this reddening appearance reaches the countenance, and imparts an inauspiciously glowing tinge to the point of the nose. Thick legs and swollen feet are also pretty common results.

The internal disorders caused by this pernicious practice are so numerous, that we could easily fill several pages with a mere catalogue of their names. From a list presented from different medical writers by Mr Coulson, in his popular work on the Deformities of the Spine, we select the following complaints and diseases, all caused by tight lacing:-Headache, giddiness, pains in the eyes, earache, apoplexy, bleeding at the nose, inability to suckle, scirrhous and cancer in the breast, adhesion of the lungs to the diaphragm, asthma, spitting of blood, palpitation of the heart, water in the chest, cough, abscesses in the lungs, consumption, loss of appetite, squeamishness, flatulence, rupture, sickness, bad digestion, fistula, jaundice, calculi, diseases of the kidneys, hysteria, eruptions. To these consequences are added, in respect to mothers, unhealthy children, ugly children, and monstrosities, besides some other horrors; for which we must refer to Mr Coulson's summary.

The more common and obvious complaint of young females, subject to tight lacing, is derangement of appetite. The digestive organs being deprived of the due space required for the performance of their functions, the appetite for food fails, or becomes depressed, and occasional faintness ensues. A sickly fainting feeling is also caused by the loosening of the corsets at night. "For as soon as the thorax and abdomen are relaxed, by being deprived of their usual support, blood rushing downwards, in consequence of the diminished resistance to its motion, empties the vessels of the head, and thus occasions fainting." The feelings of sickness, faintness, and general weakness, accompanied with lowness of spirits, so variously caused, too frequently tend to demoralise the mind. To restore and sustain nature, the young victim of fashion has recourse to artificial stimulants. By the connivance of domestics, she purchases brandy, laudanum, or opium, in which she secretly indulges, at once allaying the unnatural craving of the stomach, and throwing her into an agreeable fit of good spirits. In many instances eau de Cologne, and other distilled waters, are employed as stimulants, instead of drams of more vulgar materials. Habits of tippling may thus be added to the list of evils, individual and social, arising from tight lacing.

On the unfortunate young females who too often fall victims to this vicious practice, the blame ought, we believe, in few cases to fall. Mothers are, in most instances, the guilty cause of the desolation. Throughout British society, an insane anxiety is manifested in families about the marrying of daughters. There

Longman and Co. London: 1839.
Soemmering, a German medical writer.

is a constant dread among mothers that their daughters will not get a good match; and to secure this important desideratum, they oblige them to submit to a variety of tortures, considered essential by that most senseless of all things-fashion.

First as to carriage. From some ill-defined notion, that nature is unable to impart that degree of straightness in the person, and ease in walking, which are consistent with gracefulness, the mother begins strapping up her daughter's shoulders, and binding her body with a harness of corsets; if these manoeuvres fail, she causes her to lie, for a certain length of time daily, on a hard board, or to sit bolt upright on a form. If she allows her to sit on a chair, it is only under the express injunction that she shall not lean upon the back. All this must be charitably considered to arise from ignorance. Strength of frame cannot be secured by artifice. Nature has prescribed but one law for strengthening the muscular system, and that is contained in three wordsAIR, EXERCISE, and DIET. To impart gracefulness in walking, cheerful sports and recreations are chiefly desirable. No man walks so gracefully or is so erect as the North American Indian; and he roams free as the antelope from childhood. The error in civilised society consists in first depriving nature of the exercise she demands, and then attempting to remedy the defect by artificial means.

Were mothers fully instructed, by previous education, in this law, they would probably give themselves much less trouble about the carriage and fine figure of their daughters. In some continental countries, the folly of attempting to supersede nature has been long exploded. "From 1760 to about 1770," says Soemmering, "it was the fashion in Berlin, and other parts of Germany, and also in Holland a few years before, to apply corsets to children. This practice fell into disuse, in consequence of its being observed that children who did not wear corsets grew up straight, while those who were treated with this extraordinary care got by it a high shoulder or a hunch. Many families might be named in which parental fondness selected the handsomest of several boys to put in corsets; and the result was, that these alone were hunched. The deformity was attributed at first to the improper mode of applying the corsets, till it was discovered that no child thus invested grew up straight; not to mention the risk of consumption and rupture which were likewise incurred by using them."

Not aware of these consequences, or defying them, the mother, as we have said, too often compels her child to submit to a constriction of the waist. If she happen to have two daughters, one more robust than the other, she endeavours to bring the robust one to the same degree of tenuity as her sister by the corset apparatus. Cries and tears are alike disregarded; the poor girl is forced to submit. In one instance within our knowledge, a mother violently beat her daughter to make her submit to this

process of compression. The girl's health was ruined, and she became a habitual dram-drinker.

With respect to beauty of form, the greater number of women surely entertain very extraordinary opinions. The human figure, in its perfect models, has no great hollow at the waist, nor does it swell out to enormous proportions in the lower and upper parts. It is, in a word, not shaped like a wasp. In the adjoining cut, fig. 6, the female waist is represented according to the most

perfect known model, that of the Venus de Medici; and in fig. 7, it is shown as fashion makes it. Perhaps, indeed, fig. 7 is not squeezed so tightly as it is occasionally seen in fashionable assemblies, where young ladies may sometimes be observed with waists of less than fifteen inches in circumference.

Enough has now been said on the dangers of tight lacing, and we conclude with the following practical observations on corsets.* Corsets are designed partly as under-clothing, and partly to display the general contour of the figure, or, it may be said, to give effect to the bust. These legitimate objects of their use may be gained without recourse to tight lacing. The corsets should be composed of the smoothest and most elastic materials; should be accurately adapted to the individual wearer, so that no point may receive undue pressure; and should never be drawn so tight as to interfere with perfectly free breathing, or with

*The word corset is originally French, being from corps, the body, and serrer, to squeeze,

graceful attitudes and movements. It is obvious that such corsets should be entirely destitute of steel and whalebone, or other barbarous inventions. By selecting a material proportioned, in its thickness and elasticity, to the size, age, &c. of the wearer, and by a proper employment of quilting and wadding, they may be made of any proper or allowable degree of stiffness. If it be then accurately fitted to the shape of the individual, and laced no tighter than to apply it comfortably, all the advantages of the corset may be fully obtained.

In the case of girls approaching their majority, the utmost care should be taken not to restrain the growth by corsets. If there be a tendency to obesity, it may be checked by air, exercise, and a simple kind of diet; and should these fail, violent compression must on no account be employed. So far from external pressure making a fine form, the tendency is directly the reverse, since the restraint of the corsets detrimentally interferes with the perfection of the frame. The muscles, being compressed, and held inactive, neither acquire their due size nor strength; and a stiff, awkward carriage, with a thin, flat, ungraceful, inelegant person, is the too frequent result of such injudicious treatment.

On the subject of displaying the figure, a writer in the Conversations Lexicon makes the following judicious observations, with which we may close the present tract:

"A certain degree of display of the female form is not incompatible with correctness of manners. But there is a limit which, we believe, cannot be exceeded without immediate detriment to public morals, and positive offence to delicacy. There was a time when a mode of dressing to display every personal charm was peculiar to an unfortunate class of beings, regarded as lost to all the modesty and dignity of the sex; but it is a melancholy truth, that this distinction between the lost and the reputable no longer exists in our great cities, where leaders of fashion and celebrated beauties, claiming the highest rank and character, are most remarkable for the solicitude with which they prepare their lovely persons to be gazed at and admired, in all their proportions, by the passing crowd! We should not have alluded to this subject, did we not hope that a slight animadversion upon its evil tendency would help to produce its correction. It has an immediate influence in lowering the sex in the estimation of men, since it lessens their reverence for beings they would otherwise always look upon with deep respect; and surely the fair sex have not yet to learn, that modest reserve and retiring delicacy are among the most potent auxiliaries of their charms. That they should rush into the extreme we have deprecated, appears to result merely from inattention; and we sincerely hope that but a short time will elapse before they will strictly respect the boundaries established by good sense and good taste, united with the lovely purity inherent in their sex.”

N the upper part of the Rhine, on its eastern bank, lies the district of country called, from its woody character, the Black Forest, forming part of the grandduchy of Baden. It is impossible to traverse this part of Germany without being struck with the peculiar character of the scenery. The wild abruptness of the mountain ridges contrasts effectively with the luxuriant softness of the lovely valleys that extend between them towards the Rhine; and the whole is characterised by such perfect harmony, that one might fancy it a vast park, planned out by God himself, and combining all that is beautiful in nature with every diversity of landscape. On the borders of the Black Forest, the scene becomes still more grand and impressive; for there the valleys contract themselves into narrow gorges; whilst the majestic forest itself, stretching far away in the distance, crowns the heights, and winds round the mountains, leaving here and there a bald summit, or a snow-capped peak, towering over the undulating expanse.

Within the Black Forest exist several interesting branches of manufacture, productive of comfort and a reasonable amount of wealth to the industrious and ingenious inhabitants. Wooden clocks are made, to a large extent, for the supply of neighbouring, as well as distant countries. Of toys there is likewise a large manufacture; these, like the clocks, being made from the native