Dear Sir, – there have been so many letters latterly in your excellent paper expressing readers views for and against tight lacing, that I have determined to write and tell you how I came to be a member of the well-corsetted brigade.
Four years ago, I was taken to prison. I’m not excusing myself, but I do say that the man who was concerned should have been punished too. When I was in the remand prison, a kind lady visited us. She was extremely sympathetic and gave me a piece of advice, i.e., to adopt tight-lacing, adding humorously that tight stiff stays would keep me straight.
I knew that for two years I should have very little to occupy me, so I determined to train my figure. When I was given my prison clothes I managed to get corsets much too small for me, and on the quiet, I used to take them in at the waist an inch or two, and that when I put them in they had to be laced in well before they would “sit” properly on my figure.
Before half my time was up I had a waist of only 19 inches. This care of my figure gave me self-respect and I would rather have killed myself than have returned to my former method of living.
But when my own clothes were given me before I came out, I found my old corsets almost dropped off me, they were so much too big. Next day I went to a corset-maker and got a lovely pair of stiff, double-busked jean and whalebone corsets with a 16 inch waist.
Before long I was wearing them fully laced in. I soon got a job and now I am married to the best man in the world. He loves my tiny waist and buys me corsets or sleeping stays whenever I want them.
I love my corsets and have embroidered most of them. I have all my frocks fitted to my waist which, as I write this letter, is laced in to fifteen inches.
I beg you to publish this letter as I think some girls may benefit from it as I did from the kind lady’s advice.
Yours truly,
STRAIGHT-LACED.