A CORRESPONDENT writes— “Permit me to say a word in reply to AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN who wrote in your February ‘Conversazione.’ He commences by making an assertion that Tight-lacing by ladies is ‘supreme folly,’ practiced to please each other. Now this is just the way all those who have written against this practice have done. They make abundance of assertions as to the folly and injury, but, they do not attempt to bring any proof to back their bold assertion; on the contrary, those who have written to advocate the Corset have confined themselves almost entirely to practice, the best of all proofs. Then AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN tells us a piece of news, certainly new to me, ’that if we want to see a small waist, we must look in the back-parlour of some shops, etc.’ Now it unfortunately happens that I am not so familiar with these back-parlours as your correspondent appears to be, consequently I cannot say whether small waists do exist in these places, but one thing in certain, he cannot have had much experience of the ‘actual ladies’‘ society, if he says they do not cultivate small waists. I should say they decidedly do, so that I cannot allow AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN’S standard of fashion to be mine. I should fancy he must be some old gentlemen somewhat troubled with gout, who is being constantly bothered to lace the stays of a younger and more aspiring wife, and thinks by denouncing the fashion as obsolete to stop her outcry. In reference to F. F.’s letter, which follows the one who referred to, I should say that this gallantry as well as his heart have not only a corner, but are altogether buried, in his stomach. Men, I admit, do not marry girls because they have small waits any more than they do because they possess a pretty face or a good fortune, but who, being in love with a girl possessed of these qualities, would wish her to be without them? I only hope my wife, when I am fortunate enough to get one, will have a waist that I can span round.”