edom in the bending and twisting of the body. Corsets boned with
whalebone, horn or steel are necessarily stiff, rigid and uncomfortable.
After a few days' wear the bones or steels become bent and set in position,
or, as more frequently happens, they break and cause injury or discomfort
to the wearer.

9. About seven years ago an article was discovered for the stiffening of
corsets, which has revolutionized the corset industry of the world. This
article is manufactured from {103} the natural fibers of the Mexican Ixtle
plant, and is known as Coraline. It consists of straight, stiff fibers like
bristles bound together into a cord by being wound with two strands of
thread passing in opposite directions. This produces an elastic fiber
intermediate in stiffness between twine and whalebone. It cannot break, but
it possesses all the stiffness and flexibility necessary to hold the corset
in shape and prevent its wrinkling.

We congratulate the ladies of to-day upon the advantages they enjoy over
their sisters of two centuries ago, in the forms and the graceful and easy
curves of the corsets now made as compared with those of former times.

[Illustration: Forms of Corsets in the time of Elizabeth of England.]

{104}

TIGHT-LACING.

[Illustration: EGYPTIAN CORSET.]

[Illustration: THE NATURAL WAIST.
THE EFFECTS OF LACING.]

It destroys natural beauty and creates an unpleasant and irritable temper.
A tight-laced chest and a good disposition cannot go together. The human
form has been molded by nature, the best shape is undoubtedly that which
she has given it. To endeavor to render it more elegant by artificial means
is to change it; to make it much smaller below and much larger above is to
destroy its beauty; to keep it cased up in a kind of domestic cuirass is
not only to deform it, but to expose the internal parts to serious injury.
Under such compression as is commonly practiced by ladies, the {105}
development of the bones, which are still tender, does not take place
conformably to the intention of nature, because nutrition is necessarily
stopped, and they consequently become twisted and deformed.

Those who wear these appliances of tight-lacing often complain that they
cannot sit upright without them--are sometimes, indeed, compelled to wear
them during all the twenty-four hours; a fact which proves to what extent
such articles weaken the muscles of the trunk. The injury does not fall
merely on the internal structu