Dear Sir,–In these corsetless days my letter may not meet with the approval of all “London Ligers,” but I hope you will be generous enough to publish it.
“R. C. P.” delighted me with his admirable letter, and I thoroughly agree with his contention that tight-lacing is not injurious if systematic methods of figure training are employed and the training commenced at an early age. I assure you that much as my husband admires a near small-waisted figure, he would never have allowed me to tight-lace had the practice impaired my health.
Actually I am quite healthy and active after many years of very tight-lacing. I was married at 19 and, at my husband’s request, began to train my figure, on condition that if, after a year, my health suffered, I should cease the practice. Anxious to please him, I laced in very strictly; but beyond occasional breathlessness, I suffered no injury, and after the year’s end he was quite willing that I should wear special sleeping stays to assist in the training.
Although over 80 years of age, my husband’s mother is erect as a pole, with a stately carriage and a figure that is a delight to behold. She assures me that she wore stays at six years of age, and that her waist was extremely tightly laced in from the age of eight years onwards.
Tight lacing is delightfully feminine, my husband says and our daughter has been very strictly laced since she was ten years old. Her husband fell in love with her wasp-waist when she was 17, and married her a year later. She laces as tightly as ever, and agrees with me that, apart from the thrill of being extremely tight-laced, the admiration of her husband repays any little discomfort she may experience from her stays, and she is always ready to make a special waist reduction to please him.
Yours faithfully,
JEAN BERRESFORD.