in nine hundred and ninety-nine
cases out of a thousand, be found, I think, that the dress, which before
came together without the slightest difficulty, will no longer meet.
There is necessary no other proof that an unnatural pressure has been
habitually used, although, from the very fact that it has been so long
habitual, the girls are entirely unconscious of it. The Chinese women, I
suppose, are not conscious of their compressed feet, and the two cases
are exactly parallel. No dressmaker knows the meaning of the words
"loosely fitting." She is not to be blamed. She looks at her work with
an artistic eye, as a Parisian glove-fitter looks at his, and wrinkles
are the one thing which she spends her life in striving to avoid; and,
as a general thing, she is not a student of Wordsworth to the extent of
assuming as her motto,

"Nor shall she fail to see,
Even in the motions of the storm,
Grace that shall mould the maiden's form
By silent sympathy."

It is not enough to say to the dressmaker, "Make it perfectly easy and
comfortable," and then trust to her judgment that it will be all right.
The only test for a girl's clothing, as to tightness, should be, "Can
you take a good, full breath, and not feel your clothes?" If so, they
are loose enough; if not, let them out, and keep on letting them out
till you can. Nor is there the slightest need that this kind of dressing
involve "dowdiness," or "slouchiness," a characteristic abhorrent to
every true woman. Every woman expresses her character in her dress; and
where "slouchiness" exists, it means something more than comfortable
dressing. It means a lack of neatness and order, a want in the ideas of
suitability. It is sure to manifest itself in other ways, and will not
be prevented by dresses never so tightly fitting.

The next thing to be considered is the place of proper support for the
voluminous clothing below the waist. This gives a certain definite
weight in pounds and ounces larger than is generally supposed, and as a
result of the law of gravitation, it would all fall if the tendency were
not counteracted by a corresponding pressure. This pressure is almost
universally being sustained by our girls at the hips, and it comes just
where the trunk has no longer, except in the spinal column, any bony
support, depending alone on the yielding muscles.

It is idle to assert that the corsets support the dependent weight. In
the old times, when corsets had s