tle girl is led slowly and properly up Fifth Avenue, to
the nights when, heated by dancing, she exposes bare neck, shoulders and
arms to draughts of cool air, she is, as a general rule, never warmly
enough dressed for our climate. I repeat, then, that for proper
protection a girl should always be, during at least eight months of our
year, clothed, body, arms, legs, and feet, in wool; and pass to the
second thought on the subject--_i.e._, clothing with regard to the
mechanical effects of pressure.

We have been continually told that our girls ought not to wear corsets.
It has been well said by some woman, that if a man could succeed in
fashioning a woman exactly as, according to his theories, she ought to
be fashioned, he would not admire her after the work was done; and
though the remark was made only with regard to intellectual education,
it can be well applied to this subject of corsets. If now, at this
present moment, all women were to satisfy this demand, and leave off
their corsets, the very men who entreated them to do so, would at once
entreat them to resume them. The truth is, that it is not the corsets in
themselves that are injurious; they become so only when they are so
tightly drawn that they prevent free inspiration, or when, by their
great pressure, they force the yielding ribs from their normal curve,
compress the lungs, and displace the organs of the abdomen, crowding
them into the pelvis, and thus displacing or bending out of shape the
organs therein contained. Let the girls keep on their corsets, but
instead of the unyielding cotton, linen, or silk braid, let these be
laced by round silk elastic cord. They will then give support where it
is needed, and yet will yield freely to the expansion of the chest,
returning again as the air is expelled, and so preventing discomfort.
This is a very simple expedient, and yet perfectly successful, and the
girl who has tried it for three days will discard the inelastic braid
forever. I say elastic cord, and not ribbon, because the elastic ribbon
is too strong, and does not sufficiently yield.

Girls do not know that they dress too tightly. They will repel
indignantly the idea that they "lace;" and yet, if they be asked to take
a full inhalation, it becomes perfectly evident that the outside
resistance is a very positive element. To prove this, it is only
necessary for them to put on their corsets laced as above described, and
then try to button the dress. It will,