist exceed seventeen inches, night cr day.
My maid can sometimes lace me ia to 'fifteen
pnd three-quarter inohes if I have no break-
fast, bnt I cannot walk ont of doors.- The
feeling is jdelioions, though painful, when, I
drawing-room:*'
sit in the
"
weeks ago, for a very great dinner-
Î

Some
party, I,was laced and squeezed in till I
measured cnjy sixteen inohes, and-everyone
complimented me on my beautiful creamy
'whiteness, like a statue. I. oould not eat

anything, and the pain was very coi.siderable,

but every ether girl in the room was flushed
ooi>l. Do you
and hot whilst I remained
think a permanent steel belt would keep my
complexion always like this? One of my
'sisters wears a zone night and day, and likes
'the support."
'
! " sister's experiences in a
I send you my
very similar case. She was seven been when
she suddenly bad a great -desire to reduce
her twenty-one inch waist to size slightly
over sixteen. We tried at first to dissuade
her, but she persisted. Her regime with re
,gard to food was dry toast and a little soup
for breakfast at eight. Then a good walk,
and very light luneheoa at one, purely of meat
and stale bread, and very little liquid, generally
!

water. Then a ride or more walking, and at

'dinner mnoh the same foed B3 at lunch. She
kept very much without any interval to this
system of diet the whole time. Of course
she was always well1 laced in, and her waist
!

was strictly confined, even at night. She

reduced herself from half to three quarters
of an ineh every month. She always went to
bed'late. After nearly a year of this régime
we were forced to admit that she. was
mnch improved in appearance, her figure
.being exquisitely slender, her com-

plexion very clear and white, bnt against

this we often thought of the number
of'times she had left the table with a crav-
ing for food, and gone te her lessons or long
walks nearly' as hungry as before her
lunch, bnt after a couple of months her
appetite was-very ranch diminished. We
sometimes remarked that before dinner she
wonld hurry up to bec room, and make her
maid draw in her lace extra tight to 'pre-
vent any desire to eat much."
"Mother wants to know when you are
going fto pubjish the- promised letters you
received concerning tíght-laoing. I have
only lately left a finishing school, where
tight-lacing was almost compulsory. I can,
owing no doubt to the gradual lacing tighter
and tighter*, now wear sixteen-inch sorsets
without any inconvenience."
"
My cousin wrote to you this week, but
forgot to ask your opinion of this régime for
a family, of girls-the eldest nineteen, the
youngest thirteen. rShe has a great desire
for them all to have Bum, pretty figures, and
has a fixed idea that girls eat too much, so
they are made to take an immense amonnt of
exercise. They get up at seven; at eight
they have breakfast of milk, toast, and eggs,
bnt no butter ; at one they have a small help-
ing of meat, toast, and no vegetables ; and a
good meal at seven of soup, fish, and meat,
bnt they have small appetites at night. As
soon as they get up they are closely laced
in beautifully fitting stays that fit them like
gloves, and for no consideration are they
ever laced more loosely. At abont 4.30 the
three elder girls of 17, l8, aiäd 19 have to go
upstairs to have their corsets tightened for
the evening, which means that they come
down in abont half an hour with the trim-
mest and tiniest of waists confined in evening
corsets laoed With no sparing hand. All three

have quite taken to lacing, and do aot objeotfto _

sleeping in well-laced coraets, about an inch

larger than their day ones. I noticed anal,
day that the elder girl, in spite of her well
shaped, plump shoulders, bnst and arms, was
so moulded by constant lacing that her figure
without stays tapered in to twenty inches.
This was an hour after being unlaced."
 was an
"
Is the following sensation nsnal amongst
very tightly and continuously laced women t
I feel very hungry before meal times, but at'
meals latterly I hardly care to swallow even

the! smallest quantity, as for hours after I

have a horrid, bitter taste in my month, and)
sometimes even feel sick, unless laced in a
very long, tight-fitting corset."