"I cannot avoid troubling you a little further while I descend more into details. Spinal curvature, it is said, is caused by wearing stays. But what kind of stays were they which produced this result, and were no other causes discernible? I think that in every instance it would be found that the stays have been badly made, that they have not been properly laced, or that the busk and materials have not been sufficiently firm.
"In addition to this, girls are too often compelled to maintain an erect position on a form or a music-stool for too long a time during school hours. If the corset is properly made, a young lady may be allowed to lean back in her chair without danger of acquiring lounging habits or injuring her figure. It is to this over-tiring of the muscles that all spinal curvature is attributable, and not to the stays, which, if properly employed, would act as a sure preventative. Again, let me ask any one of the opposite sex who, at any rate at the present day, do not wear stays, whether they have never experienced 'palpitation or flushings,' headaches, and red noses? What right has any one to make these special attendants on small-waisted ladies? There is no more danger of incurring these evils than by a gentleman wearing a hat. Well may the old lady have 'forgotten' these little items in her anecdotes. The comparison between the human frame and a watch is correct in some respects, but it is particularly unhappy in relation to the present subject. The works of a watch are hard and unyielding, and not being possessed of life and power of growing, cannot adapt themselves to their outer case. If you squeeze in the case the works will be broken and put out of order; far different is it with the supple and growing frame of a young girl. If the various organs are prevented from taking a certain form or direction, they will accommodate themselves to any other with perfect ease. Nothing is broken or interfered with in its action. I will, of course, allow that if a fully-grown woman were to attempt to reduce her waist suddenly, respiration and digestion would be stopped; but it is rarely, if ever, that a lady arrives at maturity before she has imbibed sufficient notions of elegance and propriety to induce her to conform to this becoming fashion to some extent. Happy indeed those who are blessed with mothers who are wise enough to educate their daughters' figures with an eye to their future comfort. The constant discomfort felt by those whose clumsy waists and exuberant forms are a perpetual bugbear to their happiness and advancement should warn mothers of the necessity of looking to the future, and by directing their figures successfully while young, avoid the unsuccessful attempts to force them at an advanced age. One word more on the question. Is a small waist admired by the gentlemen? Mr. Buckland, it seems, has become so imbued with Mr. Combe's ideas against tight-lacing, that he looks upon a slender waist with feelings evidently far from admiration. But is this any reason or authority for concluding that every gentleman of taste is of a like opinion? On the contrary, I think it goes far to prove that it is other than the younger class of gentlemen (for whom, of course, the ladies lay their attractions) who run down the corset. Many times in fashionable assemblies have I heard gentlemen criticising the young ladies in such terms as these;--'What a clumsy figure Miss---- is! it completely spoils her.' 'What a pity Miss---- has not a neater figure!' and so on, and I believe there is not one young man in a thousand who does not admire a graceful slenderness of the waist. What young man cares to dance with girls who resemble casks in form? I have invariably noticed that the girls with the smallest waists are the queens of the ball-room. I have not space to enter into the discussion as to whether the artificial waist is more beautiful than that of the Venus de Medici; on such matters every one forms their own opinions. The waist of the Venus is beautiful for the Venus, but would cease to be so if clothed. I maintain that the comparison is not a good one, as the circumstances are not equal. In other respects, let the ladies, then, not be led to make themselves ungraceful and unattractive by listening to theories which are contradicted by practice, promulgated by persons ignorant, as far as their personal experience goes, of the operation and effect of corsets, and taken up by ladies and gentlemen, not of the youngest, who, like your Country Subscriber, are past the age when the pleasantest excitements of life form topics of interest.