Dear Sir,–I have been most interested in the recent correspondence upon the subject of tight-lacing, and as a confirmed addict to this habit all my life I am prompted to give you my views.
Firstly, your correspondent can obviously have had little or no experience of the subject in question.
He (or she) has fallen into the pitfall of comparing “modern” tight-lacing with waist compression. Nowadays, those who tight-lace compress their busts and hips, and I entirely agree with Sir Herbert Barker’s views, which your correspondent quotes regarding the harm which must inevitably be done.
I, personally, cannot see the sense in striving to eliminate the beautiful form of the breasts, which have been admired at “Nature’s most perfect curves” throughout the ages, and as for attempted reduction of the hips – that is sheer madness, firstly, because to alter their shape by excessive corseting distorts the pelvis, thus gravely endangering the function of maternity.
On the other hand, the compression of the waist, where there are at most only one or two flexible ribs, if begun early enough in childhood and persevered with by slow degrees of reduction in properly made stays, produces absolutely no ill effects. That eminent physician, the late Sir James Cantlie, told us that tight-lacing (the waist), far from being harmful, was actually beneficial to most women. He quoted, I remember, the case of a friend of his who had been tight-laced all her life being still healthy and well at ninety years of age.
I, myself, have been corseted tightly almost as far back as I can remember and am now the mother of three healthy children, having had scarcely a day’s illness in my life.
Yours truly
TIGHT-LACED MOTHER