hey find no lucrative employment. Daily contact with
vice obtunds their first abhorrence of it. Gradually it becomes
familiar. A fancied life of ease presents allurements to a hard-worked
sewing-girl. Fine clothes and comfortable lodgings increase the
temptation. She yields, and barters her body for a home without the
trouble of a marriage ceremony.

Wealthy women could do more to cure the "social evil" by adopting plain
attire than all the civil authorities by passing license laws or
regulating ordinances. Have not Christian women a duty here? A few years
ago, some Nashville ladies made a slight move in the right direction,
as indicated in the following paragraph; but we have not heard that
their example has been followed:--

"The lady members of the first Baptist Church, of Nashville, Tenn.,
have agreed that they will dispense with all finery on Sunday, wearing
no jewels but consistency, and hereafter appear at church in plain
calico dresses."

A more radical reform would have been an extension of the salutary
measure to all other days of the week as well as Sunday; though we see
no reason for restricting the material of clothing to calico, which
might, indeed, be rather insufficient for some seasons of the year.

Fashion and Vice.--Let us glance at the second manner in which dress
lends its influence to vice, by obstructing the normal functions of
the body. 1. Fashion requires a woman to compress her waist with bands
or corsets. In consequence, the circulation of the blood toward the
heart is obstructed. The venous blood is crowded back into the delicate
organs of generation. Congestion ensues, and with it, through reflex
action, the unnatural excitement of the animal propensities. 2. The
manner of wearing the clothing, suspending several heavy garments from
the hips, increases the same difficulty by bringing too large a share
of clothing where it is least needed, thus generating unnatural local
heat. 3. The custom of clothing the feet and limbs so thinly that they
are exposed to constant chilling, by still further unbalancing the
circulation, adds another element to increase the local mischief.

All of these causes combined, operating almost constantly,--with
others that might be mentioned,--produce permanent local congestions,
with ovarian and uterine derangements. The latter affections have long
been recognized as the chief pathological condition in hysteria, and
especially in that peculiar form of disease kn