DEAR SIR,
I don’t know whether the idiot signing herself “Tight Lacer” has newly escaped from a lunatic asylum, but, in view of the lifelong injury her letter may cause silly young girls to inflict on themselves, I hope you’ll insert this.
I am now thirty, and sensible, but at sixteen I was just such another idiot as “Tight Lacer,” though at no period could I have written the twaddle she does about the girl who felt no great inconvenience from tight-lacing except that she couldn’t walk without fainting, couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep.
I’d really like to know what “Tight- Lacer” would call inconvenience. I suppose the poor girl is under the sod – unless she let her thirteen-inch waist out – for it’s plain she can’t have lived till now without exercise, food or sleep.
Well, at sixteen I found I had a pretty figure, and, desirous of increasing its beauties, I commenced tugging in my waist, in spite of all advice.
I had a magnificent constitution, and no one could understand why, at twenty-one, after my marriage and birth of first child, it gave way utterly. I became thin and an invalid, and have never felt strong again, or fit for anything till two years ago, when it struck me how much better I always felt in loose clothes. I thereupon ceased tight-lacing. My figure itself improved at once, for I got plump, never till then, I suppose, having digested my food. I felt a different being in a few weeks, and (or so said everyone) looked years younger. I am a woman of the world, have travelled much and far, met every kind of man and woman. And I can assure your girl readers of another thing: men don’t admire pinched waists, and it gives a woman a strained, anxious expression, so is fatal to beauty, too.
My husband and father are both field-officers in British regiments, so I may claim to know what nice men like. Had I listened to them and others my early womanhood would not have been spoilt; and. As someone may say, “Oh, she doesn’t care now, she is passée,” I will be very conceited, and assure you that I am a much prettier, fresher, and younger-looking woman now than I was eight years ago, so I do care – very much.
Yours faithfully,
MANDELAY.